It used to be, back in my day, that the road turned at right angles to go around a field. While I was away at college, the city purchased some of the field and diagonalized the road. This left a triangle of land which sat unused for many years. What to do with the "triangle" was a frequent discussion for the city council. Wisely, they decided on a park, and began work on it about 5 years ago.
Look at these tiles. We have a secret...Ernest created some of them.
He was 9 years old and had taken some art classes at the local museum. The museum director liked him, and invited him to be part of a kid's project to paint tiles for the new park, even though the minimum age was 10. My little man was always getting special treatment like that.
One Saturday, he joined older kids at a ceramics studio to create his own tiles...a few weeks later he went back to glaze them.
Ernest's own design of a raccoon.Note the fine mask detail around the eyes.
Sadly, its tail was broken off during the firing.
They let me help too, and I colored a lot of bees.
Never having done anything ceramic before, it felt odd to put some dull colored liquid on the tiles and trust that they would turn into something brilliant.
Getting back to the park...is this not the most AMAZING play structure EVER? This was the first part of the park completed and it was popular from the first day it was open. I was sad that Ernest outgrew it so quickly.
I personally love the playhouse. Right before I took the picture, a little girl was delightedly calling, "Nana, look, I'm in the GINGERBREAD HOUSE!!"
The rest of the park grew in stages...now it has soccer fields (where Mr. Thomas started his first soccer season last week) picnic tables, and shade structures -- which have been very important in these recent hot weeks!
Even though this is a relatively new park, it has family history already.
1 comment:
I love the mosaic tower! How fun to have family tiles on it.
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