The Stuart Art Collection

This morning, we met some friends on the campus of UCSD to explore the Stuart Art Collection.  It was like a scavenger hunt since the sculptures are spread throughout the campus, and sometimes not very obvious.

We started with "UNDA" by Ian Hamilton.  Unda is the Latin word for wave and the tops of the stones are aligned with the distant horizon of the ocean.

Then we moved on to see "Something Pacific" by Nam June Paik in and around the university's Media Center.  Audrey liked this little replica of The Thinker on top of a Sony Watchman.

The artist's belief is that "television has defined the American landscape since World War II."

We walked over to a grove of eucalyptus trees in search of 2 trees encased in lead.  Artist Terry Allen's "Trees" was very cool.  One tree plays a series of recorded songs and the other a sequence of stories and poems.  There is also a third tree near the entrance to the library that remains silent.

From the library, we took the "Snake Path" by Alexis Smith.  The kids loved it!  They ran along in front, before I could get them in a picture.  It was 560 feet long and 10 feet wide.  There is a "garden of Eden" in the middle with fruit trees and a marble bench.  Towards the end of the snake, sits a huge granite book with a quote from Milton's Paradise Lost.

By far, the kids' favorite that we saw was "Bear" by Tim Hawkinson.  It was a giant bear made from big boulders.

"Vices and Virtues" by Bruce Nauman is at the top of the Charles Lee Powell Structural Systems Laboratory.  It consists of 7 vices alternating with 7 virtues in bright, blinking neon.  On this overcast morning, I really liked the beauty of the red fall leaves against the building with similar red tones.  The neon was not lit or was just hard to see at this time of day.

The girls really had fun on our "hike" and enjoyed some of the art, even though they couldn't grasp all the deeper meanings behind the pieces.  It was a great morning, and I would love to go back and see some more of the sculptures another time.