Chestnut Park is a small park in center city Philadelphia, which was a gift to the city from Mrs. Dorothy Haas. It is managed and maintained by Penjerdel, which is the three state chamber of commerce representing Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. The landscape architect is John Collins, from the Delta Group.

One of the prerequisites for this park was that it contain only indigenous plantings from the three state region. I was asked to design the two main gates for the park, the only stipulation being that these gates shall also reflect something of the region.

For the north entrance of the park, I designed and built a set of double gates representing the wetlands of New Jersey and Delaware. The "Estuary Gates" (not shown) has sculptural elements of islands of marshland, migrating birds, a turtle, a fish, etc. which were the things I was keenly aware of when I had visited the wetlands in the two states, and elsewhere, on former excursions. Since the gates opened out to the rear of the park, I kept the design and detailing more or less on a flat plane and represented these images in a more restrained manner than the main gate, although the flora and fauna are fully dimensional.

For the main gate I chose to do something about a place that is very special and meaningful to me and represents my personal and spiritual home while living here in Philadelphia. The Wissahickon Valley is part of the extensive Fairmount Park system and is set apart in the northwest section of the city, where I live. This was an opportunity to bring into the concrete canyons of center city, something greener, something more humane, something more of ourselves, other than concerns over style, image, and the tough realities of city living. I wanted to share our ability to touch our spirit through metaphor.

Within the Wissahickon Valley there are over six miles of trails, paths and walkways, some of which traverse an area of virgin forest that remains standing. This place also has the Wissahickon Creek, a rich variety of hardwoods, flora characteristic of the region, and a silence and breath that speaks loudly and profoundly, to those who wish to listen.

This is where I spend time when I need to be nurtured or nourished. In a sense, I can leave the body and become one with place. On the trails, I travel the same paths that earlier native travellers walked. I can hear the upheaval of the beginning of time, I can commune with many special trees, rocks, pockets of space, water sanctuaries, woodland creatures and birds stopping for a respite along the flyby that they travel. I sit in the famous but eccentric hermit's cave and share his madness. I can almost grope for the fat and lazy moving elders of the trout group, wise enough to know where to escape from the fishermen's wiley hooks of peril. Yes, I know where they are, and I also know many other things about this place that should be left undisturbed.

The Wissahickon Valley is more than a place in space and now time. For me it is a no-time/no-place in the cosmic universe. It is stillness and movement, no difference between the two. It is a temple, but a simple domicile as well. Since it is so much more than what it is, it becomes my adopted parent, and I am no longer an orphan. So given an opportunity to do as I liked, I chose to express this special place and give it another presence, in a different guise.

When I was considering the approach to take for this particular piece, I thought that perhaps I would like it to be in an active mode throughout the day. It's one purpose during off hours, is to close up the park. When one is unable to enter the park, s/he doesn't necessarily need to feel shut out. There are outside benches off to the side, within the alcove and the gate still reaches out to welcome a visitor, rather than forbidding entry.

The other function it has, during the day, is to slide over in front of a wall, then it transforms itself into a fully dimensional bas-relief. It is no longer a gate. In this position, it assumes a secondary and proper role as a punctuation mark, emphasizing the purpose of the park itself.

This gate extends about eighteen inches outside the boundaries of the frame and in a way, expresses the unlimited boundaries that the actual place represents to me. Off to one side is the curvilinear course that the creek itself draws out, deep within the valley. On the bottom of the water form is a tiger fish, ferocious and threatening. Yes, he is the beginning of time, starting out to populate the world as mother, father, daughter, son. This creature is meant especially for the small children to enjoy and it is a grown up piece for the toddlers amusement. Off to the right, near the top, is a ridiculous owl with feet and toes. That's a kid's piece but meant for adults only. Role changing? Perhaps, but this place has that effect on a perceptive visitor.

In all, there are thirteen different creatures hidden and placed throughout this gate. On the top left is an ominous bird and I never did figure out why I needed to place it there, but I did. It is a night creature, beating it's wings against the darkness. Shifting over to the right a little bit, you'll see a naked figure struggling with a snake, unraveling itself out of a tree (well, it's not clear in the photograph, but it's there). I wanted to include the early inhabitants of the region, first the native Americans, then later, the settlers. I know it wasn't easy to come to this place and settle down. It never is. Even to this day new places have their challenges. One doesn't need to be the conquerer but can harmonize, if they choose. One group did one thing over time, the other took a different approach. In either case, it was a struggle.

I couldn't resist bringing in the hermit, so I did. You can't see him from the front of the gate because I hid his gnarley face, tucked inside the broad leaf with the cutout shroud. You have to look to find him. Off to the right, lying on a rock enjoying an afternoon siesta in the sun, is a lizard. His pose is preposterous but sometimes I think that lizards can be that way. Of course we have salamanders rather than lizards in this region of the country but I took advantage of my obligatory license here. There are other smaller things peppered elsewhere, grasshoppers, flying insects etc.

My favoite I'm saving until last. This gate is what I call a two hoagie a day gate. Okay....for those from other areas, a Philadelphia hoagie is similar to a submarine or whatever else you want to call those huge meat and salad stuff monstrosities on a big roll. The ones that make even a thin bellied runway model look like a bloated beer drinker after it's eaten. Well, I rarely went back to the house for dinner while making this gate, so I ate one of these things for lunch then one more for dinner, for periods at a time. That's why it's a two hoagie gate. At the end of the project I wanted to acknowledge the important role this peculiar and I'm sure, unhealthy food stuff was. So I put in the Hoagie Memorial, which is the frog on the bottom of the gate, leaning back munching on his own version of a bug hoagie. This had nothing to do with the Wissahickon Valley but nobody knows that.

I chose to include this earlier work in the collection of images on this site because to this day, it is as fresh and meaningful to me as the day it was installed, in 1980. Since it is now in a state of neglect and may soon experience a similar fate as the "Estuary Gate", I wanted to preserve the positive experience that it provided me throughout it's useful life.

I hope you'll allow me this indulgence rather than demand the hottest and latest work, coming out of the studio. For me, the pieces I do are not period pieces but are simply  part of a single continuous process. I look at the whole body of work, as I look at the totality of my life. There are partitions of time perhaps, but time is an encompassing thing and so I don't consider yesterday, today and tomorrow as separate entities. I no longer date any of my work as a matter of fact. It's all of the same moment. A brief rush through time.

Chris Ray