People bring big dreams to this big city, but they live small to survive. They rent studio apartments with tiny kitchens. They walk diminutive dogs. They work in cramped cubicles. They do little gigs. They have trivial arguments. They eat microgreens.
Wee is us. And this mini snowman—about 18 inches high—was right on trend. He popped up on a townhouse railing after a March snowstorm that was slighter than expected. Tidbit accessories completed his look. Baby carrot for nose, celery scraps for hair, pebbles for eyes and the spindliest of twigs for arms.
And yet, small is beautiful. The frosty sculpture had presence. Think Billy Porter in his velvet tuxedo gown at the Oscars. Think Constantin Brancusi at the Guggenheim. Under its anonymous creator’s hands, the ephemeral snowman disrupted the three-circle cliché and turned a simple brown railing into a majestic pedestal. It was something all together new and fresh.
True outsider art. Or at least outside.