The institute was the brainchild of engineer Paul Andres, who owns the property, and sculptor John Weidman, who serves as the institute’s artistic adviser. Each year since 1999, the institute has invited a small group of sculptors from around the world to participate in a multi-week seminar (scheduled this year for Sept. 11-Oct. 2). Each makes a sculpture that is installed on the property with the help of volunteers. The grounds are open all year so interested hikers can enjoy the work in every season.
There’s a small parking lot at the entrance where trail maps are available from a wooden box. Eleven trails of varying levels of difficulty traverse the hilly landscape of Big Bear Mountain, and the map indicates where each of the more than 60 pieces of sculpture is situated. We chose the hourlong hike up the asphalt-topped Parkway Road Trail, which earns its “difficult’’ designation only by dint of the steep finish as you approach the sculpture studio and Andres’s home near the hilltop. Eleven works are visible on the road, and at least another dozen can be seen by making short side treks from the trail.
Shortly up the main trail, we were literally ambushed by art: Colombian artist Carolina Mayorga’s group of five rusted steel silhouettes of figures wearing caps and carrying rifles. Almost hidden in the foliage, they seem to be waging a guerrilla war in the New Hampshire woods. At the Andres Institute they are labeled “Untitled,’’ but Mayorga lists the group as “Ambush I’’ on her resume.
A little farther on, Russian artist Alexander Molev’s “Enjoying the Stars’’ depicts a figure of quilted metal standing on a rock and gazing skyward with a spyglass telescope. It is much less menacing and much more uplifting than Mayorga’s work, even if you don’t read the hastily handpainted sign near the sculpture that proclaims “my greatest wish is [that] all the people come to eternal values more and more often.’’
