Grounds for Sculpture: A Living Legacy, Intuitive Encounters with Art in Nature

The Sculpture Foundation, 2013

Authors

Seward Johnson, with Brooke Barrie, Brian Carey, and Bruce Daniels, as told by Barry Raine

About

Grounds for Sculpture: A Living Legacy tells the story of the creation of the Grounds for Sculpture park located in central New Jersey. The book takes the reader on a chronological journey of the park, all from its earliest stages to the present day. Photographs of the park in its finished state and while under construction adorn the book's pages, giving the reader a true look into the heart and dedication it took to create the park.

From The Sculpture Foundation website: "The Sculpture Foundation, Inc. is a private operating foundation dedicated to providing exhibitions and contemporary landmark public artworks for a broad range of communities including urban centers, small towns, regional parks and cultural institutions."

From the Grounds for Sculpture website:

A Message From Seward Johnson
Founder of Grounds For Sculpture

Our vision for Grounds For Sculpture is that it will continue to fill people everywhere with the emotional sustenance derived from the powerful and restorative connection between art and nature.

If I had to distill into one mission statement all the ideas that went into creating Grounds For Sculpture, it would be this:

To create a place to make contemporary sculpture more accessible to greater numbers of people from all backgrounds; to offer them the opportunity to develop privately, step-by step, a more intimate relationship with contemporary art; to share that experience with others in a familiar, accessible, informal setting in nature—giving them the chance, as Picasso said, to wash away "from the soul the dust of everyday life."