We’re usually away on the fourth of July weekend. But the weather made it impossible. I will not droll on about the weather, but I could. Really, I could DROLL ON ABOUT THE WEATHER TIL THE NEXT ICE AGE. But I won’t. So, don’t leave before I tell you what I’m grateful for.
So, while the weather was overcast and dull, with raindrops here and there, we chose not to go to my sister’s and the beach, but instead to stay home. Sigh. I put myself in cleaning mode, but I needed to get out of the house, so my husband and Daisy and I left my daughter with her overwhelming and all-consuming Bar Prep class and drove downtown with the mission of finally seeing the Martin Luther King Jr. sculpture, The Embrace.
This sculpture has been dragged around like a 3 year-old’s favorite stuffed animal by people from all over the map. Leslie Jones made her comments on The Daily Show, critics run the gamut of calling it everything from disturbing to inspiring. Some people absolutely love it and some people think it looks like a monument to oral sex.
I was jazzed when I heard about this piece of work and couldn’t wait to see it. Somehow, despite living fairly close by, I never got there. It was a combination of Covid mayhem and where I thought it was (the esplanade, a tricky place to park).
Where I got the idea The Embrace created by artist Hank Willis Thomas was on the Esplanade I can’t tell you, but it’s not and I’m an idiot! It’s actually quite near the Park Street T Station, and not far away from Tremont Street—a very easy to access location (by car, the T, an Uber, or your feet).
In approaching it from the main walkway of the Common, it struck me as very dark, very large, and a little bit ominous. I hate to admit my first impression was that it made me a little bit scared, which I hadn’t at all expected. There were kids playing underneath it, people sitting on the benches around it and lots of people clicking pics. I walked the entire perimeter, taking in the different angles, each leaving me feeling something different. it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this loving embrace creates a heart shape. How can anybody not, well, love that?
Finally, we settled on a bench to take it in. Daisy tried to eat a packet of Ketchup, (What won’t a puppy eat?) as I heard a caucasian man with his wife, sitting next to us say to a lovely black woman who walked by, dressed in sophisticated African clothing, complete with a stunning head piece, “It looks better in person,” to which the woman replied, “Yes, yes it does.”
Some people had affection on their face as they stared at it. Others feigned confusion, tilting their heads to try and make it make sense.
The Embrace was inspired by a 1964 photo of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King embracing after he learned he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. If art should spark attention, contemplation, and curiosity, this does its job. I was awed by its size. It felt somehow intimate, extremely interesting, and very evocative. It did a masterful job in making me feel a whole bunch of stuff, and wonder about a man who’d become an icon. It also made me feel a familiar gratitude for the beauty and importance of all the inspiring things that doers and leaders and artists can create.
*the gratitude-a-thon 