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

Mustering out for The Long Walk.

Susan Robb in the house along with flags, coolers &tc. Hair marginally on fire here in Public Art. All part of the job, people.

Party at the Paramount was wonderful. Here’s the ceiling of the main lobby projected with stars for Lucia Neare’s performance. Luminous clocks and white roses to end the evening’s performances, which featured African rhythms and song, a capella harmonizing, violin, chamber music and more. 

This lovely photo may be found on the Paramount Importance blog with a recap.

The Seattle Theatre Group (our host at the Paramount) has a recap too - see it here. 

Thanks everybody!

ESSB 5834

The  Governor is signing our bill today! Folks from the office are going down to witness the moment and we are deep in party planning mode. June 28 (that’s a Tuesday night) from 7:00 - 9:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre. Come on down and bask in the gratitude, people. You made it happen. Arts & Heritage matters -  believe it.

storming the sound conference: oh yes

A week ago we took the aLIVe project to Storming the Sound, a day-long conference for educators and activists who are working to preserve and restore Puget Sound, hosted by the Seattle Art Museum. The thread of infrastructure and runoff water that contribute to poisoning this great resource connected aLIVe to the attendees. There were great keynotes, giving an overview of the state of the Sound and activism on its behalf. I wish I could have attended all the breakout sessions. In our presentation to about 20 folks the video embedded in our Powerpoint presentation was a no-go (universal media file, you are my dream). Instead, we used the time to hear from everyone in the room. What was their interest and connection to the Sound, and how might they use the approaches of the artists in aLIVe in their work? Fantastic. Never has a Fail Whale given so much back. From a scientist studying orcas who has identified runoff water as the most poisonous and dangerous thing in the orca’s environment to graduate students, classroom educators and activists, the stories added up to passion, reflection and connection. At the end of the session people were exchanging business cards, deep in conversation and energized. We felt so lucky to be in the room with them all. 

Blues improv on Sound Transit Light Rail - supported by Site Specific programming at 4Culture.

Jessica Partnow and Sarah Stuteville from the Common Language Project were in the house yesterday to talk about their upcoming Seattle Digital Literacy Initiative and to kick around some ideas for working together around issues of art, digital literacy and equity and social justice. It was exciting to hear about their work in the classroom, bringing digital skills and media literacy to underserved area students. 

It’s becoming ever more important to be able to tell the story of creative work once it’s made in order to connect to community and find a larger audience, as well as make sense of an increasingly fractured landscape of news and information. Middle school and high school students are comfortable with digital media, and know how to make some of it work, but don’t necessarily know how to leverage that knowledge for their own education or creative goals. They may have pieces of the digital tool kit but lack the knowledge or ability to put it all together. Anything that levels the playing field makes for a better game all around, right? Brava @clp_mag!

Johnnie Olivan’s Trashy Trike, the last and minty fresh bike cart created for aLIVe, a Low Impact Vehicle exploration, commissioned by 4Culture. No riders were harmed in the making of this video, but a LOT of trash and recycling was picked up. In style.

h20 flow -  a very low impact vehicle

Johnny Olivan’s latest bike car is designed to collect and store rainwater, which can then be used to water the landscape. Fully loaded, its weight makes this is a very low impact vehicle. No matter, it’s gorgeous - more time to admire it as it sails by. 

jane tsong’s artwork the first to be installed at brightwater

The Brightwater Treatment Facility, slated to open in 2011, is a remarkable piece of infrastructure as well as an impressive architectural presence. Integrated artwork by nine artists has been commissioned for the Plant, Environmental Education and Community Center, and the Conveyance route. Eduardo Calderon has been photographing the site and staff since 2005 and temporary artworks will be commissioned for both the Brightwater facility and its conveyance over the coming years. 

The first artwork element to be installed is by Jane Tsong, who has created a series of works designed to highlight the functions of the plant through calling attention to its products in the realms of earth, air and water. Artwork will be installed in the biosolid hopper (earth), the odor control stacks (air) and the RW and ME weirs (water), where water exits from the membrane filtration process as a waterfall, cleansed and crystal clear.

The artwork is conceived as a series of blessings for the processes of the plant. The name of the artwork (its length earns it a separate post) incorporates the titles of all three elements, the full text of a poem written in collaboration with poet Judith Roche. In the photograph above you see the installation at the weir site. The viewer will read the text, fabricated in stainless steel letters that diminish in size in forced perspective, through the water. That this piece is the first manifestation of the artwork to be installed at Brightwater is a lovely happenstance, for its clarity and poetics embody all the artwork designed for the site. We look forward with much anticipation to the Grand Opening next year, when you will be able to tour the plant and see this and other artworks for yourself.

photo courtesy of Tina Hastings & Tom Chapman, Brightwater staff