This batch of sculptures is titled “Playing in the Road” and features 15 works from nine artists.

Bruce said, instead of removing last year’s sculptures and replacing the works, he decided to keep adding to it.

The family-friendly event next Friday will have a campfire by Sumner Brook and a crowd of artists enjoying an art form which does not get displayed as often as others.

“I feel like there’s very few opportunities for sculpture, and then for outdoor sculpture, is even a more difficult venue,” Bruce said.

Step Mother Nature art gallery owner Daniel Bruce stands with a sculpture from Mike Beitz, one of many on display at the Bloomingdale-based Step Mother Nature art gallery’s second annual sculpture exhibit on July 25. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Public sculpture places the artist in a vulnerable place, he said. It’s out in public, open to opinions and not tucked away inside a gallery. That vulnerability is also an advantage, he said. The work is in people’s faces, out in the open and free for viewing at any time, not restricted to gallery hours.

This contributes to the show’s title “Playing in the Road,” since many of the works can be seen from state Route 3.

“It’s like that thing that your parents always told you not to do, but you had to do it anyways,” Bruce said. “Play is an important part of the art-making process.”

It also opens up the chance for the work to have a “dialogue” with its landscape that is unique to sculpture.

The exhibit is about celebrating diversity — diversity in subject, material, artist backgrounds, nationalities and sexuality.

Sculptor Drew Gorlitz stands with a piece in his “Reliquary” series, which will be on display at the Bloomingdale-based Step Mother Nature art gallery’s second annual sculpture exhibit on July 25. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

“Diversity is key,” Bruce said.

Like in nature, where a healthy ecosystem is one with diversity, he said the same goes for culture.

Drew Gorlitz, from Peru, New York, said he loves the physicality of sculpture. The act of making is like exercise for him. He started as an environmental science major in college, but after taking one sculpture class, he knew what he really wanted to do. He’s now a sculpture professor at SUNY Plattsburgh.

Painters have different types of paint, but sculptors can use anything in the world as a medium. And each item means something different. Using steel versus wood tells different stories, he said.

“Sculpture is really the only true thing that’s not abstracted,” Gorlitz said, adding that most art forms are a two-dimensional representation of something. “Sculpture — it is what it is.”

Both Gorlitz and Bruce have master’s degrees in sculpture.

“I mean, who has that? That’s, like, ridiculous,” Bruce said.

The Step Mother Nature gallery has been open for around a year and a half. Though its sometimes confused for a sign shop or a coffee shop, Bruce said it’s been a meeting place for artists in a hamlet which former Enterprise Editor Elizabeth Izzo deemed “The Brooklyn of the Adirondacks.”

When Bruce moved here several years ago, he missed his artist community in New York City. So he was able to sculpt a community for himself here, supporting local and national artists by curating their work in what he calls “the most diverse art gallery in the Adirondacks.”

With the closure of BluSeed Studios in Saranac Lake, Bruce said he’s feeling a bit of an “art vacuum” created by its absence. BluSeed was an important place to him. He said this means venues outside of town — like his or The Station in Onchiota — have a chance to flourish and a duty to pick up the mantle.

Gorlitz has a large steel sculpture outside the gallery. It is part of his “Reliquary” series. A reliquary is something that holds sacred objects. It was also inspired by facades, which he said are made to look nice, but are faking it. They’re usually not made out of the best material. But they make him think about what’s on the inside.

On the edge of the woods is one of Carol Loeffler’s “Grandma Graffiti” pieces — a lace doily with the words “it isn’t over” nailed to a tree. Bruce said Loeffler staples these to telephone poles and trees around New York City as an inspiration to passers-by.

Bruce himself is creating a billboard mural and work supporting the LGBTQ-plus community.

His husband, David Mishalanie, is toiling away in the city now, painting a mural for the side of the building.

Saranac Laker Carol Vossler will be installing a piece from her current show at the Tahawus Gallery in AuSable Forks.

Other artists in the show include Daniel Buckingham, Mike Beitz, Mike DeLucia and Kerry Downey.