this-is-not-native:

…because all too often, I see people respond to accusations of appropriation by stating, “but culture was meant to be shared!” And while that’s all well and good, there is a huuuuuuge difference between sharing, and 99% of the crap that gets posted at this blog.

Ever been to a powwow?…

austinkleon:

About 20 years ago, Nelson Molina, a trash man in NYC, started collecting little bits and pieces of art that he found along his route. He now has a collection of over 1,000 pieces, called The Trash Museum.

The second floor of this garage, long deemed too weak to support vehicles, has…

rhea137:

Dr. Rosemary Firman, librarian of Hereford Cathedral, uses a conservation vacuum as she finishes cleaning one of the historic manuscripts in the cathedral’s peculiar Chained Library during the annual spring clean on Jan. 24 in Hereford, England. The famous library contains 1,500 books, including 227 medieval manuscripts. Given the delicate state of the literary works, specialists and trained volunteers must spend a week out of the year cleaning the entire collection.

 

Chaining books for security was widespread in libraries from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, and Hereford Cathedral’s 17-century Chained Library is the largest to survive with all its chains, rods and locks intact. MNN’s photos of the week

(Source: mothernaturenetwork)

SPATIAL TACTICS Leif Anderson in Gallery4Culture

January 5 – 27, 2012

All photo credits : Leif Anderson

rising sun, 2011, Archival Inkjet Print, 44” x 56.5”(ed of 3)

a minor opiate, 2011, Archival Inkjet Print, 44” x 56.5” (ed of 3)

conversation, 2011, Archival Inkjet Print, 31.5” x 44” (ed of 3)

weak/strong, 2010, Archival Inkjet Print, 31.5” x 44” (ed of 3)

scenic route   2011, Archival Inkjet Print, 56.5” x 44” (ed of 3)

cairn, 2011, Archival Inkjet Print, 44”x 56.5” (ed of 3)

Have you all seen tweepsmap? It analyzes your followers and locates them on a world map. Here’s ours - it’s a blast to see where everyone is from and how far our reach goes.

Miserable failure to update the tumblr site with project highlights. Vowing to do better as plans have been revised and we will leave this site up for another few months at least. Happy new year, one and all. 

closeout

Heading into December and getting ready to close out a lot of things: 2011, this Tumblr blog and my time at 4Culture. Tumblr has been great for more informal stories than those we put up on blog4Culture. I’ve thought of it as our office studio site. Since I won’t be here to maintain the site we will close out Tumblr at the end of the year. In the meantime here’s a photo set of recent projects that are in the queue for project profile updates: Andy Cao’s Pillow Field, Dan Webb’s Gnome, Donald Fels’ Waterplant, Gene McMahon’s 13 Visionaries, Linda Beaumont’s Standing Tall, Norie Sato’s ‘Round and ‘Round, Johnnie Olivan’s H2O Flow (representiing aLIVe), Betsy Damon’s Homage to Living Systems, Laura Haddad’s Undercurrent, Susan Robb’s The Long Walk Seattle.

Since the updates will have to wait until the new year, I’ll post a mini-profile of each of these projects during December. It’ll be fun to look back at the year’s accomplishments.

Tina Hoggatt, Outreach and Education, Public Art 4Culture

aLIVe artist Johnnie Olivan joined 4Culture for the grand opening of Brightwater Treatment Plant. A great video he made of his impressions from that day.

bi (k)o garden at 4Culture for parking day

Melissa Glenn and Matt Inpanbutr of SHKS Architects bring their aLIVe project Bi (k)o Garden to 4Culture as part of the AIA Seattle Design Festival and Parking Day in downtown Seattle. The “garden” is an elegant, sculptural form that occupies the footprint of a typical parking space.  Within that car-sized rectangle, a slim slot houses a retro looking bike – an effective visual reminder of how much room is devoted to parking in modern American cities.  The garden uses plant materials and construction techniques found in green roof and bio filtration systems, offering a poetic avenue for pondering the connection between paved surface run-off and water quality. They’ll be installing the 15th in front of our building. Friday, September 16th is Parking Day. 

river artist elizabeth conner: e-fishing the exit channel