Harvey Fite was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Christmas Day of 1903. When he was three years old his family moved to Texas
Posted on 03/21/2010 12:46:15 PM PDT by JoeProBono
SAUGERTIES, N.Y. (AP) -- Harvey Fite spent 37 years turning an abandoned bluestone quarry in the Catskill Mountains into a strange and striking landscape sculpture. Visitors to Opus 40 walk through rock-wall mazes that swirl around a 9-ton monolith looming in the center like a Stone Age exclamation mark.
Fite was still working on his multi-acre artwork when he died in 1976 at age 72. His family has kept the Woodstock-area attraction open to seasonal visitors and the occasional concert, but now they're trying to sell the land, and local officials are working with them to keep this novel Hudson Valley attraction open to the public.
Town of Saugerties supervisor Greg Helsmoortel said the small town can't afford to buy Opus 40, which has an asking price of $3.5 million. But Saugerties, which sits 100 miles north of New York City, is starting to work with arts and cultural groups to look at ways to keep it open....
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Harvey Fite was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Christmas Day of 1903. When he was three years old his family moved to Texas
Art is sh!t.
Can’t beat the mountain view, but it needs picnic tables and some shade.
A beautiful combination of natural and functional art. Thank you for a serene and aesthetically pleasing masterpiece. : )
That last “If I had a hammer” self-consciously posed shot looks way too much like communist propaganda from the fifites for my comfort.
What was Fite’s political orientation? “Public art” combined with an almost quixotic and evidently profitless venture, tells me that he’s not going to be anyone we’d idolize on FR.
It is sort of pretty, despite all that. If it ever becomes some sort of public venue, though, the irony of it all is that they’re going to have to rip some of it up, install guardrails, etcetera, in order to comply with various and sundry, leftist laws.
They’re their own worst enemies. If they ever gain complete control, they’ll start offing one another, like the early years of the Soviet Union or something.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.