‘The Lathe’s Court’ is unattended and difficult to find. Some suggest it has been abandoned and, by all accounts, it seems to be, though the governing rules of roadside art are historically vague and the degradation may be part and parcel of the show. It shares the traits of its kin (car-henges and cement dinosaurs alike) in that it professes no statement of purpose and bears no clear signature. ‘The Lathe’s Court,’ like the others, simply exists to be witnessed and will continue to draw the occasional pilgrimage until the trees shake off their tending.’
The Lathe’s Court is easy enough to find at sunset.
I’ve taken to editorial scribbling in Shitholes since the stranger’s phone has been disconnected. It may be convenient to have notes if a second edition ever rolls out, or, if I happen to find a second edition already existing somewhere, it may be convenient to have something to compare. I still have a lot of questions about all of this, even though I don’t ask them as often as I once did.
‘The Lathe’s Court’ (where a ‘lathe’ is a woodworking machine) is easier to find at sunset because the artist’s statues, which have been carved into the still-living trunks of trees, continue to grow. The ‘Lathe Dancers’ (where ‘dancer’ is one of the many carved human figures in the ‘court’) have risen well above the ground and hover sparsely in the branches. The setting sun, for a few moments each evening, reveals them by their shadows.
Easy enough, but eerie.
Eerie if, like me, you don’t know what you’re looking for and if you assume, like many would, that the court remains unwarped and at ground level. Eerie if, like me, you rest underneath them to pour, frustrated, over a hand-drawn map. Eerie if, like me, you look up to see the shadows there, suddenly. Eerie if, like me, you are alone.
Time, but not decay, has taken its toll on ‘The Lathe’s Court,’ stretching the limbs and features of the figures there into uncomfortable silhouettes. Their skin has become rough with bark, their mouths sealed shut or awkwardly gaping. Arms and legs have grown new joints, collarbones collect the canopy’s rotting detritus. Some have become host to animals, others to birds, but, in the sun, they are what they were, they remain human-enough.
I climb a tree to look at one and hang, for a moment, my arms around a woman’s waist.
“This is new,” I joke to her.
She creaks under my weight.
There is a man ahead of us, a ‘Lathe Man.’ The tree’s life has emphasized the man’s posture; he was carved to be proclaiming something, his arms spread out, grown far beyond any possible model.
The court is vast and layered, its ‘dancers’ spanning elevations and poses. They disappear in the twilight, dissolving back into the chaos of twigs and branches. Darkness obscures everything but the odd limb.
I take a different way out- I’ve lost the path but I know which direction the road is. These days I don’t mind being a little lost. I come upon a fallen tree, a fallen ‘dancer.’ A lightning strike has severed her connection to the earth. In the air, as she was carved, the ‘dancer’ may have been reaching for an embrace. I scour the treetops above us with my light but find no partner there. On the ground, having fallen forward, she seems to crawl. Her mossy arms bend awkwardly, failing, over the years, to hold the weight of her trunk.
She faces the road but the road, I know, is several miles ahead.
-traveler
