A Place To Reflect 2023

September 3 - September 20, 2021

Covid-19 continued to prove itself a formidable force in our lives and I decided to create a second outdoor memorial in my community. “A Place to Reflect,” was produced in September 2021 at a neglected and overgrown pocket park on Olympia’s Westside. The park sits on a corner lot that includes trees, shrubs, tables, benches, planters and a kiosk where announcements were posted. As the pandemic stretched onward, the park fell into complete disrepair and needed a lot of tender loving care to revitalize it.

The Neighborhood Association joined in and gave it a yardwork makeover, and one of my team members helped to repair the benches and tables. A small tree centrally located provided shade and we wrapped it with fresh flowers. Twelve of my friends and art collectors generously donated funding ($1,200) for the materials, and a large group of volunteers helped prepare the flowers and make the garlands. On installation day tables, chairs, clippers, and buckets of fresh flowers were unloaded in the morning and by 5PM the installation was complete. Twenty-six garlands hung from the ends of tree branches creating a circular space as more fresh flowers climbed up the trunk. Visitors could opt to move into the space and rest under the canopy; others sat at a table marveling at the colors and textures.

The timing of this installation happened on Memorial Day weekend, just before many children returned to their schools after being kept home for nearly a year and a half. Once again, a journal and a poem remained at the site for visitors to share comments and reflect, while a basket of dried flowers offered them mementos to take when they left with a a renewed spirit. Much of what was shared, both in conversations and in the journal, expressed the high anxieties many parents were feeling about letting their children return to school while the debates over vaccines raged on. Our team added a new feature, a donation site for at-risk families in need of non-perishable food items. The neighborhood sustained the park’s vitality and the donation site for quite some time.