Sacred Sculptures

I've been wanting to do a photo-blog about South Grand since early May. I got the idea while I was writing at Hartford Coffee Company one evening.

I had driven into the city listening to Alex Parks singing "Mad World" (not a song to be trifled with if you are feeling emotionally fragile!) and marveling how things have both changed and stayed the same over the years in South City. There are strange, new pylon-looking structures that now mark the metro station, and the religious school on the left that used to have a mural of Jesus' praying hands surrounded by a circle of adoring children has changed to the professional-looking "South City Preparatory School", a great improvement in my mind. Across from Tower Grove Park, the trendy hair boutique "Salon St. Louis" and gift shop "Botanicals on the Park" (which have both been there for years) don't look so lonely with a swanky new "Massage Luxe" right beside them.

I lived in various places in South City from about 1998 until 2006. People used to tell me all the time that the South Grand strip was "an up and coming" area. I never truly believed that, because it stayed the same, year after year.

As I was driving during those last few trips however, I noticed that there were grass centerpieces on the meridians between the roads going north and south, with cheerful hanging baskets of red and yellow flowers. I also began to notice sculptures on those meridians; elongated, looping shapes in silver, red, green, purple and blue. Perhaps they'd been there a long time, and my habitual mind had lazily failed to register them, but now they seemed like colorful symbols of the long-awaited success of the South Grand neighborhood. 

I knew immediately that I wanted to photograph them. I grew up in a small town on the east coast of Scotland. It was a "new town", a carefully planned community that included a variety of weird and wacky sculptures, from totem poles to giant mushrooms. Other people may think it's tacky, but those sculptures fueled my childish imagination and have ever endeared me to the attempts of urban artists to create a sense of place through art.

So I went with a friend and we ventured bravely into the middle of the street. This is the first sculpture in the series that line the meridians on South Grand outside Cardinal Glennon medical building:

The street lamp is obviously not a sculpture (I do know the difference!) but I also liked the sense of place it evoked:

My friend and I got side-tracked taking pictures of the flora and fauna:

The creator of these pieces is an artist called Brother Melvin Meyer. As you can tell by the name, he's a member of the "Marianist" society. He's the author of the quote at the top of this blog post and has been a resident artist in St. Louis for thirty-five years. The Marianist Gallery in St. Louis showcases his work. You can learn more about his art here: http://www.melsmart.com/main.php

This guitar was one of the most whimsical pieces:



We completed our explorations outside Cardinal Glennon's Children's Hospital, and couldn't resist just a couple more photos:



The girl blowing a glass bubble was my favorite of the three figures:

I tried to find out who created these sculptures but unfortunately couldn't credit the artist here. 

I've made many posts on this blog about discovering myself as a woman and a writer and especially about finding a "sense of place" as an immigrant in the heart of the Midwest. Today I remembered a phrase that I read a long time ago in the "Conversations With God" books by Neale Donald Walsh:

“The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want to Be.”  

There's art and there are artists who create everywhere, no matter where you live. If you open your eyes to see, if you open yourself to experience, you can truly be content in any place and at any time.

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More local St. Louis art:

Photos of the St. Louis City Garden by Marcia K. Myers at: http://artistswaystl.weebly.com/1/post/2013/06/citygarden-by-marcia.html

Local artist Ryan Stanley takes photos of the Cherokee neighborhood at:
 http://found-oncherokee.tumblr.com/. You should check it out, the photos are great.