The Green

The hum of Huntington goes thither, hither, hustling, bustling to places closer and father away. The last obdurate War chief throws his head back to feel the morning breeze and dewy sun, arms stretched wide to greet the community. The vast flats of grass surround the Huntington entrance of this place, empowering it was the grandeur of a 19th centaury London plaza; expansive as the concrete curls into the grass without overwhelming it. Here is the perfect balance of man and nature. Greenery and solidity. Here is where I feel two great forces are sharing one space, coexisting for complimentary reasons, for much as the stone draws man to nature, nature helps pull man toward it. Sometimes strange over sized works of sculpture sit pondering on these gates, and other times a mere offering of pink and yellow flowers is enough to appease the curious. The entrance alone seems to shout out beneath ionic columns, “Here is thy temple- come, and worship.” Elementary school children are walking by, point at the horse holding its pose, yelling high, saying the nonsensically simple thoughts that are so native to youth. The other buildings here lack the magnanimity found on this plot, all yellowed brick and concrete block, windowed to the roof. This front adds so much to the area its astounding. It gives these blocks around it a true feeling of cultural umph that the local quantity of collegiate corporations should produce, but doesn't. This is part of why I love the MFA so much: it makes going to college feel like I imagine it should. It imbues my time spent here with an endless sense of knowledge and wondering. The colleges around should be having that affect, but frankly they just seem to be giant facades covered in money; such as the time when they installed a laser light show in the front bushes of Ell Hall. But here I am home with oils and urns, and the spirit of Keats at my side. People exit the front saying, “Well aren't we cultured!” And that’s exactly how this places is supposed to make you feel.

After this man made cavern I call a building, I find a door that I've never walked through before. I am led to this square cove hidden on the backside of the museum's walls. Here vines are creeping, trees flourish, and child run around and laugh. There must be a hundred people eating lunch outside here from the cafeteria. It is is perfect, the mild mumbling of conversation, the birds flying and hopping around my very feet. Do they think I'm Snow White? Families talk and banter, their kids are running in circles playing tag, and one side of the bookstore juts itself out so that bindings may see the wood they came from. I feel an overwhelming sense of coexistence here. Now more little children meander out with their lunch boxes, looking for a place to eat their homemade food: turkey sandwich, an apple, and a brownie. Here it seems more obvious than anywhere else: nature is dependent on man, and man is dependent on nature. Man provides shelter and support and accidental food, and nature provides the scenery, the sounds, the cool slow breeze that air conditioning envies. A strange obelisk of bleeding colors stands proud and out of place. I think a statue of Oberon or Tatiana in the center would make so much more sense than some new age Obelisk, absolutely out of place between the lunching people and birds. I wish I had money to eat here with everyone else, but I am too poor, to eat anything but the two boxes of pasta in my cupboard, with butter. A little brownish bird hops toward me from the square of grass in the center, and inspects me. We are both here, in this same bit of space, unable to talk, but still sharing the air and the sounds, seeing each other, as strange as we mutually seem. He hops up on the stone where I'm sitting, mere inches from me. We trade looks for a moment longer, and he begins the adorable hop away, quick inch by quick inch. The kids to my other side are amazed, not by the birds all around them, but a mouse in the bushes. One shouts, “There is too much nature here!” Is this the world we live in? Is the youth of today afraid of the world existing over them and under them and side by side with them? I worry, about what these kids will know and how they view the world. Are they one and the same with the bird who stared at me, finding me just as out of place in this land of stone and greenery? In their future, will the world be covered in our stolid sprawl, as more and more of the ecosystems we now admire disintegrate for a lack of appreciation? I dream, and shudder.

After walking through the maw, I am expelled through the back, or is it the front, of the building. The Fenway entrance used to be the original main entrance when this building was constructed, but has now become a posterior exterior, where the front may greet concrete, but the rear can be seen to be one with the green. Fountains babble in splashing tongues and two over sized sculptures of baby heads watch the fleeting few who leave this way, or at least one does. Lines of columns stand strong, side by side, treating me to Ancient Rome in Boston once again, reveling the classical sense of art and art museums that society held up for so many years and now seems almost out of place. The trees here are large and shady, providing shelter for this discourse. The cars that travel by here are the quiet cousins of Huntington's roaring hustle; never dominating the windy hustle of leaves. Continuing around the exterior of the building I find the Japanese sand garden hidden here. An old motorcycle is parked next to it on the pavement, and I am over taken with the desire to kick out the stand guard, on the back, and cruise through the Boston streets, letting the good weather be my guide. Maybe when I go to grad school in a year. The sign informs me its purpose: for sand to mimic the water, and stone to substitute the land, creating an eternal sense of islands and waves and bridges connecting the later sections. Sandy waves protrude outward from these little rocky islands, bouncing eternal. It is gorgeous, though the sun beats heavy on my brow. The breeze kisses my face and I somehow smell the salty water, the warm sand, albeit from the bench. I am going to the beach today, after all this is over, to feel the real sand and water and earth around me.

This pieces goal is two fold: to document the sense of community here in the noble mausoleum of the past, and to show what sustainability is being created at the same time. This garden is a wonderful metaphor for the wonders of nature embracing the habit of man, to the point where the art is the nature, or is the nature the art? When brought once more the opposing side of this building, I am faced by glass and steel instead of concrete and porcelain. Here is the new construction project of the MFA. Here is where new contemporary pieces will be housed, extending the museums survey to new borders. I was told there would be picketing people here, but all I find are parked cars and crisis crossing fences keeping people out. Maybe it was too nice a day to spend protesting what is probably inevitable. I for one am not upset by this addition, although it certainly appears out of place with the rest of the building, but it is still nice, in much the same way the ICA by the docks is glassy and somehow at rest. Though this is not the ICA, it is the MFA, and maybe that alone is why people are protesting. Once more I am at the front, where I have been each time I come here to write or look, and still I am serenely taken back by the expanse before. This regality, coddled between towers and parks, colleges and more colleges. Never am I really disappointed by the exterior, and so long as it stays true to its sustainable nature, I think I never will be.