So, today, I created a group on Flickr: Sculpted Places. The goal of the group is to aggregate photographs and citations of photography of monuments and memorials. By bringing together other folks’ photography and interest in vernacular landscapes, I hope to be able to get a better sense of the full breadth of such monuments and gardens across the United States, not to mention the world. At the same time, it might offer a better sense of the depth of such work. Just how many statues of Jonas Basanavius can folks locate? What about Christopher Columbus. How is the statuary and its placement different? Where (using geolocation) are these statues?

As I move toward writing and just documenting such statuary, it occurs to me that the breadth of the topic is extraordinary, even if I just begin with the statues contained in the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, which is what the book will ultimately be about.