Posts

BETWEEN THE ART

-
Image
  Visiting the small town of Hickory NC, reminded me again on how important Art can be in the fabric of success for these places. The Hickory Museum of Art is a wonderful place, originally started in an abandoned high school by local visionaries that recognized the importance that art could bring. It helped that Hickory residence had a creative heritage forged in the design and manufacturing of furniture. On the day we visited the museum, the key exhibit was Virgil Ortiz multimedia art. His pottery, videos and stories of how native Americans survived and overcome is a visual feast. The link to the museum and exhibit are below. Like larger museums, Hickory incorporates the spaces between the art to engage and draw in the patron. Here there are architectural vistas and seating that rewards wandering. Even space for emerging artists is provided via their “fridge walls” where art they produce can be left. Hickory like a select number of other small towns has recognized how art can play...
Post a Comment
Read more

STUDY OF AN IKEA FLOOR

-
Image
 Sometimes even in the land of bland, you find small gems to keep your imagination alive. You find ways to furnish your 560 square ft. or even 360 ft apartment. It made me remember how it was to own property once. The 40 acres we called Amber Ranch. The land made you feel wealthy. I wonder what the apartment dweller feels, where nothing is permanent or real, just Ikea all around...
Post a Comment
Read more

A CLOSED WAREHOUSE

-
Image
  It lived many lives. Once a thriving warehouse for the textile industry, carefully maintained and grand. Then the decline. A reprieve of sorts when a large furniture store occupied it for a time. Even that swept away, leaving the three giant buildings alone. Like birds picking at the bones, a few small businesses moved in. You wondered as you walked around what the work inside was like. Were there ghosts from the past who walked with the workers under dim lights in the dark recesses of the place, whispering "be wise move on." The remains of the giant buildings too big to capture in one walk, only threads of life there and a road out…
Post a Comment
Read more

ODE TO JEAN- MICHEL BASQUIAT

-
Image
                                                    Opinions bad and good surround the work of Basquiat. Was he a genius with a brush or just a lucky young man made famous by wild times of Andy Warhol.  A critic once said that in the darkest corners of the art world where paintings are left to die and be forgotten, “that Basquiat’s work will only occupy one second of even that space.”  He was not a fan. Nor are a lot of other people, put off by the garish colors, inhuman shapes and the un defined nature of his whole work. Still there are many things you can learn from Basquiat. The huge number of painting he did in his short life, how he was not afraid to paint big, show what he had, along the way gaining huge following and art sales. Perhaps more than anything though, you are impressed by the free nature of his work.  How somehow he was able t...
Post a Comment
Read more

STUDY OF A SQUARE

-
Image
  Providence Square is one of those places almost forgotten. Houses stripped away to foundations, buildings half finished, dreams and stories left behind. 150 acres so close to the city, can't be left for long. Now new life stirs with plans for new stores and low income housing. Maybe they might find a way to make this work, tilling the acres to bring back the color of wealth there...
Post a Comment
Read more

FLOOR MARKS IN A DYING MALL

-
Image
   It’s one of the first signs of a malls decline. Flaws and marks begin to appear on the floors. Management dutifully notes and flags them both for safety and the hope that they will be fixed. Tho money never comes though and they remain just more evidence that a malls days are numbered. The glitter of the place only a memory.
Post a Comment
Read more

SOUTH PARK GARAGE

-
Image
  There are buildings that create aw, cause you to pause, standing as a monument to the architect. Few parking garages engender the same. A developer once cautioned, “Never pay an architect until he finishes the garage.” They are the last thing the architect wants to do, no more than a necessity. If not done well, construction can leave rough edges and marks that remain scars for years. Over time though they take on their own artful way. Such a place is South Park Mall’s parking garage. A giant sprawling place left largely empty the majority of the year, except holidays. Even on quiet days finding your way into and out of the place is a puzzle.  In the sixties, cities seemed to fall in love with giant urban garages. Places they envisioned would make parking your car easy and keep downtown shopping attractive. Often though, they became dark holes in the urban fabric, especially as shopping trends changed. It’s easy to spin a crime story or worse in a dark parking garage. You pa...
Post a Comment
Read more