David Saunders Seat

Seat by David Saunders (b. 1954, New York City, NY) is a monument to those times when we stop and think. The leafy, shade-covered, triangular Westchester Square Park has an atmosphere of calm, emphasized by a long row of park benches that lines Benson Lane and provides a resting spot for the senior citizens who gather near their activity center across the street. The sculpture is an empty seat that beckons our imaginations to rest there. The slightly larger-than-life chair sits atop a foundation stone of red granite, which is engraved with a motif of wild boars; there is a wild sow with her four little babies on the side of the stone. On top of the stone, beneath the seat, is a bronze Merriam-Webster dictionary, opened to one of its beautiful color plates, “Common Birds of America.”

“Although lots of people are reading while they sit around Westchester Square Park, not everyone in this ethnically mixed neighborhood is reading English, while some have yet to learn to read at all,” Saunders commented. “I think it’s an interesting idea that a public monument could reach out and embrace the attention of all imaginations with reassurance of our society’s respect for the individual, especially for those who need the reassurance the most but are rarely addressed personally because of a lack of communication. Here everyone is addressed through universal images that appeal to our emotions.”