Before Thanksgiving I saw a post on Facebook about "Snowmen In Stroudsburg", a winter public art display. Remember the horses, mules, and monkeys a couple years ago? Same thing. Fiberglass snowmen that artists paint and then they auction off after the show is over. I sent a DM to bonnie and asked if she was interested. She said yes. She picked me up at 10 and off we went.
We parked right in front of one of the snowmen. And near a mural. It was quite accidental. We got off the highway early because of a backlog of traffic. Sadly, that is the only snowman that I'm not showing because he's alone. I should have done 3-3-2-2. Hindsight is 20/20.
The first one featured is covered with decoupagé of children doing outdoor activities and then covered with ceiling popcorn for texture.
Instead of painting, several people dressed theirs.
We coupled snowmen sculptures with looking at murals. The last time I was in Stroudsburg I noticed there were a lot. I found a list online and saved it. (Click the link to see more murals.) It was two years ago, almost to the day. The list was sitting in a file on my computer called "walks to do". I took the two maps, and merged them and called it an art walk.
We had planned to go mid-December but Bonnie's schedule changed so we rescheduled for today. The snowmen were supposed to be out till the end of January. Two were gone. We went into one store where it was supposed to be and the lady said it was removed and she didn't know why.
These are my favorites. I would have loved to take all sides of the center one, but there was a large sign that said No Trespassing/Private Property. They were serious. Kind of odd because it was a funeral home.
We found most of the murals as well. This one wash the side rails of the bridge going into town (10th and Main by the Wawa.) It was impossible to take it in one shot. And this isn't all of it.
In the time that has passed some of the buildings ... and therefore the murals ... were gone. Mapping all this art and putting it into a brochure would be a great student project. I'm sure we missed a lot.
The mosaics were unexpected. This was in the little shopping center where the kidnapped snowman was. Right across the street from a ribbon outlet. A real outlet in a factory. We resisted temptation and didn't go inside.
When we returned to car we went drove to East Stroudsburg to find the last three murals. This one is very 60s, Peter Maxx inspired. Seeing that were were only a few blocks from East Stroudsburg University, it kind-of makes sense.
The second one was a short retaining wall that went on for about two blocks. I couldn't get a picture of that one.
At that same shopping center we found a ton of mosaics—planters, walls, doorways, door frames, you name it, it was covered in tiles.
It was a great art walk. We saw 10 snowmen and women, several murals, and some great mosaics. The murals were on bridges and buildings, and the mosaics were everywhere — planter, bridges, walls, doorways and balconies.
We started in Main Street at about 12th street, and went down to 4th. We went about three blocks north and one south. I thought we'd go less than 2 miles. I was astonished when I saw how far we went.
Miles/Steps: 3
Weather: 32, mostly sunny, very windy.
No comments:
Post a Comment