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?

Kaneem Smith Creates Sculpture From Coffee Bags

Last Wednesday afternoon, I visited Kaneem Smith in the new studio space on Spring Street that she's sharing with her dad, the sculptor George Smith.* I wanted to take a look at the work she's producing for the lobby at 1002 Washington Avenue. I first saw Kaneem's fabric sculptural works at the TSU gallery last summer and I loved them. The day we visited TSU, Kaneem was in the gallery, so we got a personal tour. Knew at once that Kaneem could add an altogether different dimension to the artwork being created for this public space and I asked her if she'd like to join the artists' team. BTW, Kaneem teaches at UH Downtown.

When I walked in her studio last week, I laughed out loud because the pieces that she is assembling are delightful, playful and colorful. One wonders exactly what they are. I can only imagine how two dozen of these cone/columns will appear when suspended and placed in proximity to one another.

I really like what Kaneem is producing for the new Houston Permitting Center. She gathered several dozen large burlap coffee bean bags and is now sewing them into cone shapes, rather like a cluster nest of wood dabbers. Only Kaneem's cones are painted in bright pure colors and the coffee logos remain where they've been stamped on to each bag.

And yes, two dozen cones in many colors will be suspended from the ceiling in the lobby area between those two enormous return air ducts. Imagine the look of these colorful columns just floating there in space.

I hope they sway a bit. I hope folks will touch them and I hope children will walk through them instead of around them. I told Kaneem she ought to affix bells inside each cone, so when people do touch, they'll hear those bells jingle and be surprised. We'll see what she does.

In the meantime, Kaneem has a lot of stitching to do as many of the cones have intricate patterns made of folds and gathers. And then she'll be painting with those bright colors.

Can you imagine this work in the Houston Permitting Center? I continue to be amazed at the variety of the artwork that will be installed in this public building.

Just think about arriving and seeing Dick Wray's four story tower, a narrative in laser cut steel. Think about Dean Ruck and Dan Havel's extravagant assemblage of recycled metals. Think about Gonzo's aerosol murals. The list goes on and on. This is public art created by Houston artists and quite frankly, it's inspired.

No one can possibly anticipate how folks will experience all this art for the very first time. Imagine someone walking through those front doors for a plan review, a stamp of approval. And I like the surprise element in all of this. Feels to me as if we've given each person a series of gifts. If they take time to look at the work and wonder about it.

I am beginning to think that I'll spend time in the fall lingering near the artwork to listen to people's reactions.

To each artist working on this project - my very best wishes for smooth installations and my thanks for contributing to what will be a unique public space.

*By the way, George Smith taught sculpture for years at Rice U and one of his pieces can be seen in front of Lanier Middle School on Woodhead at Westheimer.