Community Bridge in Frederick

Took Jen and Mom to the Community Bridge in Frederick yesterday. John and I had wandered upon this thing earlier this year, and we both knew immediately that Mom would love it. So, I've been looking for the right time to get Mom up there and when yesterday dawned to be magnificent (!), I knew what was on the agenda.

The Community Bridge is in the canal area of downtown Frederick and is an area painted in the trompe d'oilel (spelling might suck) style. In other words, it's a plain old cement bridge painted to look anything than plain old cement! So, that wall behind my loved ones is all painted to look like stone. You can't see the images inbedded as they're faint and, unless you focus the camera directly on them, they disappear.

Anyway, in 1992, an artist had a vision to beautify the area. He asked the community of 17,000 or so what items represented 'community' for them. He got thousands of replies and incorporated these replies in his paintings. He's obviously quite talented as his paintings are a delight to view.

The bridge and surrounding area are painted to look like rock. Inside some of the rocks are the scenes depicting community. There's hands touching, wedding rings resting on each other, dolphins and geese. There's children climbing trees, alphabet blocks, birds and a myriad of other items hidden. There's painted statues that are amazing to view. It really is hard to believe that they're not 3D. In fact, Mom, Jen and I all agreed that there were parts where we got confused about what we were seeing or not seeing. As Jen mentioned, a good artist has the ability to do that.

If you're close by, take the time to go see this thing. It really is totally amazing and worth the trip. Afterwards, Jen treated us to cool drinks at a local coffee house where we sat at a checkerboard table and Jen and I played a rousing game of 'checkers' with dice that she had in her purse (for some reason, the coffee house didn't have any checkers - Imagine that). Anyway, the winner was....well, never mind. That part isn't important.

Came home and made some great spaghetti (Aunt Mildred's sauce recipe can't be beat). A nice evening was spent just talking and catching up on the balcony.