Open House, Don Gummer. Photo by Kathleen Hulser.

Sculpture loves the sky, taking cloud, rays, forest and field as volumes to shape. Don Gummer’s sculpture spread around the generous acreage of the Five Points Art Center in Torrington, Connecticut features porous structures that frame and reframe the environment, letting metal members melt into the natural world. These sorts of installations carry much persuasive power, lying just a hop and a skip from the birthplace of John Brown, the abolitionist with ferocious anti-slavery convictions. Those freedom vibes infuse the site to this day. The center has all kinds of art labs: drawing, printmaking, digital, ceramic, photo, painting studios, a children’s space and a handsome auditorium for artists to unleash their free imaginings.

At Don Gummer’s opening last week, we approached the piece Open House from the back, and I immediately took it for a variation on tree house. The metal slats and open sides made me think of our childhood motley fabrication of tree houses we built from scavenged lumber. But Gummer’s pieces have both symmetry and undulation to them, executed in metal with burnished edges. The Center’s splendid location atop a rise just slightly lower than nearby Brandy Hill means that every bit of outdoor art has room to breathe amidst inspiring surroundings. For example, Gummer’s work Towers seems to brandish swaying branches to the sky from the side angle, while loosely rising like a skyscraper in the front view. Intriguingly, one tower rests on a slab pedestal, while hangs suspended, a serious co-dependent, wielded to the first on the upper floors.

Fittingly, the Gummer sculpture Mondrian greets visitors at the entry, its glass squares in primary colors nodding to the Dutch Piet Mondrian’s geometric preferences and De Stijl roots, bucking conventions and proclaiming modernist freedom. The Five Points Art Center which opened in 2021 has a magnificent 90 acres and plans to feature environmental work and many more displays of outdoor sculpture. There is currently an environmental art work mown in the field near the sculpture park.