A Shopping List in a Snowy Field
- Susan Silberberg
- Aug 2
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 9
It was eight months ago. November in Vermont. Which meant we had a foot of snow on Thanksgiving Day.
Of course.
Two days later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Hall Art Foundation in Reading. This community of 687 people is home to an unexpected collection of world-class art, housed in a group of unassuming wood-clad buildings along the main road through town. Lisa, the docent, gave an insightful tour of some heavy-hitting and provocative works by Barbara Kruger, Ed Ruscha, Sherrie Levine, and more. I left the galleries inspired, provoked, uplifted, and dispirited (the Zorawar Sidhu and Rob Swainston “Doomscrolling” wood block prints were gut wrenching).
Leaving the last building, I took a detour through the outdoor sculptures on my way back to the car. As my boots crunched on the crust of snow, I spied a tall monolith of granite at the edge of the open field. Something that would be at home on the Washington, DC Mall, or in front of town hall.
I got up close and ran my eye along the height of unblemished granite (17 feet, if you want specifics), admiring the way it sat, alone, framed by the day’s brilliant blue sky and the icy frosted tree branches at the edge of the clearing. Admiring but also curious…
Lovely to look at. But art? Hmmm, I don’t know…
I walked around the monument and let out a soft chuckle. Or maybe it was a snort. Lewis Carroll would have said I did both--a chortle. A fabulous word. Whatever you call it, I suspect that what came from my lips in my moment of surprise was unladylike. But I wasn’t paying that much attention, and the field was empty, save for myself.
Crackers
Cheese
Peanut Butter
Mayonnaise
Eggs
A simple shopping list was on the other side of this very large and pricey tower of granite.
Ziploc Bags
Shelf Brackets
Aspirin
Tampons
Shower Gel
Cleaning Stuff
Nutella
A list of things one needs from the store isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think of fine art, sculpture, or art galleries. And carved on a granite monument? No.
But as I stood there in the snow, my mind started wandering of its own accord and I had questions. Lots of questions.
Was the owner of this shopping list, carved in granite, purchasing “tampons” and “aspirin” because they were experiencing some stress, or maybe menstrual cramps? Did “diapers” and “sausages” indicate they have a baby and are enthusiastic meat eaters? Were home improvements underway, or a pending move to new digs (“cleaning stuff” and “shelf brackets”)? And did that mean that planning was in full swing for a housewarming party (“crackers” and “cheese”)?
David Shrigley’s chisel cuts in the granite, entitled Memorial (2016), then caused me to wonder about my own shopping lists and what they say about me. Every single week for about four years, from the time my son Louis was nine until he turned 13, he added “puppy” to the grocery list taped to the side of the refrigerator. In case you are a math person, that was approximately 208 shopping lists with “puppy” listed somewhere among milk, cheerios, yogurt, Advil (mothering is hard work), and yes, cleaning stuff (I keep a neat and clean house). Did he think I would find a selection of adorable young hounds in the pet food aisle? Or worse, frozen foods?
If someone had seen those 208 lists and then the one that came immediately after, missing the word “puppy” written in a child’s hand, they would have assumed Louis gave up or I gave in. I am happy to say I gave in (we love Leo). What took so damn long? I waited until I was ready to take full responsibility for the puppy’s care, knowing full well that the consistent and persistent energy that Louis spent adding “puppy” to the list each week for four years would probably not translate to consistent and persistent walking, training and feeding. Moms can be smart that way.
Now, my grocery lists are fairly boring; with an empty nest, I tend to keep it repetitive, healthy, and simple. Nothing as exciting as puppies (we are very loyal to Leo) but if you were to look at my lists over the course of a year, you could pinpoint when I am hosting a dinner party, cooking a holiday meal, or my daughter is home from college.
My musings in that snowy field at the Hall Art Foundation are exactly the point, aren’t they?
Art makes us think. Or laugh. Or rail against the world. It makes us question. Or smile. Or simply wonder. Sometimes it does all these things. I love how that shopping list is so relatable, even if it is carved in granite on a scale befitting a hero’s memorial. It uplifts our daily routines and celebrates the small, seemingly insignificant moments that make up our lives. And it drives home the point that art is a personal experience, just like our shopping lists. My list and my experience won’t look like yours and that’s a great thing. It certainly says that art needn’t be placed on a pedestal, extolling esoteric ideas far removed from our daily experience, to be impactful and to be enjoyed (with heartfelt apologies to Mona Lisa--I hear she is getting a room of her own at the Louvre… a pedestal of the highest order).
Public art, culture, concerts, street musicians, theater – these are all high on my list of “must see and do” things when I travel, much in the way I wrote about bookshops last week. When I am traveling, art and culture are just as important as when I am home. Maybe more so. It would be a rare occurrence if I visited a city or town without seeking out a community theater production, a museum exhibit, or best of all, a stroll in search of street art. I love street art.
In Glasgow, Scotland, the street art is so over the top, the murals so big and bold and thought-provoking, that I have spent whole days doing nothing but walking and searching. I sometimes download the art map from the City’s website but mostly I simply prefer to leave it to luck – loving the thrill when I discover a colorful mural in a back alley of the city.
You can learn about a city by reading the tourist guides and history books, and by taking a tour. But art and culture tell another kind of story, often the most interesting of all, about where a place is today and where it is going. Glasgow’s street art couldn’t be in Edinburgh. That is a different kind of city – one of stately buildings and well-proportioned streets and a refinement that wouldn’t easily host all of those big, bold murals. Glasgow’s street art reflects its gritty, working-class roots, its music scene and nightlife.
On my road trip across the U.S., I left Oklahoma City and crossed the border into Arkansas and a city called Fort Smith. There was a wide main thoroughfare and a typical American downtown, struggling to stay relevant amid office parks and big box stores. I stopped for lunch and then took a walk off the main street. I turned a corner and came up short: in front of me was a large multi-tentacled octopus. Except there were pink flowers where the body should have been and what looked like bat wings behind. No worries; it was simply a mural on the side of a building, and it was the last thing I expected to find downtown.
That mural told me that someone in the city cared about art and had made an effort, and I was pretty sure there would be more surprises. I was right. Down alleys, through parking lots, along side streets, and right out to the edge of the downtown, I found butterflies, cowboys, murals of local residents, and a very curious two-story high black and white mole that should have been creepy but made me feel like I was Alice in a real time version of Through the Looking Glass, Arkansas style.
In Santa Fe, I found art of a different kind – a building filled with magical rooms and experiences. At Meow Wolf, I got on my hands and knees to crawl through a fireplace to enter a secret world beyond.
Minutes later, I turned a corner and found a dryer with an open door that led…to a chute lit by twirling tiny lights that went down to…well, I had no idea really. Like Alice drinking the potion, I took a leap of faith and climbed into the dryer (I never thought I would write those words) and slid down the chute. I won’t tell you what was at the bottom…you must go visit and do this yourself. It took me hours to explore it all and find my way out, an experience that would have made Lewis Carroll proud (and all without the benefit of mind-enhancing drugs).
The thing is, art pulls me outside of myself. It makes me think in new ways and often I am better for it. We all have our routines—our automatic pilot drives to do errands, the walks we take with the dog, the café where we buy coffee every morning, the people we see at work, in our neighborhoods, at school. Routines are comforting and good. But so is the occasional delightful and surprising experience that pulls us out of our little worlds, that maybe shocks us out of a rut. You begin to think about new things when you come across a two-story mole in an alley, or slide down a chute in a dryer, or read a shopping list carved on a 17-foot high granite monument in a snowy field in Vermont.
It's possible those new ideas, that sense of wonder, only stay with us for a short period of time…a few minutes or hours. But I like to think the sculptures and paintings, the performances and murals, keep accumulating in us, like an internal bank that safe keeps our musings, our experiences of child-like wonder, and of course, our chortles. These things remain with us and are there when we need a laugh, or a different perspective, or when we are simply looking for inspiration for our own creative endeavors. This internal bank colors our world a little bit brighter and perhaps enables us to be more knowing and understanding.
Maybe, this bank of experiences accumulated deep within us enables us to hold a bit more mischievousness in our souls. Because who doesn’t like a bit of mischief now and again? I certainly felt mischievous squeezing myself through that dryer door and heading down the chute with not a clue where I would end up (I did wonder if I was going to that special land of “lost socks” but really, you must visit and find out for yourself).
And speaking of child-like wonder, and mischief, it didn’t escape my notice that the last item on that shopping list of 25 items was Nutella. I am very glad. After possibly having a headache or cramps, moving, cleaning, installing shelves, and throwing a housewarming party with the best possible cheeses on offer (of course), I like to think that when the last person left the party, the owner of that list closed the door, let out a big sigh of relief, put on their pajamas, and indulged in some Nutella.
That’s what art is all about, isn’t it? Just a little imagination.
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