Sculpture park has unveiled a new Garden in Lights

Friday, Dec. 26, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL Peter Camilliere, left, Chad Sunderland and Sadie Camilliere take a look at one of the more elaborate light displays at the annual Garden in Lights at Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

It was 6 p.m. on Sunday and cars were pouring in a driveway flanked with holiday lights of all kinds. Any other year — granted, this was before my time — I suppose the cars would have continued on roads through Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park. This year, the cars were parking, and the line of people into the new arts building stretched out the door.

Director Stacey Hann Ruff said that enough cars used to enter Annmarie Garden for the Garden in Lights show to cause backups. That was one reason, anyway, that the staff decided to switch to a walking tour. Members of the staff also noticed that their children seemed to enjoy the lights more when they had a chance to get out of the car.

"I think, from what I can tell, that people like to walk around and look at things at their own pace," Hann-Ruff said after the show's first weekend.

But there was another good reason to move away from a driving tour: While Annmarie Garden's sculpture park is well known, the arts building, which usually has a modern, interactive exhibit on the lower floor and a more traditional exhibit in the mezzanine gallery, is a far newer phenomenon. "We're trying to transition people to understand that [Annmarie Garden] is open inside and outside," Hann-Ruff said.

Garden in Light's new design plays right into that idea: Start at the front desk of the arts building, pay a few dollars and you are let loose among several exhibits.

In one corner: the holiday ornament show. Small trees were adorned with ornate ornaments, jewelry and postcards. In the opposite corner: A solid Patuxent High School jazz band was setting a festive pace. Then there were works by members of National Capital Art Glass Guild. Like "Warm Wishes," a glass piece bearing a log fire image inside a hi-def television. Or a crystal glass installation, roped off, like an accident that turned out quite well.

Some people worked on a wall installation, placing glass magnets on "Homage to Picasso: Dove with Olive Revisited." Another popular spot was the café, next to the back door, and although it offered far more, the smell was overwhelmingly chocolate chip cookie.

Oh, of course, the lights show, the nearly 70 luminous sculptures arranged with a painterly touch.

But before you slide out the back door to the quarter-mile long walking path, walk up the steps to the mezzanine gallery for "Sailor Made: The Art of the Woolie," a show paying homage to boats in a floating gallery with a boat-like shape. Donald Berezoski from Huntingtown has loaned about 50 hand-sewn ship portraits created during the mid 19th century. British sailors used to create them with materials like silk and wool to pass the hours at sea.

OK, now you can go. Walk on through the door and into the night, the smell of chocolate replaced by pine and mulch as you begin to follow two winding strings that hold you inside the narrow path.

In 2003, according to a press release, Jaimie Jeffrey developed an "innovative method" for making light displays. Pre-2003 the displays were purchased. And how exactly the staff designs and assembles the sculptures and displays remains something along the lines of top secret.

The light sculptures along the path — the girl on the motorcycle, the spider monkeys, the strongman — have been cleverly arranged into various scenes. The focal point of the fantasy "Far, Far Away" is two dueling knights. "The Creature Feature," in turn, might be confused with the National Zoo. And is that Steve Irwin? And is that … oh man … two stingrays?

My favorite was "Day at the Circus." It was entertaining, fantastical, like Dumbo's drunken dream scene without the nightmares.

At a quarter mile long, we expected the tour to be over in a flash. Instead, the first finale only seemed to lead to a second, then a third. I do not want to spoil it, although one sculpture looked an awful lot like John Travolta.

All told, the redesigned Garden in Lights seemed like a huge success, the beginning of a new era. But, said Hann-Ruff, "We're still not sold."

The walking tour requires more volunteers than the driving tour, and thus has more limited hours. A driving tour, on the other hand, would require Annmarie to keep the arts building closed.

"We might alternate years," Hann-Ruff said.