SCENE AROUND: SculptureNow 2010 in Lee, Mass.

Three neat rows of smooth concrete columns, all about five feet tall, form a colonnade under the shade trees near the Visitor Center in downtown Lee, Mass. A closer look reveals that each is shaped like an enormous Shaker peg, and nine of these comprise artist Leon Smith’s Assembly, part of the 2010 SculptureNow exhibition in Lee. This year’s public-art installment is inspired by the Shakers who once settled just up the road in Pittsfield, Mass. Fourteen other large sculptures have been installed along Main and Park streets, from the library to Park Place, as part of the summer-long outdoor exhibition honoring Hancock Shaker Village’s fiftieth anniversary.

Sculptor Ann Jon, the executive director of SculptureNow, interpreted the separation of men and women in Shaker communities in her piece, Separate But Equal, which features two bright-orange bed-shaped forms isolated under domes of black mesh. Peter Barrett celebrates the strength and simplicity of the Shaker oval box by reproducing part of it in welded steel in Oval Box Segment. Antoinette Prien Schultze’s sculpture, Sweet Song of the Spirit, encases thick blue glass in carved granite to show the purity of light, and the towering window transom of Borrowed Light by Gary Orlinsky symbolizes the way Shakers welcomed sunlight into their buildings. Made by artists from across the country, the artworks form a sculpture walk stretching just over one-third of a mile, on view through October 31. [AUGUST 2010]

THE GOODS

SculptureNow in Lee 2010
Through Oct 31
Park and Main streets
Lee, Mass.
413.623.2068