Jan 17, 2015: The Water Tank Project

What: Walkabout looking at The Water Tank Project tanks
Where: Manhattan, NY
Cost:  Free!
Summary:  Look up!  There might be art up there!

With friends in town, and a beautiful (if perhaps a little chilly) day, yesterday was the perfect day to grab my camera and go admire some of the new art work going up around New York. And by going “up” around New York I really mean UP. For this art is for The Water Tank Project (thewatertankproject.org). It’s a project that covers various water tanks on the roofs of buildings (thus the “up”) with artwork in order to bring awareness to the world water crisis.

So, with a map in hand of where various tanks were, we set off. And what a wonderful time out in New York we had! And we loved the tanks. Very cool.

November 9, 2014: CANstruction NYC

Every year this is one of my favorite events to attend: It’s CANstruction New York hosted by @ArtsBrookfield and benefiting City Harvest food bank. In this event, various engineering, architectural and other organizations create sculptures made out of cans of food (thus CANstruction). After a period of display to the public, these food items are then donated to City Harvest. Attendees are also encouraged to bring canned and other non-perishable food items for City Harvest. It’s a good cause and the sculptures are frequently amazingly creative, display impressive engineering, and are just plain artistic.

There were 27 sculptures total. A couple of them appeared to have suffered something of a disaster (that is had fallen down). Below the cut I have 11 of my favorites (in addition to awards that I made up that I’d give them if I were the one handing out awards, lol)

October 13, 2014: Grand Opening of Lego Store Flatiron

So I was taking a short 'refill-my-coffee-and-check-my-twitter' break and I saw a tweet from @jonnyjlm (aka Jonny Lee Miller who plays Sherlock Holmes on Elementary). T he tweet was a picture of Lego flowers in Madison Square Park.  What’s this?  Lego flowers?  At Madison Square Park?  Well, this is clearly something I need to go see.  So, I grabbed my camera and my MetroCard (my two ‘don’t leave home without them’ items) and headed to MSqPark.

Well, it was so much more than just Lego flowers. It was a whole Lego festival-like-thang, celebrating the grand opening of a new Lego store in the Flatiron district (were the park is located).

At this event they were allowing kids to build ‘bricks’ (out of other bricks (aka Legos)), that would then be used as part of a giant Statue of Liberty made from these bricks of bricks. They also had (in addition to the giant Statue of Liberty) other full-sized Lego statues that were both fun and impressive engineering and design feats. As I wandered around looking at them (as well as the lego sculptures in the store itself), I thought of my nephew who wanted to be a Lego project designer. And I have to say…that would be a pretty cool job! So here’s to my nephew!

September 15, 2014: #StartWeekending Art Installation at Madison Square Park

A friend of mine, KayKay, who doesn’t even live in NY texted me telling me about this art installation in Madison Square Park… because she knows I adore cool little things in New York. And the text was enough to get me to grab my camera and walk up to the park. And I’m so glad I did!

Now, full disclosure: this art installation is/was sponsored by Visa, but that doesn’t make it less artistic or less meaningful. In this installation, a huge lined chalkboard was set up with the words, “I want to be…” written on it, and any and all passersby were invited to grab a piece of chalk and finish that sentence.

I actually grabbed a seat at a nearby table and just read the various responses and allowed myself to be alternately moved, amused, confused, in agreement, and generally entertained. Some people went deep. Some people went frivolous. Some people dreamed big. Some people dreamed small. But there was, I would say, a huge amount of just plain, honest, human truth on that board.

And yes, I added my own. :)

November 2, 2013: CANstruction 2013 in New York

Date: November 2, 2013 (though this goes through 11/13)
Event: CANstruction 2013 in New York
Location: Lower Manhattan, New York City
Summary: It's art! Made of food! Then donated to charity!

Tis the season of some of my favorite events. October 31 and the Halloween Parade is quickly followed by a myriad of other New York events that mark the end of the year and the Holidays. And many of those events are charity benefits of one kind or another. This is one of those: it’s called CANstruction

I first discovered CANstruction back in 2008 and have attended the event every year since then. What is CANstruction you ask? Well, their website states, “Canstruction, Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that holds annual design and build competitions to construct fantastic, giant sized, structures made entirely out of canned food. In each city after the structures are built and the winners declared the creations go on view to the general public as giant art exhibits. At the close of the competition all of the Cansculptures are dismantled food used in the structures is donated to the local food banks for distribution to community emergency feeding programs.”

It’s art. It’s engineering. It’s free to view. It helps feed the hungry.

It’s win-win-win-win.

Of course I go every year!

This year wasn’t the biggest exhibit they’ve had, but I must say I truly enjoyed the sculptures. Every year so inventive and imaginative and impressive. I love the creativity and appreciate the engineering.

In encourage everyone that can to look it up in their city – this isn’t confined to New York. Go. Enjoy. Take some canned goods to donate. A morning well spent. :) (remember, it's open through Nov 13 in New York!

Below are pictures of my favorites of the 27 sculptures they had.

October 24, 2013: Going to see a new Banksy art work

Date: October 24, 2013
Event: Going to see a new Banksy art work
Location: Hells Kitchen, New York City
Summary: I've been swept up in the Banksy hype and I love it!!

So, I’ll admit, I’ve gotten completely swept up in Banksy. It’s SOOOOOOO New York and it’s also art. Of COURSE I’m going to get swept up in it. For those that don’t know who Banksy is, he is a graffiti artist based in the U.K. who is spending a month in New York. Every morning he posts something on his website (www.banksyny.com) indicating what that day’s art is and its general location. Many of the works have been destroyed or removed already. Also, the NYPD is after him since what he’s doing (graffiti) is technically illegal. So seeing a new work as quickly as possible is key.

Sadly, I have not been in New York for most of October so I haven’t been able to actually go *see* any. So, yesterday, I decided that the moment the new work was revealed, I’d go see it, no matter where it was.

This is my little treasure hunt for the elusive Banksy art. :)

August 17, 2013: A Day Immersed In San Francisco, Part 3

Date: August 17, 2013
Event: A Day Immersed In San Francisco, Part 3
Location: San Francisco, California
Cost: $24 for transportation to SF and a day pass on the transit system
Summary: Street Cars, Rainbows, Wild Parrots, and Murals, oh my!

This is post three of four posts about my one day in San Francisco (yes, just one day, lol). See these other posts if you’re interested.

This post has photos and descriptions from the third section of my day which involved mostly a disjointed self-guided trip (including three transfers) on San Fran’s street cars, a tour of the Castro District (this was mostly unexpected happenings that I was delighted to have seen), a couple smaller but still unique staircases (with wild parrots – wild parrots!), and an alley filled with murals.

Here’s the territory I covered in this third section.

July 21, 2013: Nude Body Painting Near Central Park

Date: July 21, 2013
Event: Body Painting
Location:  New York City (near Central Park)
Cost: FREE
Summary: The human body is beautiful; this artist uses it as a canvas...(also, let's be honest, who can deny the draw of seeing someone nude in public?)

Last year I saw this artist, Andy Golub, do body painting in Times Square.  Nude body painting.  It was wonderful all around -- the painting itself that was laid down on the model's skin, the atmosphere of creating what really was a bit of a spectacle, the various reactions from the people in the crowd from aghast to leering to enthralled to giggly, and just the feeling of freedom that surrounded it all.

I became a fan.

And I knew I wanted to see him perform again.  I missed him a week earlier but was happy to see that he'd be performing today (July 21) on the corner of 5th Ave and 60th St (essentially one of the corners of Central Park).

The experience was so, so different than in Times Square!  Whereas in Times Square a crowd gathered and watched; there was a constant circle of people looking on.  But in this location?  People seemed to not know what to do...they looked, their eyes widened, they laughed, they grabbed the person they were with and pointed, they might take a few pictures, and then they moved on.  Very few people stayed to watch for any length of time, and rarely was there much of a crowd.

Further, there were problems with the Central Park police (unlike Times Square where the police hovered at the background but never interfered).  It appeared that the Central Park cops didn't like the performance.  At all.  And they made Andy Golub (the artist) and the model move off of official Park property after about an hour.

I was torn -- on the one hand, what Mr. Golub was doing was legal (he's had several legal battles with the city which were decided in his favor from what I gather) and he'd notified City Hall of his performance ahead of time.  On the other hand, Times Square (as opposed to the entrance to the Central Park zoo) does seem like a more appropriate place for this kind of performance.  The model, after all, was nude.  I could go on and on about this but it's not really the point so I'll just settle on, I could see both sides of the argument.  I'll also just say that I didn't like how the original park police officer on scene handled the situation, but the Sergent that eventually asked the artist and model to go was utterly professional about it.

Anyway, Mr. Golub simply moved over to outside the Apple store (which for some reason just made me giggle -- this nude painted guy and an artist working right outside this super geeky nerdy place -- it was kind of perfect in that way).  And even there, people would walk by on the sidewalk and gawk and stop for a picture (usually with an iPhone, of course, adding to the perfectness of it) but, again, a crowd didn't really gather.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this performance.  Again, there was this feeling of liberation and freedom by osmosis almost, via this model's nudity.  I heard more than one person voice their admiration for what he (the model) was doing.  And every comment I heard was positive.  There was nothing sexual about this performance, nothing salacious.  It was just art, with the human body as an integral part of that art.

Pictures below... there are one or two that do have male nudity.  Nothing you wouldn't see by looking at pictures of Greek statues, however!

June 16, 2013 Sing for Hope Pianos at Lincoln Center

Date: June 16, 2013
Event: Sing for Hope Pianos at Lincoln Center
Cost: FREE
Summary: 88 uniquely and artistically decorated pianos staged in the plaza at Lincoln Center with the public invited to come to enjoy them and play them.  A feast for the eyes and the ears!

For a couple of years now I’ve heard of this "Sing for Hope" pop-up Pianos (http://singforhope.org/).  Essentially, 88 differently painted pianos scattered throughout NYC, left in parks or other public places for people -- anyone, everyone -- to play.  The theme:  art for all.  I had always meant to try to go see some in their native locations but never quite got to it.  So I was thrilled to hear they were doing a closing ceremony of sorts by gathering all 88 pianos at Lincoln Center for all day Sunday.  After a morning bike ride and a quick breakfast, I grabbed my camera and headed to Lincoln Center.

And it was even better than I had expected.  So much better.  There are times when I just want to throw my arms out and hug an event and laugh in pure enjoyment.  This was one of those times.  I'm not sure I can fully explain why but it just was.  I had expected to fall in love with the pianos themselves, the colors and creativeness of each.  But I hadn't expected the pure cacophony of sound -- people playing pianos located right next to each other but playing different music.  Yet it wasn't noise, it wasn't dissonant, it was just so many different musical notes coming at you much like each piano was something different visually.  So I loved the pianos and I loved the music.  But I think what struck me the most, the thing that really made me want to hug the entire scene was the people.  The different races, ages, gender, types of dress, types of style that each person had.  It was a cross section of New York.  Not of high society New York (which one might think when one thinks of 'piano playing at Lincoln Center') but of all of New York.  Everyone coming together to just enjoy some music.

When I looked through all my pictures (I won't admit exactly how many I took), I would have expected that most would have been of the pianos.  But no, the biggest block of pictures were of the people playing the pianos.  The people, the players, they were what really captured my imagination.

Sadly, it is impossible to impart through pictures the audio aspect of the experience (even harder than imparting the taste and smells of the food festivals), but I hope the pictures at least tell a story you can understand....

June 1 & 2, 2013: HOWL Festival

Date: June 1 & 2, 2013
Event: HOWL Festival
Cost: FREE
Summary: It's like they are making an art museum right before your eyes.

I had never heard of the HOWL Festival.  Or maybe I had but hadn't really thought much about it.  But as I was looking for something to do this weekend, this looked interesting.  It is an arts festival encompassing music, dance, visual art, poetry, etc.  Pretty much everything.  It's probably easiest if you read about it at their website here:  About HOWL.

While there was lots going on on various stages and locations in Tomkins Square Park, I most went for Art Around The Park which the festival website describes thusly: "A live action weekend-long event involving 140 artists of all ages turns an 8 foot high, 900 foot long blank "canvas" encircling the exterior of Tompkins Square Park into an explosion of color and creativity."

And let me tell you, it did NOT disappoint.  AT ALL.  It was amazing.  Awesome.  The creativity, the creation, the colors, the controlled chaos, and all the other things that don't begin with 'c'!  Seriously, each artist used their canvas so differently and seeing each style, each bit of invention, some thought provoking, some very much not, all of them interesting in their own way.  Loved them all.  Some more than others, of course.  And to be there to watch them being created -- not just to see the finished product but to *watch* them being created.  It was wonderful.  It really was.

And if you're in New York during HOWL, I highly recommend going on Saturday to see it all happening.  And then if you've got time and if you're curious, head back on Sunday to see the finished product.

LOTS and LOTS (and lots) of pictures under the cut.  :)