They draw your eyes up

Walking through the Gates in Central Park at dusk was a wonderful experience.

The Gates are participatory. I felt like the only person in the whole park who was neither posing nor being snapped while posing.

There are paths in the park with no gates, though, and it was while walking along one of these that l realized how much I was looking around, how much of the park I was noticing.

Because that's what they do. They draw your eyes up, no small feat in a city where we all look at the pavement all the time.

And the gates were always still visible in the distance, like the high, ghostly banners the elves carry in Lord of the Rings.

Maybe that's why they had to be in New York. And maybe that's why they're only up for sixteen days. If sixteen days doesn't get our eyes up from the pavement, it's probably not going to happen.

_______________________
"An artist is somebody who gives people something they don't need,
but which he thinks for some reason they should have."
— Andy Warhol