Sculptor Linda Fleming sits down with her son and DJ / sound designer / musician Luz Fleming to discuss their deep, decades-spanning ties to Socrates Sculpture Park. Together, they trace Socrates’ origins from Mark di Suvero and Isamu Noguchi’s early vision through its transformation from a derelict, rubble-strewn lot into a public sculpture park.
Starting from Linda meeting di Suvero in 1967 and his Front Street studio, she describes building the “Lucy Linda” and “River” benches in 1986 and the social-justice ethos Enrico Martignoni brought to the park by hiring locally. Luz recounts entering the park’s orbit as a teenager and young adult in the early-to-mid 1990s, living in a trailer on-site, serving as crew supervisor, learning heavy equipment and fabrication skills, and various vivid neighborhood anecdotes from the park’s early years.
Together, the mother and son pair reflect on Socrates as an incubator of creative freedom, its comlpex elationship with the surrounding Astoria community, and their hopes for preserving the park’s untamed spirit into the future.