LAKEWOOD, Ohio — They say that art is just an imitation of nature, and on Lakewood's Arthur Avenue, there is a work of art that tugs on human nature. It is a massive globe of planet Earth in the shape of a cube that makes people stop, think and interpret its meaning.
"It is strange. It is so big, and I don't know what it is. It's weird, but it's pretty," said Kayla Miller, a neighbor in the area.
The cubed globe has been making its way around the neighborhood, popping up in front of different places every two to three days for the past few weeks. It's caused quite a stir on social media, with people asking, 'What the heck is that thing?"
It is currently placed in front of David Goldstein's house.
"Nobody knows what to make of it," he said. "They sneak out in the middle of the night, apparently, and they push it around to anybody that gives it the okay to stay in their yard, and I didn't know what had set my dog off at 11:30 at night, but I figured it out in the morning when I came out here and saw it."
The "they" Goldstein refers to Rob Holland and whoever he recruits to move the globe around every few nights.
Jessie Holland, Rob's wife, said her husband has quite an artistic side, and he began to create the cubed world in the winter.
"Rob often just finds inspiration in the weirdness of the day. Somewhere out of the depths of his creative mind, the idea for the giant, flat, Earth globe was born," she said.
At first, he put it in front of their yard on Arthur Avenue.
"The idea was that it would just be this funny bit that would go to our friend's houses," she said.
But the art installation has wheels, and the joke has rolled into the summer, moving to different, random places.
"I have no idea what it is. My son has asked about it; we've talked about how it has different continents, the blue is water, the green is land," said Nathan Ratkovsky, a neighbor. "He likes to see it in different spots."
Holland said they don't have social media, but they've been told people in Lakewood like to play "Where's Waldo?" with Rob's creation.
"People were calling this like the 'glube,' the globe and the cube, or the 'squearth,' which we got a lot of laughs out of," she said.
And while art may be up for interpretation, the meaning of Holland's cube seems clear: a connection to your neighbors and your home can mean a lot in this big, wide and round world.
"Life is pretty serious, you know, and there's a lot of bad stuff that's going on in the world, and I think people just love something that is a little different, a little odd, and the community loves it," said Goldstein.
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