#PLTS: Love on Tate Street

First off, not everybody loved the snow sculpture.

It came into being, as far as I can tell, on Sunday afternoon, fashioned from a snowbank that the plow had made right in the middle of Tate Street: two people, engaged in that most ancient of human acts, in the manner the Kama Sutra describes as “the congress of the cow,” with careful attention paid to key pieces of genitalia and also the butt.

In its stark white color and loose forms, it resembled a Picasso ink, a weird, Warholian experiment, its kineticism suggesting some of Don Martin’s work for Mad magazine.

In the overnight, it acquired a glaze of ice and by sunrise it was the most beautiful piece of art in all of Greensboro, absolutely spontaneous, executed with style and flair, posted prominently in one of Greensboro’s enduring cultural epicenters. In its way it was worth a hundred commissioned murals and committee-approved sculptures and performing arts centers, made all the more piquant because of its impermanence.

“The Tate Street Couple” was too beautiful to last, anyway.

But by the time I drove by Tate Street on Tuesday morning, the defining features had been smashed apart; light and time had done the rest, reducing the coital couple to a pair of sagging hindquarters easing slowly to the ground. You couldn’t even make out the testicles anymore.

In my opinion, this is the most significant art event to happen in Greensboro for a long time. Congratulations are in order for Coty, Christian and Shane, the NY Pizza denizens responsible for this genuine triumph of the human spirit, no matter how fleeting the moment.