Part One: Welcome to Miranda’s Hearth

The first sign that you are getting close to Miranda’s Hearth is the art in the trees.  For a few miles, you’ve driven along a winding New England road overarched by trees heavy with autumn leaves.  Light dapples the dark gray road that winds in front of you, every once in a while breaking through the canopy to illuminate a particularly iridescent maple tree.  It’s on one of these trees that you see the first inkling that this isn’t just any stretch of road.

An owl perches motionless on a low branch, staring down at the road.  As you drive up to it, you realize that it is far too large and far too bright to be ordinary, but you drive underneath before you get a chance to see what it is.

Another minute or two passes before you see the next piece.  Someone has re-hung leaves on a tree who lost its own far too early in the season.  As you drive closer, the replenished leaves resolve into small bits of knitting that hang like ornaments from the empty branches.

You slow down now, eager to see the next piece as you make your way around the bend.  There’s a pile of stones artfully arranged, although you can’t tell if it was by nature or by a person.  A little farther on and there’s a tall metal sculpture made out of the same bright red color as the maple leaves.

You drive around one last bend in the road and up ahead is an explosion of color, only half camouflaged by the brilliant autumn leaves.  You crane your neck far out over your steering wheel to try to see what it is.  Another sculpture?  A mural?

The colors resolve into a triumphal arch, sister to the colossal arches of Rome.  But instead of a celebration of bloody conquests, this arch is an homage to creation.  Small colored tiles plaster the strong columns on either side of the road and race along the edges of the top.  Inside this frame, tiles give way to boldly painted letters which proudly proclaim, “Welcome to Miranda’s Hearth.”