A Warren of Cubicles and Some Civic Art

The building is humming. Cubicles are being assembled on level 4. I can already tell that every floor is going to be jammed with people and I've had to rearrange two of my sign language text walls because now desks will be positioned in front of the very walls that appeared open on the plans just two months ago.

Almost seven hundred city employees are moving into this facility in June from a half dozen different locations in Houston.I just reread an article about this project that was published in the Houston Business Journal over a year ago. City council approved the purchase of this 86 year old rice warehouse in March of 2009 with the intent of consolidating departments in a fully 'green' building. Happy to say, the building is currently tracking for gold LEED certification.

The city made a good call, opting to rehab an existing building. How often does Houston even think about using or reusing what is already here. We are so inclined to raze a site and get a start anew. However, the city chose differently. Not only is a good use of funds, but the city sends a strong message about the importance of recycling and sustainability. On that note, the facility will also house the city's Green Building Resource Center (GBRC) where the public can explore ways to build and live 'green.'

So, now that I've given the context for this building project, the cost of which totals just over $23,000,000, I'll talk more about what took place today on behalf of the civic art component in this facility. BTW, by city ordinance 1.75% of the construction budget of a public building is dedicated to public art. That number becomes my budget. In another month, when the building opens to the public, you'll see that Houstonians got tremendous bang for the buck.

This afternoon, several of us met with Kaneem Smith who is creating a fanciful sculptural piece made with hand sewn columns of recycled burlap coffee bags.

She is stitching and painting on these bags and they will hang in clusters in the open space between two large corrugated air flow ducts in the main lobby.

Kaneem's piece could be seen as an unusual choice for this public space. However, it offers recycling and repurposing messages that we consider an important aspect of the public art in this building. We know Kaneem's work is also going to be approachable, touchable. Folks will want to interact with these brightly colored floating columns.

Today, JB gamely climbed up on a ladder to show the rest of us how a column or two would hang. We agreed that placement of almost two dozen columns would have to done 'in the moment' of installation. So the hardware that does into the ceiling to hold each floating column will happen as we watch and direct the installation piece by piece. A good decision. Can hardly wait for June 9 when all this will take place.

Next I met with Robynn Sanders who will paint the intricate flowing text, using recycling words in five different languages spoken by Houstonians. The work speaks to both Houston's cultural diversity and to the universal theme of 'going green.'

I've been collecting translations for a while now. I found the translators through word-of-mouth (is there some sort of pun there?) and discovered that each translator was honored to play a part in this project and to have their community represented in a City of Houston building.

A lesson here. We widen our circle by inclusion. Houston is one of the more culturally diverse cities in this country. In a small way, a wall of text wall will celebrate this fact in a very public building.

Aggie Eyster's etched metal panels are now all installed in the 'meet and greet' reception center on the north side of the lobby and at the lobby security desk. They look terrific and there is nothing like her work here in Houston.

Dean Ruck and Dan Havel's assemblage is almost completely installed. I see workmen standing in front of it. I hope they are marveling at its baroque creativity.

So that was it for civic art on Wednesday.

Much more to come next week when five installations will get underway. And then we'll wrap them all in plastic to shield from dust and move in scuffs.

Barcode For GREEN

Bob Card has almost finished a five by eight foot bar code of recycled and salvaged woods. The woods include mahogany from a River Oaks home and an exotic wood from the old Warwick Hotel. Also native Texas woods - mesquite and pecan.

If you can read 'bar code,' this piece says GREEN. He'll install it in early June on Level 4 of the new Houston Permitting Center as one of my 'text interventions.' The woods are beautiful. Bob has labelled each strip of bar code with the wood's origin. He's created an elegant, sophisticated piece.

Dean Ruck and Dan Havel: Day #3

The building was so quiet this morning. Dean and Dan were there with one watchman in attendance. It was the first time that I've been at this construction site when it's been quiet. We had the place to ourselves. Didn't even seem imperative that I wear a hard hat and really, I couldn't have done so, because Manhattan's basement office was closed. Extra hard hats locked away. All was shut down.

Dean and Dan were at work repositioning one of the largest segments of their assemblage. They'd put it up on the wall and then saw that there was some movement. So they took this giant mass of metals down from the wall and and for an hour, Dean reworked the slice of wood from which it would hang.

Took both of them to lift it back on to the wall, so I turned maneuvered the lift up and then down again while they held on to the piece of many metals.

I stayed far longer than I thought I would, because I very simply became totally involved in watching them work. And taking closer looks at the arrangement and colors and textures of all the various metals. Infinitely surprising and very beautiful.

Wish we were making a video of their installation and for that matter, videos of all the other artists at work. We've definitely missed an opportunity. Perhaps we can at least interview each artist during this month of installing.

Here are more photos of Dean and Dan at work today.

Dean Ruck and Dan Havel: Day #2

Yesterday Dean and Dan delivered their assemblage for the new Houston Permitting Center and the sum of its parts covered almost the entire floor space of the Green Building Resource Center. Today, they began to reassemble the pieces on the wall itself.

Here's the first segment of Dean and Dan's work going up. Lots of effort being made to secure each piece. It will not tumble from this wall, even though it appears to be exploding out from it.

There is plenty of beauty in the details. I imagine that folks will look at this piece for great lengths of times. There is just so much to see. Unbelievably intricate. I can see already that the art will make this building sing. I have no doubts.
I asked Laurie Perez to come and photograph the process. We have too little documentation of all the artists' projects, but we will get plenty of installation photos.
There is so much beauty in the details. What is not to love here? for instance, this embellished torpedo/watermelon like object. And I like the blue masking tape with numbers delineating where all of these individual segments will go. There are endless things to explore in this work.

We left at 3:00 this afternoon. Can hardly wait until tomorrow.

Dean Ruck and Dan Havel: Installing

Dean and Dan hired Crate Works to bring their beautiful and baroque wall assemblage to 1002 Washington Avenue yesterday. The moving process took the whole day and two trips to load and unload all the sections of this artwork.Their piece is among the first two being installed in this 80 year old brick warehouse that has transformed into the new Houston Permitting Center. Besides tracking for LEEDS gold rating, the building will be home to over a dozen new civic artworks.

We will be installing from now until mid-June. The days will be busy. I am off to the site now and Laurie Perez will be there early this afternoon to take photos of Dean and Dan at work.

Agnes Welsh Eyster's etched metal panels are being installed as part of the mill work which includes the imposing 'meet and greet' reception center and the lobby security desk.

It has begun.

Dick Wray's Tower Tall As Houston's Skyscrapers

I couldn't decide if I liked this image of Dick Wray's tower as a horizontal or vertical. Thoughts? In either case, when Dick's work is added to that four story elevator tower by the exterior staircase, it will be dynamite. It will be SEEN.

Measurements - Do I Believe Them?

Visited the site yesterday afternoon with Beth Collins Wray. She and I measured the wall segments along the basement corridor with a very long tape measure. Guess such measurements are called 'field measurements'? I personally do not trust measurements or anything at all with numbers.

This tendency goes back as far as the days right out of college when I made $90/week at Bloomingdale's as an executive trainee. Every month I'd spend an entire evening reconciling my bank account and always had to round off to the nearest dollar. I could go back further to high school when I had a job that I loved selling tickets at the movie theater. How many times was I not able to make the number of tickets sold reconcile with the money taken in? I have no realistic answer, or number.

All of this is to say, numbers elude me. I don't retain them. So Beth and I measured those basement walls, some of which do not have door frames affixed to doors yet, so that will throw the measurements off a bit. As for these measurements? I've sent them on to S.O. Creatives so they have a canvas to put all the 'recycle' words I've written or collected in five languages. Then their file will go to a fabricator who will create a very, very long artwork from many strips of powder coated metal with cut out words.

It is my hope that when a person walks the length of this basement corridor, he or she will get a linear and inspiring or interminable, as the case may be, series of recycling messages in languages spoken throughout this city. The extended length of the piece along should drive the message, "Recycling is inevitable and good for us. Get on with it."

Suffice it to say, I can think of words to write far better than I can count numbers.

Beth and I weren't done after measuring the basement corridor. We went to each of floor in the building where reveals/insets were built in for Jesse, Gonzo and Geoff. All of their work will be 'inset' in a sheet rock frame-of-sorts to protect from daily wear and tear.

When I returned home, I put our reveal/inset measurements against measurements given me by the artists for their artwork. I think - the operative word is 'think' - that their work will fit into these spaces. I 'think' everything will be OK. But I won't be sure until Jesse, Gonzo and Geoff have hung their work successfully. That won't be for another month and at that time, I'll experience delayed gratification or total dismay.

One thing I can say is that I am not only in awe, but am completely mystified by the talent and skill sets it takes to draw architectural plans and then have folks in the field translate them into walls, rooms, lobbies, offices, entire buildings.

Mindy, you smile patiently at me when I ask for the twentieth time if the measurements for anything at all, are going to be OK. I never really believe it. But I thank you for your patience, for that extra reassuring email that doesn't really reassure. It'll all work out. If it doesn't, sheet rock is easy to reconstruct?