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Waiting for the bus by the Saint-Gaudens

May 20th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Waiting for Bus, Boston, 18 January 1985

On a sunny Friday in January 1985, I sketched this while sitting on the steps of the State House in Boston.  There must have been something of a chill in the air, judging by the woman’s coat – it was, after all, January in New England.  The bas-relief sculpture on the right, completed in 1897, was created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, an Irish-born American sculptor.  It is called the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, in honor of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry – an all-black regiment – who were led into battle in the Civil War by Shaw, a white colonel.  The sculpture also inspired the first movement (“The ‘St.-Gaudens’ in Boston Common (Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment)”) of Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England.  Too bad it didn’t inspire me so much that day.  I seem to have directed a lot of my attention toward the wall and the garbage can.

Tags: music · My Eye

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Cuz // May 31, 2009 at 6:30 PM

    Perhaps if you’d gone on the roof of the State House, you could have gained a fresh perspective on the bas-relief…I hear there is a great view from there!

  • 2 spitballarmy // May 31, 2009 at 6:33 PM

    Ha! I was thinking about our little excursion up there while I was writing this post. Can you imagine anybody attempting to do that today? Security must be tight as a drum now. Do you have pictures? I took Nancy up there after our pioneering trip and have pics from that…very funny seeing Nancy waving at the camera while standing on top of the Massachusetts State House!

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