I've strolled art galleries before. I've run before. (duh) It never occurred to me to combine the two activities until this week. Friday, September 21 was designated by the Road Runners Club of America as National Run @ Work Day, and to celebrate, the Houston Striders hosted a "Tour de Art" event. I joined this evening group run as it snaked through and then outside the pile of skyscrapers in downtown Houston.
As we briefly stopped at 15 outdoor sculptures, our leader, Roger Boak, would introduce each piece and give us tidbits about the sculptor and how the piece ended up there. Many of the sculptures I had seen before (but didn't know anything about them) and some I would have never discovered if it wasn't for this tour. For example, "Big Bubble" by Dean Ruck is a concealed air compressor that sends up a burst of air from the bottom of Buffalo Bayou up to the surface when triggered by a switch on a nearby ledge. (We all agreed that this would be great to try out on unsuspecting kayakers/canoeists!)
The last artwork in the run was the Police Officers Memorial. I have driven by it many times, but have never gotten a close look at it. Tonight I realized why. The field it is in is cut off from the rest of Eleanor Tinsley Park by Memorial Drive. To get to it, we took a dirt path under a nearby bridge. It's a shame that this monument to fallen officers isn't more accessible to the public. A pedestrian bridge spanning Memorial Drive would be useful at that spot.
Had I been more foresightful, I would have brought my "real" digital camera. But I didn't, so instead I can only present a handful of low-res cameraphone shots:
The group takes off in the shadow of City Hall.
The Virtuoso by David Adickes
Points of View by James Surls
Monument to the Phantom by Jean Dubuffet
Me, in front of Personage with Birds by Joan Miro
Runners climb to the top of Houston Police Officers' Memorial by Jesus Bautista Morales. Yeah, it was getting pretty dark by the end.
The memorial looks like this in the daytime. On all four sides of the upright pyramid are four inverted pyramids of matching size, carved in sunken relief into the ground.
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