This sculpture, titled Two Roads, is a kind of open book that stands where two paths diverge, reflecting visitors and their world. The pages, with passages of caution, insight, beauty and hope, are quietly disintegrating dissolving into the air. Entire pages are missing, yet fragments of shining text are still legible.
Two Roads honors Silver Spring author and marine biologist Rachel Carson (1907-1964), who moved to Silver Spring in 1936. Her three luminous books about the sea: Under the Sea-Wind (1941; The Sea Around Us (1952); and The Edge of the Sea (1955), inspired millions and made her the nation's leading naturalist.
Her fourth book, Silent Spring (1962), was controversial. Silent Spring warned about the risk of widespread, permanent damage from the misuse of synthetic chemical pesticides. The book asked readers to imagine a town where birds, insects and fish had vanished as a result of the overuse of these materials. Carson called for a profound change in our understanding of humanity's relationship with the natural world.
Her call for a greater understanding of nature helped to foster public awareness of the interconnections between the human and natural worlds, and sparked numerous initiatives including the launch of the Environmental Protection
Agency and the international environmental movement. Carson died at her home in Silver Spring in 1964.
Artist: William Cochran. Landscape architect: Oculus. Commissioned by Home Properties, Inc.
May 2015
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