Wade Wharton Sculpture Trail pt. 2 - A Closer Look

Thank you for the attention I've received from my first blog post about Wade Wharton! If you haven't read it yet, please check out Part 1. Since my last blog post, I've learned from others that Wharton also did beautiful wood sculptures. I hope to see them someday.

This post I'll be taking a closer look at a few of my favorite Wharton pieces in the garden. There's a few pieces whose beauty and...well...genius - for lack of a better word - cannot be contained within one photo alone. 

As soon as I glimpsed "Alligator" in the Aquatic Garden, I fell in love. Wonderful quirkiness!

The placing of the sculpture in the water gardens is perfect. It looks great out on the water. Even in the winter, with no green vegetation or flowers, the rusted metal seems to compliment the color of the bricks.

 It is also unique to many of the other pieces in the Garden, since its individual parts are not as obvious on first sight. Many of Wharton's pieces are in fact optical illusions, taking advantage of how our brain works. It's theorized that humans might be unique in the way our brain works, to see a flower in a pile of lug-wrenches, for example.

This sculpture is an alligator first, a bunch of shovels and hinges second. Unlike most of his work, like "Gear Tree". You see the gears first, then the flowers pop out at you.

"Gear Tree"

I also just think his expression is adorable.

 The other piece I want to explore in this post is actually two pieces interacting with each other. "Praying Mantis" appears to made up of many different metal elements. I can pick out garden rakes, patio table tops, and may some sort of propane or helium tank. It also features more involved painting than most other pieces, using yellow highlights to bring the insect to life.

"Brauns Bug" made from springs is adorable as he climbs along a tree root. Any Huntsvillian ought to appreciate the pun in the name.

 

"Praying Mantis" is stalking "Brauns Bug" through the woods along the Mathews Nature Trail.

 

Although these are just bits of metal stuck together, they are placed in such a way as to seem very lifelike. The whole scene is enough to make me feel sorry for Brauns Bug.

 
And the praying mantis is fairly intimidating. Look at the expression Wharton can evoke from metal bars and nuts & bolts.

 

Thanks for joining me on my trip. In the third and final blog post, I'll talk more about the quirky humor I found in Wharton's sculpture and captions. What a great sense of humor! Also, I'm sure when I get to my final pictures, I'll wax philosophical with my personal reflections of death (after having lost much last year), as the sun sets behind Wade Wharton's monuments. 

If you knew Wharton or have something to add about his life or work, don't hesitate to comment on this post, on Facebook, Twitter, or send me an email.
See you next week.