A trip to the ocean with another couple allowed us to score a really cool vacation beach house, obviously owned by some sort of designer that probably built many things themselves. There were a lot of great details throughout with great uses of wood and metal, like the ledge in front of the fireplace in the image below. A nautical theme ran throughout expressed through clean lines and interesting use of materials like the image above where metal cleats where attached to a wood strip for use as coat hooks. This detail was also in the bathrooms for towels.
The house actually sat along the edge of a lake just a block inland from the ocean and in an effort to reduce the disturbance along the lake edge, the house was raised up on metal beams, allowing the natural vegetation flow underneath with a simple gravel path to the staircase leading up to the entry deck.
A rain chain connects the roof to the ground with a stone splash block…
The deck leading to the canoe launch didn’t take out any trees…
The gravel driveway and the vegetated swale…
There were also some fun pieces of art and furniture. My favorites were the chair at the entry that was a simple piece of metal with a strip of tan leather through the top for a seat and especially the fabulous set of 3 paintings of frying eggs in the kitchen.
Wednesday July 21st 2010, 8:15 pm
Filed under: Art
I happened upon this piece of unique art piece during a recent trip to my hometown of Port Angeles and I thought it was so simple and lovely. This resident installed an old bike wheel upon one of the poles on his chain link fence and attached some glasses to it in order to catch the wind. When it spun in the light breeze it was really quite lovely, especially when it hit the sunlight.
Beware that if you have your sound on, the ferry was leaving right as I shot the video thus picking up the very loud blast of the horn.
Tara Donovan, installation artist out of Brooklyn, New York, creates pieces made out of everyday ordinary objects like drinking straws, cups, fishing wire and paper. These simple objects when are then transformed into amazing textural and topographical works of art. The individual object then is almost no longer recognizable in it’s original form but has taken on a new life form. The installation in the image above feels like some sort of life form bubbling out of the ceiling, reflecting light in different ways throughout the form. But the piece is made simply with a sea of styrofoam cups and hot glue. A detail shot is below.
Below are images of an untitled piece from 2003 that uses paper plates held together by hot glue to form highly texture spheres the look almost soft and fuzzy from a distance.
“Haze” was made in 2005 from stacking an amazing amount of clear drinking straw to create a sensual wall that bubbles up in places that gives it an almost liquid look.
The following piece uses ripped up tarpaper that has been stacked into an undulating landform titled “Transplanted”. It was firt exhibited outdoors in the IBM Exhibition Space on 57th and Madison Ave. in New York City in the fall of 2003. Following it’s time in the outdoors, it was moved into the Ace Gallery indoor exhibition space.
Wednesday April 14th 2010, 12:16 pm
Filed under: Art
I love maps, all maps and many can even resemble works of art like the recent map work by Karen O’Leary. It seems so simple, just cut out the non-circulatory pieces of city maps like Paris, New York and London and yet the result is stunning. Karen carefully cuts each map by hand using either standard maps or paper from rice to cardstock.
The above images are Sydney, Australia at the beginning and the Paris, France just above with Rome, Italy and New York City below.
Luzinterruptus, a Spanish guerrilla-style art collective based in Madrid who’s work I adore, is at it again but this time they’ve set their aim at the vegetated and the vertical. Their humorous criticism here is two-fold. One, the lack of green in urban spaces and two, the vertical gardens that are becoming so popular in many countries that the group feels lacks a certain level of accessibility in addition to the cost. They’ve chosen to make their statement in a traditional Luzinterruptus way, an at-first beautiful installation with light using materials chosen to deliver a message, installed by black-clothed messengers at night.
In addition to their message about urban green space as well as the criticism on vertical walls, the installation made me think about the food that we see in grocery stores today. Food now is packaged, preserved and made to look beautiful as it sits on shelves year round, completely disconnected from seasons and geography. It looks good but it is essentially artificial in nature. Perhaps the discussion of packaged beauty reaches far and wide, beyond urban greenery. And while I’d argue that vertical greenery is beneficial in many ways, there is a bit of a fad that has developed where blankets of green are appearing in various shapes and configurations in some design drawings and even the occasional built project that seem to have lost touch with the real purpose and are reaching more into the category of adornment. Here’s what the artists have to say about their installation,
With the installation Packaged vertical garden, we wanted to promote the preservation of urban greenery, because if we continue to eradicate it from public spaces or reducing it to inaccessible vertical faces, the only form of contact with nature will be in supermarket refrigerators, packaged with expiry dates.
In general, it is more comfortable for city planners to build inhospitable cement spaces, where there is no need for special care, than to design green spaces where the citizens can spend their time and enjoy public places.
In addition, we have noticed the increasing proliferation of vertical gardens, which are interesting decoratively speaking, but expensive to maintain and with which the citizens cannot interact or put to real use, being a minimal attempt at providing greenery, but in an inaccessible and artificial way…
For this installation we used 110 transparent food packaging containers, inside which we put leaves and branches found in the trees in the area and lights of course. Afterwards, we placed them on a wall in an ugly square in the center of Madrid and there we left our form of fashionable vertical garden.
Previous posts on the work of Luz Interruptus have been written about their recent and first ever public participation project called Caged Memories, their installation for Madrid’s White Night festival, an installation titled “Green Light Grafts” and also their piece titled “A Cloud of Bags Visit the Prado” where 80 recycled and lit bags were brought to the steps of the Prado Museum in Madrid with the overarching message to recycle. Also check out more of their work on their website.
Growing Vine Street is an inspirational concept developed back in the ’90’s by a group of Belltown neighborhood residents in downtown Seattle that revolves around expanding the Belltown P-Patch and merging it with the idea of turning the 8 blocks of Vine Street into a green street that would provide public access to the waterfront. These blocks are intended to act as an example for urban greening, to provide a desireable setting for pedestrians within the streetscape while capturing and treating stormwater through biofiltration and enhancing natural habitat.
“Central to the Growing Vine Street concept is the runnel, an urban stream running the street’s entire eight-block length surrounded by native greenery. Storm runoff from the roofs of buildings bordering Vine will be collected in large cisterns in each block to supply the water for the stream. As the water flows through the plantings lining the watercourse, it will be treated through the process of biofiltration, which will remove many of its impurities so that it will be clean enough to be released directly into Elliott Bay-without passing through the City’s overworked water treatment facilities.”
“Between Fifth Avenue and First Avenue, Vine Street is relatively level. In this section, the public right-of-way will be reconfigured so that one side is narrow (with a sidewalk and narrow planting strip) and the other is wide. The runnel will meander through the wide side of the street, surrounded by as much greenery as developers and residents can manage. These wide segments will form a refreshing linear park, a setting for creative public art as well as nature.”
“At First Avenue, Vine Street slopes to Elliott Avenue, where it again levels out. Here the street right-of-way will be reconfigured in a switchback alignment to allow for more dramatic water features. One such project is the Cistern Steps adjacent to the Belltown P-Patch. The Cistern Steps is planned as a series of terraced planting areas stepping down the slope. Water from the runnel will flow into the top garden, overflow into the next, and continue to a small pool at Elliott Avenue.”
The entire length of Vine Street was not intended to be built all at once but rather incrementally as new development occurs with each segment connecting into the larger plan over time. So far, two of the planned projects have been completed, the first was the Beckoning Cistern in 2003 which went in as part of the development of The 81 Vine Building. This is the first of what is planned as at least one large cistern for every block to collect rooftop runoff. The next project to follow was the Cistern Steps in 2004, the cascading water feature that runs alongside a flowing set of stairs along the edge of the Belltown P-Patch. Eventhough the entire plan has not yet been completed, the project is seen as a success, has brought about a great deal of praise and is looked upon as one of the pioneer projects of the Seattle green streets.
Beckoning Cistern
The first project to emerge from the plan, the streetscape and artwork of the Beckoning Cistern were constructed along with work at The 81 Vine Building. Local designer Buster Simpson saw inspiration from Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Like Adam reaching out to touch the hand of God, the 10-foot tall cistern is designed like a hand that reaches out over the sidewalk from a shirt sleeve and towards the downspout which leans out from the building.
The connection from the downspout to the index finger allows some of the rooftop runoff to run into the cistern with the rest cascading over and down into the water garden and series of stepped pools that run along the sidewalk along with native vegetation. A smaller vertical pipe garden also runs up the side of the building.
The Cistern Steps
The steps are an extension of the Beckoning Cistern that flow the two blocks from it’s base and alongside the Belltown P-Patch down towards the waterfront. Seattle-based firm SvR Design, an integrated group of civil engineers, landscape architects and planners provided the streetscape and stormwater design for this dramatic cascade of stormwater terraces and pedestrian steps.
“The Cistern Steps consists of a series of three terraced concrete planters tapering from a wide plaza at the alley to the narrow sidewalk right-of-way at the intersection of Vine Street and Elliott Avenue. The runnel will flow from planter to planter, ending in a pool formed from a large, rough-hewn piece of Northwest jade at the foot of the slope. In this segment of Vine Street, there is no adjacent building to feed the runnel, so water will be received from the newly constructed Vine Building across the street, which was designed with a special collection system for roof runoff just to supply the runnel.”
“Like the Beckoning Cistern, the Cistern Steps has been designed to delight pedestrians as well as to process and use roof runoff in an ecological manner. The water gardens of the planters will echo the lush greenery of the adjacent Belltown P-Patch. Even more color will be added with inlaid tile signage on the plaza walls at the alley and on the risers of the steps in the sidewalk passing between the P-Patch and the Cistern Steps. Even the stair railings will be works of art forged by Belltown’s own Black Dog Forge.”
SvR Design is also the firm responsible for the Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel previously posted about here and with an update after a rain event with pictures here.
Growing up on a farm as a child, I was fairly well connected to the idea of food, place and time but of course didn’t think about it much back then. In 2008, while working in Germany and sitting next to a girl from Colombia, I made a comment one day about the fruit bowl she kept on her desk and the amazing amount of apples that she ate. Every single day she would be happily crunching away on an apple, a fruit of great abundance in the area of southern Germany where I lived which was surrounded by countless orchards. She told me that she grew up with the kinds of fruit I would consider exotic like mangos and papayas but the only apples they could grow were very small and not as flavorful. When she arrived in Germany she was in heaven being surrounded by all the delicious and fresh local apples. It sort of stopped me because I had moved from a place in the US that had a great abundance of apples so to me it was of little difference that I could buy apples at the market. I began thinking more and more about how fruit can define place, not just what is cultivated but what can grow naturally just out in the open. I thought back to my childhood again and realized that a lot of what defined that time and place in my mind had to do with fruit, like wild huckleberries. I remember strategically choosing a favorite sitting spot in a tree because it was within reach of the little red berries that I would sit and snack on.
Awhile ago I came across a great group that followed along this line of thinking, using the fruit as their lense to investigate the ecologicial, social and political issues surrounding food and land use as well as to inspire community building. They are called, Fallen Fruit, an art collaboration created by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young that began six years ago.
The trio first began in their own stomping grounds of the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles by mapping out “public fruit” which included the creation of street-by-street diagrams of fruit trees that grew on public land. They were especially interested in the use of this public fruit and expanding on the idea of a city planting with the goal of helping to support their populace through something of a planned urban orchard.
The groups website describes what they are about:
“Fallen Fruit investigates urban space, ideas of neighborhood and new forms of located citizenship and community. From protests to proposals for new urban green spaces, we aim to reconfigure the relation between those who have resources and those who do not, to examine the nature of & in the city, and to investigate new, shared forms of land use and property. Fallen Fruit is an art collaboration that began with creating maps of public fruit: the fruit trees growing on or over public property in Los Angeles.”
“Over time our interests have expanded from mapping public fruit to include Public Fruit Jams in which we invite the citizens to bring homegrown or public fruit and join in communal jam-making; Nocturnal Fruit Forages, nighttime neighborhood fruit tours; Community Fruit Tree Plantings on the margins of private property and in community gardens; Public Fruit Park proposals in Hollywood, Los Feliz and downtown LA; and Neighborhood Infusions, taking the fruit found on one street and infusing it in alcohol to capture the spirit of the place.”
The trio doesn’t just stop at Los Angeles, or even the United States but finds inspiration in whatever part of the world that calls to them. They have followed activites around the world that have interested them in regards to the social aspect of food from documenting the harvest of isolated, wild berries in Norway to following a boy in Copenhagen all the way to Colombia to research and study the activities surrounding the banana.
While all of their projects are interesting in their own way, I was especially drawn to a project titled Public Fruit Jam that made its first appearance in 2006 and is ongoing. They say everyone has a fruit story and I have many but one thing that I always recall with great fondness, even from my very early childhood years, the days I’d spend making jam with my grandparents from the fruit we picked together on their farm. Making jam is so easy a child can participate and there is little concentration involved so during the time it is an incredible opportunity for socializing. This event is especially interestined because by attending and bringing fruit, each person from the community shows up with a story as well as an interest in the topic and together people can explore their connections through the fruit they gathered in their own neighborhood and walk away with something they made through shared resources and effort, adding layers to the story they began with. A description of the project from the site:
“Fallen Fruit invites the public to bring home-grown or street picked fruit and collaborate with us in making a collective fruit jams. Working without recipes, we ask people to sit with others they do not already know and negotiate what kind of jam to make: if I have lemons and you have figs, we’d make lemon fig jam (with lavender). Usually held in a gallery or museum, this event highlights the social and public nature of Fallen Fruit’s work, and we consider it a collaboration with the public as well as each other.”
Their latest project, called EATLACMA, will be held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art beginning this month and will run through November. A video below provides a teaser of the project and the LACMA website describes the project:
“EATLACMA is a year-long investigation into food, art, culture and politics. Fusing the richness of LACMA’s permanent collection with the ephemerality of food and the natural growth cycle, EATLACMA’s projects consider food as a common ground that explores the social role of art and ritual in community and human relationships. EATLACMA unfolds seasonally, with artist’s gardens planted and harvested on the museum campus, hands-on public events, and a concurrent exhibition, Fallen Fruit Presents The Fruit of LACMA (June 27-November 7, 2010). It culminates in a day-long event (November 7, 2010) in which over fifty artists and collectives will activate, intervene, and re-imagine the entire museum’s campus and galleries.”
Chicago-based political artist Michael Rakowitz has been working on a project called paraSITE since 1998 that tackles the issue of homelessness that is an unfortunate reality of all urban areas. His inventive approach seeks to reuse warm air that leaves buildings through outtake vents for portable and personal temporary homeless shelters. He has built and disbursed over 30 different designs through different urban sites in New York City, Boston, Cambridge and Baltimore. All shelters were constructed using temporary materials that were readily available on the streets. The image above was constructed out of clear trash bags, ZipLoc bags and clear waterproof packing tape on a budget of $5.00.
The artist chose to name the project after the parasitic organism due to it’s place in the environment as something that exploits the energy of it’s host, like these temporary structures do by using the warm air that leaves a building from its heating, ventillation and HVAC systems for both inflation and heat.
The most interesting thing about this project is not just the general idea but the fact that it is not only site specific but person specific in that each shelter uses materials found on-site and are used to construct a shelter that responds to the specific needs and concerns of each individual like security, privacy, space and even laws.
The image below, which is from New York City, is especially interesting because it was specifically designed like a sleeping bag to get around the anti-tent law which states that any structure on city property that is 3 1/2 feet or taller would be considered an illegal encampment. The man was even confronted by police officers on several occassions but then left him alone after measuring the shelter and finding that it did indeed conform to the law.
Given that the situation of homelessness in our cities is on the rise, acts like this fuel the debate of what to do and what the future might be for our urban spaces as it relates to these people constantly seeking refuge amongst the buildings. From the project site,
“While these shelters were being used, they functioned not only as a temporary place of retreat, but also as a station of dissent and empowerment; many of the homeless users regarded their shelters as a protest device, and would even shout slogans like ‘We beat you Uncle Sam!’ The shelters communicated a refusal to surrender, and made more visible the unacceptable circumstances of homeless life within the city.”
“For the pedestrian, paraSITE functioned as an agitational device. The visibly parasitic relationship of these devices to the buildings, appropriating a readily available situation with readily available materials elicited immediate speculation as to the future of the city: would these things completely take over, given the enormous number of homeless in our society? Could we wake up one morning to find these encampments engulfing buildings like ivy?”
The artist doesn’t propose this as a solution for this very large and global problem but simply wishes to assist in furthering the discussion.
Its point of departure is to present a symbolic strategy of survival for homeless existence within the city, amplifying the problematic relationship between those who have homes and those who do not have homes.”
Thursday February 11th 2010, 7:30 pm
Filed under: Art, Public Space
One of my favorite urban art collectives, Luz Interruptus of Madrid, Spain, recently did a lovely installation called Recuerdos Enjaulados or Caged Memories that included their first ever public participation. Typically their installations are more of the guerilla nature.
On a sunday in the Plaza de Ministriles in Madrid where the collection would be installed, the art collective invited te neighborhood out to participate by bringing little mementos which would be placed inside the cages to be hung in the plaza. Many people joined in the festivities with music, dancing and a warm breakfast in the middle of a community street that was closed down for 5 hours during the event. In the end over 300 items were collected ranging from the spontaneous to the emotional that would act as a representation of the community as a whole, helping to bring these people together and instill a personal atsmophere into the space.
The items were each individually placed in golden cages and hung over the plaza like strings of lights. At night they would be illuminated to convert the previously gray plaza into a beautiful place where people could gather under the light and enjoy the warmth and the sentimental nature of the space. The cages were scheduled to be hung for 20 days, half at the end of 2009 and the other half into the beginning of the new year.
An unusual thing happened after the installation was complete, it snowed a great deal and covered the plaza with a blanket of white and filled the cages. The look was beautiful. But unfortunately, the weight of snow caused a few of the cages to fall. The installation had to be taken down and reinstalled once the snow disappeared. Above are some photos of the beautiful snow-filled plaza on the night of the first snowfall and below are images of the completed installation as looks lit at night after being reinstalled.
