Blue Sky At the Bottom of the Stairs

Serena Lin Bush will be back this morning to finish her installation of five monitors in the stairwell of the Houston Permitting Center's central staircase. I get goose bumps every time I describe her piece her someone. I just love her idea of bringing Houston sky to a sunless space.

Serena mounted three cameras on the roof of the building and they are now recording Houston's skies in real time and transferring the images down into the basement. What could be better than that for folks who work and visit this below ground floor. Check the weather by checking the stairwell.

Metalab Has A Surprise

Metlab's piece for the new Houston Permitting Center is going to be fun. By that, I mean that it's playful and will engage almost anyone walking through the lobby. The work, called 'CO2 Review', will be installed in stages over the next week. Metalab just put out a short film on Vimeo that's worth a look.

Their projection area has been sheet rocked and the glass screen will be installed today or tomorrow. They'll install eight CO2 sensors on the concrete columns in the lobby and should you blow into one or if a lot of folks walk by a particular sensor at the same time, it'll light up a big screen near the main entrance. People movements in the lobby will be measured in real time and will create a panorama like this on a glass screen.

A Note to Readers

Every time I link to anything at all on this blog, a blank space appears in the text. I have not been able to discover the reason for this - or correct it. Yet. It's irritating. I'll keep looking for a solution. In the meantime, move your mouse over the blank spots and words will pop up. Click on them at once and read more.

Houston Makes Creative Use of Recycled Materials

Glasstire ran a story by Carrie Schneider on May 20. Titled 'The Ten List: Houston Gleaners', Schneider's makes a great case for Houston as hub for visionary art made from recycled materials. She cites the Flower Man, The Beer Can House, The Brayer Room and Texas Art Asylum. You'll want to read the whole thing so click here. If it's true that Houston is such a hub, then the Houston Permitting Center is part of this picture. This 85 year old brick warehouse has been recycled and repurposed as the new home for all of the city's permitting and licensing departments. The old brick walls, concrete columns and rusty iron beams are all part of the ambiance of the new facility. And the building's civic art? Well, some of it has been crafted from recycled materials.

Dean Ruck and Dan Havel's piece for the new Houston Permitting Center could certainly qualify for inclusion in Schneider's 'Houston Gleaner's' list. The public will get its first chance to see their baroque and beautiful artwork later this month when the construction crews are gone and the building opens for business. Dean and Dan installed their work at the entrance to the facility's Green Building Resource Center, adjacent to the lobby. Couldn't be in a better place for sending an artful reuse and recycling message.

Funny to reflect how making art from recycled materials has propelled my life for the last four years. 2009's Second Seating was an exhibition that comprised a collection of dinner tables and chandeliers made from reused and repurposed materials from Houston's industrial East End.The exhibition was housed in the then-vacant metal building next to Irma's Restaurant on Chenevert and included an eight foot tall chandelier made with over 70 hand filigreed Clorox bottles strung on white tablecloths. (Yes, there is a Clorox plant in the East End.) I was lucky enough to peruse salvage metal lots at both Baker Hughes and Valero, where I found sections of oil drilling pipes and refinery pipeline parts that I converted into lighting fixtures. 2009 was a good year for scavanging.

I invited a half dozen other artists to contribute to the Second Seating. Three of those artists - Jesse Sifuentes, Gonzo 24/7 and Agnes Welsh Eyster - have now created work for the Houston Permitting Center. One thing does lead indeed to another.

I sometimes think that Second Seating led directly to this new job of mine, which is to bring civic art to the city's new very public space at 1002 Washington Avenue. In any case, it's good to know that Houston is a hub for recycled art. It sure makes sense in our over-consumered age to make art from the detritus of our lives.

Moving the Meter

In another life, when I was president of the Greater East End Management District, my program director would review each day's efforts and ask if we'd 'moved the meter.' I began to pick up on that theme and now the phrase is part of my vocabulary, part of my way of evaluating the day or a job. Did we move the meter?

Well, today, we moved the meter on several different fronts. Charles Masterson is hard at work fabricating the panels for Dick Wray's tower and they should be complete early next week and delivered to the site for installation. It should be amazing to watch Dick Wray's four story design take shape. If one were to film the process and rerun at high speed, the process might almost be like one of those picture flip books. Behold, the tower rises!

We did postpone two installations until next week. May seem like a step backward, but not really. Simply made sense as there is still a lot of work going on in the lobby.

We postponed Kaneem Smith's installation until next Wednesday. With the new date, I also know that all her paint and fire retardant application will be totally dry, bells will be affixed and wire strung. We'll be able to complete her installation all in one day and I'm thinking that surely the dust in the lobby may have settled by next Wednesday. That will be a real plus. The dust is pretty intense this week. There's a lot of 'finishing' going on.

We also postponed my two A & E wallpaper installations and a good thing we did. The cashier's area was carpeted today, wall paint was touched up and the door to the space was being installed when I left late this afternoon. There was no way we could have hung wallpaper there today.

Good news. Jesse Sifuentes and his helper Juan Jimenez got that second enormous canvas mural up this afternoon on the first try. All the hardware worked and the piece is level in its inset. It's still under wraps - because of the dust and activity in the area. But there it hangs, right next to what will be a coffee shop for employees and the public.

Jesse and Juan were jubilant. Manhattan's Charlie Genella stopped by on his rounds and there was lots of hand shaking and smiles.

Tomorrow, I'll pick up more Studio Red hard hats for Serena Lin Bush and her crew. They will arrive at 9:00 to install her monitors in the stairwell pit and hook them up to cameras on the roof. I can hardly wait to see her artwork in action.

While Serena is at work in the stairwell, another crew will be arriving at 10:00 to install three plexi sign language text walls on levels 2 and 3.

At the very end of tomorrow, I meet with Robynn Sanders and we will walk the upper floors and spot specific locations for her painted text interventions. She return next week to paint those small interventions. We hope they make folks smile. A chuckle or two might be nice.

Am I tired? Most certainly. And I look it too. Am I pleased with the installations, thus far?Absolutely.

The meter moved today. And I suspect it will move tomorrow too. Thanks to all who are making all the pieces of this project happen.

East End Magnolias

Jesse's first mural is up and looks terrific in the level 4 reception area, a space that has two big windows, one facing north and the second overlooking downtown Houston. The north light is great for the painting and highlights the portion of his mural where he's painted in a couple of Houston icons - Minute Maid Park's train and Pennzoil Place.

We are delaying the installation of two of my text walls from this morning until next Monday. One was to have been wallpapered in the cashier's area on the main level, but the carpeting is going in this morning and the space is still filled with workers and dust.

The second text wall we're delaying is on level 3 and comprises dozens of the phrases and words I heard as I listened to plan reviewers and inspectors earlier this year. I spent hours at a time sitting in on their conversations with contractors, engineers, architects and covered a stack of yellow legal pads with transcriptions. Then I weeded through all the words and found key phrases that were used over and over. Put them all together like a monologue. Ran it by key folks like Earl Greer, Sheila Blake, Mark McAvoy and Susan McMillian. Made several revisions based on their comments. Also heard several chuckles as they read it, so I know we have it right.

S.O. Creatives designed both of these text walls. Both walls are real collaborations. A & E Graphics is producing and installing the wallpapers. Hope the dust has settled by next Monday when they install. Here's an image of the sample produced for the level 3 reception area. It's actually going to be about 14 feet long and 9 feet tall. Those colored conversation clouds are plexi and will be bolted on over the words.

Time to shower and get on with the day. That means get to the site. Jesse is installing his second mural in the lobby this morning.

Jesse Sifuentes Installs

Jesse and his helper Juan spent most of the day constructing the L-shaped stretcher and getting the hardware up in the inset. In the afternoon, they unrolled the canvas and Jesse began stapling it the stretcher. Had to leave before they actually got it hung, so I get to see it tomorrow morning with the eastern sun shining in on it.

I see workmen lifting the plastic sheeting covering the artwork that is already installed just to see what's there. People are also beginning to say things about the art. A security guard looked at Geoff Winningham's photo mural of a reflection of UH Downtown's main building in Buffalo Bayou and said he recognized it as the building where he'd gone to college. "I saw it in the reflection," he said.

Another worker in the building said to me on the central staircase this afternoon, "Well, another day in paradise. I've been at work in this building for over a year. Can hardly wait until it's done."

Nice that he said, "Another day in paradise." I used that phrase on my text wall on level 3, among many other phrases that I heard when I spent time with plan reviewers and inspectors.

That wall will be installed on Wednesday.