Got Wood?

Wood On The Plaza

No, aliens have not landed on the plaza near the Fine Arts Center.

Just a cool combination of Art and Education designed to draw attention to the nifty new UMass Design Building going up nearby, using the same old fashioned but updated wood construction method.

 Design Building:  built with wood on what was once a parking lot

Both Art project and Design Building blend in well to their surroundings

Design Building scheduled for completion Spring, 2017

Skin Of The Earth

Sculptured artwork "Essential Voyage" Amherst North Common

Perhaps it's fitting that in one of his final acts as Town Manager John Musante approved the placement on our historic North Town Common the fragile artwork "Essential Voyage," a life sized sculpture made of raw clay, hemp fiber, chicken wire and wood.

Artist creator Valerie Gilman sees it as microcosm of life and, all too inevitably, death:

"As the clay dries it will shrink and crack and as the rainwater falls on it, it will wash away the clay.  This process of decay is part of the piece.  We are part of the skin of the earth and our lives are temporary here."

Ms. Gilman has dedicated this timely public art project to the memory of John Musante, gone from this life far too soon.  

There will be an open reception during the Chamber of Commerce Art Walk on Thursday, October 1st with the artist and her collaborator Margaret Bowrys, who was the model for the sculpture.  Bowrys will also perform an improvisational dance.

Over the course of the next few months the artwork will, by design, degrade.  And on December 1st, that which remains will be removed. 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

   Amherst "Essential Voyage Artwork

I Wish I May, I Wish I Might

A wish tree has sprouted in Kendrick Park, carrying upwards of 40 or so, err, requests. It was a sellout as no tags remained as of this afternoon.

Too bad, I would have added a most timely request:

I wish town officials would forget worrying about the political fringe and simply allow the 29 commemorative American flags to fly in the downtown every 9/11 to remember the innocent lives lost that awful morning.

Art & Graffiti

So yes, the recent arrest of two Bad Boy perps for tagging the fence behind Rao's made me wonder about other sites in town where the line between art and graffiti is maybe not so clearly defined.

Amherst Cinema building. Combination art/graffiti

Eagle Crest Property Management graffiti (probably a disgruntled customer of either Eagle Crest or APD)

Art Works, Main Street (definitely art)

Snell Street Bridge. Due for replacement this year (not because of graffiti)

Art in the Park

The Youth Action Coalition--those kids who brought you a permanent mural on the side of the Amherst Cinema building--are at it again, this time with a less ambitious art project dangling in the middle of Kendrick Park: "Amherst Truths."

Oh, if they only knew.

Click photos to enlarge/read

Shedding Photons

Lights by Walmart
Electricity by WMECO
Tree by God
Best of all: no tax subsidy.

Shedding Light (but not a lot)

So I'm far from an art aficionado, but less far from a Yankee farmer with some degree of common sense. The art project "Shedding Light"--sponsored by the Amherst Public Arts Commission--strikes me as pretty dim.

It simply looks like Bob The Builder is inside preparing to go to work.

The Bully reports