LOCAL Houston | The City Guide DECEMBER 2015 | Page 30

ART

THE LIFE-CHANGING ART OF BEING PRESENT
Year by year, hour by hour, minute by minute, life goes by faster and faster. Technology and our
attachment to it doesn’t make it any easier, and we just seem to waste more time being sucked
into the social media wormholes. But artist ANTHONY SHUMATE’S newest public art installation
(commissioned by Buffalo Bayou Partnership through the Houston Arts Alliance) aims at getting
us to slow down. Monumental Moments is made up of six human-scale word sculptures:
Explore, Pause, Reflect, Listen, Emerge and Observe are placed in unexpected areas
along the 160-acres of Buffalo Bayou Park. ANTHONY shares his thought process for the selection
of those words: “The initial selection of the words was done by me for very specific reasons, but
I am aware as an artist that people will derive meanings from works and words that directly
reflect something for themselves. I wanted the viewer to be urged by the “verb” to connect
with the work. As the park was evolving, I spent a lot of time on site, and the works were created
as site-specific creations. ‘Listen,’ for example, was sited specifically for the experience I had
during design phase. I grew up in the hill country north of San Antonio, and during the waning
months of summer the cicadas would be so loud that their chirps would wave over the even air.
I was in the grove one evening, and like my nostalgic memory, the cicadas were almost deafening. At first glance, the grove appears to be quiet, and shady, where little grass grows, but
with a thoughtful moment you realize that the grove is busy with