For many years, traveling and writing about my experiences has been my passion. While visiting Key West, Florida in 2007, I stumbled upon the most amazing art exhibit in my memory. It was “Beyond the Frame, Impressionism Revisited,” composed of mixed media and bronze sculptures depicting in life-size in 3D a number of famous paintings by French Impressionist artists. This incredible art work, created by J. Seward Johnson, Jr., was displayed so that the viewer could step inside and become of a part of the piece of art. This work was on view for about a year at the Key West Museum of Art and History at the Custom House.I was especially fascinated by Van Gogh’s “Bedroom” and Renoir’s “The Boating Party.” As an elementary school art teacher, I often display prints of Van Gogh paintings as examples for the children to use as their “points of departure” for classroom assignments. I took a wide variety of photographs of these remarkable Johnson sculptures and posted them around our art room for inspiration when I returned home.
A few years ago, while attending art classes at the College of William and Mary, I enjoyed watching one of the students create an excellent large scale copy of “The Boating Party”. The painting took the student the entire year to complete. Because of that experience, I was even more interested in studying the sculpture of the painting. I came home with quite a few photographs taken of “The Boating Party” sculpture from different angles. In one of them, my husband appears to be inviting one of the pretty young ladies out on a date—so realistic in appearance I felt a little jealous!
When I go back to Key West this year, the fantastic sunsets will still be there. I can visit the Hemingway house and the bars that famous writer frequented, but I shall miss the astonishing sculptures I saw one hot day in 2007. I wish they would return to that museum and that I could study them more closely.
Seward Johnson is a gifted artist with a sense of humor and marvelous talent. I suspect his art has inspired many a writer. I wonder what Hemingway would have thought.
©Mary Montague Sikes
