All-Season Healing and Inspiration
Bill and Denise Perry came to St. Louis from Hawaii, “where everything is green and beautiful,” Bill said. “Forest Park is the only place like that here, beautiful and green all the time.”
As a family, they enjoyed the greenery, the playgrounds — and the Park’s healing powers. “We would always take our children to the Variety Wonderland Playground,” Denise said, noting the kids are in their 20s now.
These days, Bill uses the Park for health and inspiration for his paintings. In recovery from cancer treatment, his physical therapist instructed him to walk at least three times a week. “So I walk in the Park all the time, there’s always something to see. I was just struck by it all, I liked it so much. Now I’ve started a series of paintings of the scenes I see here.”
But it’s not the iconic landscapes Bill is capturing with his brush; it’s something else the couple appreciates in Forest Park: “It’s the diverse community of people: the families, the immigrants, the students, everyone coming together in such a gorgeous space.”