Dog Friendly St Louis: Laumeier Sculpture Park

Eye, Tony Tasset

I'm always surprised when someone describes this blog as "family friendly activities", because I don't have any kids. I just like to have fun! MY reality is that sometimes I need to kill three birds with one stone: fully appreciate gorgeous weather,  find something to blog about, and give the dogs some weekend adventure. So this past Saturday, which was gorgeous, I was racking my brains trying to come up with an interesting, blog-worthy park that wouldn't turn me away with two big dogs.

Poet Sitting By a Tree, Ernest Trova

VOILA! Laumeier Sculpture Park! I hadn't actually been here myself in about 20 years. It is dog friendly, and gives me an opportunity to tell you two hilariously disparate things about our family. One, Laumeier Sculpture Park was started with a donation of 40 sculptures by Ernest Trova (which made the news last week) and my uncle, Andrew Kagan, wrote the book Trova.

Falling Man/Study (Wrapped Manscape Figure), Ernest Trova

Two, Francis's aunt is Teri Horton, otherwise known as the lady who (may have) found a Jackson Pollack at a yard sale. No Jackson Pollack at the sculpture park, of course. I was just thinking about that the other day and it made me smile.

Maquette for Eye, picture above

At the first braille sign I saw (which was not this super obvious one of Eye), I had that moment of, "PFFT, BRAILLE? That makes no sense!" But then I realized, there is actually a small version of the sculpture on top that you can TOUCH on top as you read about it. Now it makes perfect sense! Thanks, Citicorp, for funding that nifty project!

Face of the Earth #3, Vito Acconci

Another thing I really appreciate about this sculpture park, being a person who has medium-familiarity with art appreciation, is that the location of the information cards for the sculpture points you toward the best direction for viewing the piece. Here is a good example, where I came upon Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall! by Donald Lipski on the nature path, but then noticed that the information card is outside the tree line.

I love panorama mode

Bringing the dogs made things interesting. They are city dogs, used to sidewalks and order. Wide open fields, as well as better grass than they have in their own yard, kind of blew their little pea brains, and their behavior started out abominable. They entertained a number of people as they stopped, dropped, and rolled in this field, like children playing with the boxes the toys came in on Christmas.

Roll, roll, roll in zee hay!

After a couple laps around the park, they chilled out a bit, and then impressed people with their nice manners (which you can see in the first photo), thank goodness. A little tip: look for the bathrooms that have a dog-height water fountain and bowls. In my book, dog-friendly doesn't just mean dogs are allowed, it means there are dog amenities, and Laumeier Sculpture Park is definitely dog-friendly! The park address is 12580 Rott Rd, St Louis, MO.