BLOG ARCHIVES:
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2009
- 2008
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
Truth Through Whimsy
Researching today's show on public art got me digging out not-so-old pictures of my own venture in the field. A lettuce box inspired me to create a one-piece gallery in my front yard, where I solicited comments on the work from strangers strolling by.
Here's the backstory: In downtown Palo Alto one mild evening around dusk, I spotted a tossed-out box advertising "Topless" brand lettuce. The irony of a box labelled Topless while displaying a picture of a top cracked me up. The artistic vison came immediately: A spinning, headless female figure, with breasts of lettuce, wearing only the box as a skirt.
I was spending a fair amount of time partially topless myself those days as I was breastfeeding my then-infant daughter. To put an artsy-fartsy spin on it, no doubt the experience of instantly being cast into a new, public role (mother) with plenty of associated assumptions provided the grist and gumption to carry out my irreverent plan.
I learned basic welding to connect Topless' shoulders to her body, and to create the stainless steel bra that holds her lettuce. A gentle push sends her spinning; her pipe body is closed on the top end and covers a length of rebar pounded into the front yard.
Creating her was fun, but the best was the public part. I posted cards titled ABOUT THE ARTIST ("With this debut metalwork, E. Harris has broken away from her traditional practice of sound sculpture...to pursue a new path: truth through whimsy.") and ABOUT THE PIECE ("Rooted in the honored practice of found art, "Topless" melds a box awaiting disposal into the ironic garb of a woman of steel..." ) I called the whole setup Gallery 1169 (my house number at the time) and left out a guest book and a cooler with wine and cheese.
"Fun! Is the lettuce organic?" wrote Patricia.
From Amy, Penny and Barbara: "Your sculpture - and the presence of a cucumber beetle crawling across the lettuce breast - spurred a lively conversation about life, locality, and bug-killing whimsy. PS: Do you go to Burning Man? We do! Stop by!"
Daniel, age 8, called Topless "strange, and cool."
I'd call her an artistic knockout.
Photo credit: Collin Oldham
-
I like the animal sculptures around Pioneer Square.
-
I watched that Art Beat Special, Everybody's Art, last night, and the salmon swimming through the corner of a brick building just stunned me. Everything about it seems just perfectly right; the salmon, the bricklayers craftsmanship, the idea that the salmon runs penetratingly through the Pacific Northwest, all just perfectly perfect!
Does anyone know where that is? -
Glad you liked the piece, it's called "Transcendence" and it's located in Portland on Salmon Street. You can find information on public art throughout Oregon on OPB's Public Art Map (http://www.opb.org/programs/publicart/artifacts)
and specifically on the piece you mentioned at this url:
http://www.opb.org/programs/publicart/artifacts/31 -
Thanks, I'll check those out.
I like that some art you can just walk right by and some just stops you in your tracks. -
My issue is the US and the State of Oregon are not able to pay for our education system or to keep our infrastructure up to standard yet we spend money on art. I think it should not be a public funding issue. It should be something that is a negotiated donation from a philanthropist or artist as much of public art is now.
Thanks -
What's with all the whining about Government funding art? If our government is really of, by, and for the people, then the people are funding and choosing art and that is a good thing.
-
It not that I object to funding art its just a matter of priorities safety and educations should be a higher priority.
-
I get your point and I apologize about calling it whining, I was out of line.
Personally, I think art should be ranked right up alongside safety and education. -
Thanks for the reply! I guess we can agree to disagree a bit (not much I think)
-
Why was the first amendment written? What does free speech grant to society? An artist friend of mine, Roger Long, commented on G H W Bush's quote : "I am not good at the 'vision' thing".
He said: "I am an artist, I AM the vision thing." -
Exactly.
-
Some of our art will outlast our civic culture. Certainly our laws! The conflict the city is legally is an outcome of the incoherent legal judgement that money is speech. That makes
businesses people and gives them rights. Until this is fixed, culture cannot be other than broken.
Right here in river city. We cannot discriminate between art and advertising. You and I can! -
Eugene used to have a piece I liked that combined art and science; someone started out near downtown and painted the planets to distance scale to show their kid how big the solar system is, stretching out along the Amazon Parkway. It was wonderful.
-
Small Oregon towns have lots of great public art too. In Silverton, they have dozens of public murals that have been painted over the last decade. The topics vary from Norman Rockwell to Christmas themed, to their hometown astronaut. It's wonderful to be able to drive through Silverton and see all these great works of art on spaces that would otherwise be ugly blank sides of buildings
-
Comments are now closed.
