When justice and mercy prevail, children may safely play

Thought I'd give today's black & white daily some context.

The local churches commissioned a work from Kalamazoo sculptor Kirk Newman for the reflecting pool in Kalamazoo's downtown common, called Bronson Park. The work consists of sculptures of nine children in naturalistic poses and a perhaps crumbling (or emergent) wall fragment (or something). The installation was dedicated on July 4, 1976, as part of the local bicentennial celebration (I sang in a choir at the event).

The work's name is "When justice and mercy prevail, children may safely play."

This installation is a challenge to photograph well, as isolating the individual sculptures loses the context, while photographing the whole work loses the detail. Moreover, the sculpture looks very different as you change angles. So I decided, for today's black & white, that I'd find a single child-sculpture that spoke to me, and post a photo of that.

Since I moved from Kalamazoo in 1977, my opportunities to view Newman's work have been relatively limited. Nonetheless, I've learned that every viewing is interesting, and that different parts of the work catch my attention at each viewing. It's a delightful work, and I'm pleased I was there when it was made public.

If you're interested, there's a nice essay about this work on another website.