WHAT’S SO FUNNY:Trio by the sea-O

As you probably know, there’s a new sculpture downtown in front of the police station, and that’s an appropriate location for it because it’s arresting.

Whenever I drive by, people are standing and staring at it, or slowing down as they approach. It fulfills that first requirement of art by catching the eye.

In case you’ve been in quarantine and haven’t seen it, it consists of three stone figures ? two men and a woman ? sitting on blocks around a black obelisk. The people are islanders, I guess; the men are in swimming trunks and the woman in a light dress.

The older man wears a medallion around his neck, the woman has a bird on her lap, and the younger man has a black dog at his feet. There are stone seats between each of them. Carved onto one seat is the name Linda Brunker, onto another “2006,” and onto the third, “The Peoples (sic) Council.”

A circle surrounding the base of the obelisk is divided into 12 segments labeled Wealth, Success, Love, Fertility, Peace, Freedom, Health, Justice, Safety, Happiness, Strength and Victory. The obelisk acts as a sundial, its shadow pointing at various labels as the day goes on.

I can comment on this piece without conflict of interest, or any interest at all, really. I don’t know who commissioned it, or for how much, and I don’t know the artist. Nor am I qualified to judge sculpture, but that never stopped anybody.

My initial reaction to it was unfavorable. To me, it looked clunky, and the people seemed unreal. Of course, they are unreal, but I mean “unreal” even within their own aesthetic standard, if I may be pompous and unintelligible.

Then I decided I wasn’t giving the work a full chance to be effective. Patti Jo said she’d heard that passersby were allowed to sit in the sculpture, on the seats between the stone figures, so the other day I went down and sat between the two stone men.

The sun was shining; the time was half-past Strength.

Sitting on the perimeter of the circle, I felt different, and not just because everyone within a half a block was staring at me. The air seemed heavier; charged.

Sitting there among three silent stone people, I was strangely exhilarated. I was clearly the sharpest guy in the council. I had Wealth and Success at my feet.

When I left the circle at a quarter to Happiness and glanced back over my shoulder, the sculpture looked clunky again.

Patti Jo thinks one of the problems with it is the name “The Peoples Council” and that it would be more likable with an affectionate nickname, like “The People with the Steeple,” or “Meditation at the Station,” or “Sitting Tall by City Hall.” Once she gets going, she finds it hard to stop.

I think people might like it better if they sat in it.