These pictures were taken while trespassing (it’s not breaking and entering if the door is unlocked, right?), about a mile from my parents’ house. In my family, we’ve always considered the sculpture garden of this widowed former kindergarten teacher to be a monument to bad taste—during the summer she (literally) spotlights an agonizingly neon vinyl palm tree—but wandering the grounds I realized:
- There’s actually a broad spectrum represented, from low kitsch to the astoundingly pretty.
- She possesses an acute and singular curatorial vision.
- Slowly, I found myself overcome with a profound sense of loss.
I don’t know what it means to need a plaster sea lion with Matchbox cars glued to it. I do know how it feels to believe that maybe a plaster sea lion with Matchbox cars glued to it is the only thing that can help.
