With fall fast approaching, the Fort Point neighborhood is getting excited about Open Studios. We are looking forward to a stellar turnout and can't wait to see all the creations that have been made by our local artists.
Open Studios is not the only thing to get excited about: FPAC's Fall Public Art series is about to kick off, with temporary public art works to be installed in the Fort Point neighborhood by early October. The six week program includes art installed outside around Fort Point as well as floating in the Fort Point Channel.
Through this new blog, we will let you follow each of the artists from conception to construction of their public art works.
The four Projects to look forward to are....drum roll please..
Tim Murdoch's: Tidal Flowers
Tidal Flowers is made possible by the Friends of Fort PointChannelnal support: Visual Arts Sea Grant from the University of Rhode Island
Tidal Flowers will consist of 5 floating flowers that open as the tide ebbs from the channel and close as the tide returns. The sculptures will be entirely made from recycled detergent bottles collected primarily from the community and if necessary elsewhere. Each flower will have it’s own mooring and be secured with 400lb mono filament as well as aluminum rivets and hand sewn together. Each flower will be roughly 15 feet in diameter.
The flowers will resemble natural flowers using the plastic coloring of the detergent bottles as a palette. There will be empty bottles attached to the petals and to the center pistil that will provide the buoyancy. The chain connecting the flowers to the moorings will be a set length based upon height of the tide and the location of the channel where the flowers are laid. As the tide fills the channel the buoyant bottles will be pulled down under the water level, thus closing the petals.
The “Great Pacific garbage patch” located within the North Pacific gyre, that has grown to the size of Texas, is an obvious influence for this work as well as the recent oil spill and the subsequent detergents used to “clean” it up. As an accompaniment to the installation I will provide several didactics placed on the bridges and walkways where the sculptures can be
easily viewed. These didactics will contain information regarding plastics in the environment that are filling our oceans and causing widespread destruction of marine life.
As the tide fills the channel it covers our neglect and for a moment we forget our responsibility. Slowly though, in a daily rhythm, the water recedes and the flowers once again emerge. The flowers will be a reminder of the harm we have done to our home and a relentless call to action before the tide can no longer hide our shame.
You may have seen one of Tim's flowers for this project already in the Channel, blue blossoming petals floating on the water are a modern day Monet water lily. The next post about these fabulous public art projects will focus on Tim's progress with Tidal Flowers.
photo courtesy of Jodie Baehre
Elisa h. Hamilton and Andrew Edman's : Channeling Fort Point
This project is funded by The Fund for The Arts, a public program of the New Englandation for the Arts, made possible by generous support from anonymous donors.
"Channeling Fort Point is our sculptural interpretation of the vibrant and increasingly vital role that the artists' presence plays in Fort Point as well as the world at large. Created primarily of copper and suggestive of a timeline in form, the sculpture alludes to the neighborhood's rich industrial past but also points into the future. Colored panels speckle the copper structure, muted at first and then gradually gaining in saturation as the eye moves right, representing the vitality that the artists’ presence has brought to Fort Point by giving the neighborhood new life, fostering growth and awareness, and promoting a sense of community and public ownership."~Hamilton & Edman
Karen Stein, Ben Gaydos and Matthew Shanley
This project is funded by The Fund for The Arts, a public program of the New Englandation for the Arts, made possible by generous support from anonymous donors.
Colorful tape laid out in simple patterns and letter-form shapes will transform the Summer Street bridge and the A Street fence. This installation will engage the viewer both visually and intellectually, by raising the question—who will imagine the future of all this.
Brian Bresnahan: Cataract-Water Lens System
This project is funded by The Fund for The Arts, a public program of the New Englandation for the Arts, made possible by generous support from anonymous donors.
Brian Bresnahan's new public art installation, "Cataract," is a large-scale, double-sided waterfall monument that emulates the design of eastern spiritual gateways while functioning as an optical lens of philosophical transfiguration. The monument's parallel planes of flowing water and shifting light distort the observer's perspective and understanding of his/her surrounding environment, thereby promoting fresh interpretations of that place, as well as an evolving sense of its significance.
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