The Real-Estate Agent

"'...We don't need to make the building work. We need to support you.,'" a quote from Theaster Gates, a real-estate agent / artist / speaker / designer / artchitect who first proposed the project of renovating an abandon site to bring the community something they have never seen before.

"It's not just addressing issues of art about art, and art about self-identity; it's a new vocabulary, a new approach. The success of his work is measured by its actual impact on the community." This articles highlights the important part of how an artist must find a connection within a community when trying to celebrate it through the arts. It is a process and a commitment. What is most unique about Gates in this reading is how he was able to target a variety of people in his talks. Changing his tone and language would allow listeners to believe and support his work if they thought he accurately represented them enough. After a few laughs and awkward shifts in their seats at uncomfortable comments Gates would make, he would be welcomed with warm smiles giving the "OK" to make public art in their neighborhood.
So what was Gates art work to the public eye? Like many rundown towns you would have to look deeper than the surface to see any real beauty or art like Gates suggested. "I knew that our city was a machine to be understood, and that if you could understand it you could make it work on your behalf." Gates saw those rundown towns and abandon factories and houses as a frame work to build beauty . He did this by becoming a real-estate agent, and using square footage as his leverage to add what the communities needed most; aesthetic.

Environment Behavior Research

Notes-

• public messages: bulletin board stating employment, nyc parks events all are
• colorful
• informative
• done by students and faculty
• displays of shelf: mailboxes with numbers shore categorized and unpersonalized identification 
• connections: benches, table and chairs, in a nook that encourages social and private engagement
• erosions: coffee cups, paper, pencils
• left behind scuff marks from heels and boots. 
• this also shows transition of space from where the students walk to
• and poor quality of floor
• missing traces: color schemes: blue / orange/ beige / white
• clashing colors cause a weird vibe because of lack of consideration for design efficiency for students that attend an art school would expect and thrive form
• high ceilings give off spacious vibes
• personal areas for phone calls, relaxing, homework
• official messages: art work varies and aligns the wall that discusses values and power
• some are abstract as well
• all open to computer access
• separations: class rooms, carpet - floors, elevators, office cubicles, bathrooms
• props: recycling garbage cans, computers / printers, hand sanitizer
• action: person printing and using a prop in the environment (school) to get a personal needs (their printed paper)

Comments:

The displays of shelf found in the school are the office cubicles. These tend to have parts of personalization on the permanent desk for users that can express themselves through certain items (flower pots, pictures, etc) that enable viewers to have a better idea who they belong to.

The identification is good because of the open spaces that allow for students to gather together share stories, discuss homework and have coffee. 

The group membership would qualify as a University.

The leftovers found in the trash consists of Advil bottles, coffee cups and scraps of paper. This would be expected from college kids and particularly art students, who tend to pull all-nighters to finish projects.  Just from their leftovers we were successfully able to identify the users.

The erosions of wear and tear on the elevator buttons was a good indicator of where most students attend classes (example 7th floor at the 16th street building) the key was more worn then others.

The advantages of observing allowed myself to be empathetic and judge from an outside perspective even though I am a New School Student. There was a direct response to see who defies rules like how certain kids recycled (or lack of recycled) without me talking and interacting with the subjects. This research experiment allowed me to avoid being biased and having selective perception.

Studio: Pinning Together The Pieces to the Lost Thimble Pin Cushion

Walking along the streets of Amsterdam, I stumbled across a small oval shape hand stitched of different fabrics, and a satin destroyed X on both sides. I looked around and didn't see a store I though it belonged to. I knew it was a thimble pin cushion because of its small shape and ability to catch on to ones finger, making it the perfect necessity for sewing. There was a brewery to my left and a smoke shop after that. Figuring it didn't come from there I walked a few more steps and found an antique book shop. I walked in and showed the owner, a small grey haired man with glasses who went by the name of Jack what I had found. I told him I was confused how it could end up on the cobblestone road if there is no sewing shop near by. It was beat up that was for sure, the once white satin X was now a muddy grey and the hand stitches were beginning to fray. It made me sad that this once valuable and vital tool for a seamstress was now missing. The owner of the shop pointed over to an advertisement that hung on the store's wall. It was an ad that said a famous seamstress who went by the name Jesse Stein, came through town to sell some of her work at a local fair. By the look of the poster, it seemed she was only passing through town and continuing on a journey across the country. To make sure this small piece continues to have it's justice and be used like it was by previous owner, I will use it for my own sewing use.

Studio: "One Place After Another"

Mary Jane Jacob was an art activist for the city of Chicago. In 1993, she and a local organization team brought art to a public space that allowed passerby's to engage with the art across the city that acted as the canvas. A wide range of art events was celebrated in the streets; parades and block party festivities, creating a candy bar, fundraisers for HIV/AID and tents filled with artists doing demonstrations. Spectators were neglected from the chance to really interact and understand the creative and skilled process of making art. The articles claims that, "In fact, Jacobs desire to shift the role of the viewer from passive spectator to active art-maker became one of the central goals of 'Culture in Action'" that began a widespread concept for similar public art installations of "similar scale and ambition". This gave national artists the ability to design and install art installations with no intervention from outside architects/ artists. It is important for individual artists to express and direct themselves throughout their project's process and to encounter problems and overcome them. The artist's mentioned in the article tend to gravitate towards mundane places to showcase their work and address everyday issues. This builds a relationship of engagement between the artist and the audience that potentially could be the artwork. New genre public art is a visual art that uses both traditional and nontraditional media to communicate and interact with and is now receiving a broader cultural acceptance, "...critics now register their desire to better serve and engage the public, to further close the gap between art and life, by expressing a deep dissatisfaction with site specificity" (108).
"'In 'Culture of Action', however, the artists' projects refer not primarily to sites, but to social issues that are of common concern to the artists and to the communities in which they have chosen to work'" (109). These sites display the artists interpretation of the social issues and how the transformation of the physical location brings positivity and impact the lives of the community. The spaces celebrate and give them social visibility and political power.

Seminar: Design and Order in Everyday Life

"Art exists because it helps bring order to human experience." Csiksgentmihalyi, a psychologist and author of the article, "Design and Order In Everyday Life", conducted a study on 82 families in Chicago by asking what household object had importance to them and why. These objects ended up describing values and significance deeper than Csikszentmihalyi's team had anticipated.

Each home held object's that were different yet important to a family member. Of all the pieces discussed some fell under the art category; 8% was refereed to graphics arts, (photography excluded), and 6% referred to sculptures. All the objects came in different sizes. Some were homemade possessions of friends and family or artifacts that's price had nothing to do with value; there was an active symbolic relationship that usually went beyond external aesthetic. The study also noted younger generation's significant objects had to do with the functionality and use they could get out of it, while the older generation's cherished items symbolized memories and relationships.

The order in everyday life comes from within a person, but it is the art that helps bring it out of a person. Using certain patterns and designs, colors and shape, the unique variation of an object requires an active perceptual struggle of the viewers. This allows interpretation as well as comprehension of the pattern. This is another way to describe art criticism. An object will gain symbolic powers if it produces a sense of order in the mind.

Along the L

Virtual investigation allows prospects to observe an area based just off the external structures. It eliminates details and accurately provides proportioned buildings, streets and parks in relativeness with one another. When first going over to Brooklyn on the L, you approach a space that is occupied by the Brooklyn Flea Market, an eatery and a park. It takes up 3 Avenues entirely then transitions into a more commercial scene when viewing from the satellite. The buildings are properly aligned in single file rows. The stores are thin and narrow, only leaving a few empty spaces on the corners of the street like N7 and Berry Street. Berry street has a lot of apartments with fire escapes and graffiti covering the outside. Continuing along the L, Bedford Ave is a more spacious environment filled with different cafes and eatery spaces. You can find your average hipster walking along here. There can range from 8-10 stores just on one street! When heading from Graham Ave to Morgan Ave., there are a lot of rundown, vacant stores. Here there are more open lots along with less smaller stores that are replaced with fewer larger stores. This is occupied by a lot of brick buildings for factories. The satellite emphasizes the uneven ratio of parks to concrete. However, when there are green spaces they tend to be relatively close to each other, resulting in only a corner's distance between them. I found spaces that need developing here are those vacant spaces:

• 66 Aberdeen Street and Bedford Avenue, New York, NY
• 394 Palmetto Street off of Wyckoff Ave
• 2 Harrison Place and Morgan avenue, New York, NY
• 272 Bushwick Avenue between Johnson and Boerum Avenue
• 510 Metropolitan Avenue between Meeker and Union Ave

Studio: "Tompkins Square Park"

Eighty years ago, The Lower East Side, my home now, was home to immigrants. This area received Tompkins Square, Union Square, Madison and Stuyvestant Parks, that became a spot for organizations to rally up and discuss or march pertaining to social issues. It was unsure whether the ground was "private, police or public". From playgrounds to sport facilities to grass fields for hippies, the constant transformation reflected the counterculture in the Lower East Side from year to year. Law enforcement of  a 1am curfew and no littering policy in the park was enforced in 1988 after continuous complaints from surrounding residents. (The curfew was revoked shortly after). Squatters resided to anywhere they could many using Tompkins Square Park to set up their tents for the Winter and Spring. This article refers to 1990, when the Mayor allowed for the homeless to sleep in parks, which is now illegal. However, we still do see demonstrations, protests and local organizations on a smaller scale, fighting for rights they want just like back then. These public spaces were designed for engagement and these "parks might fulfill a number of critical social functions, providing a locale for demonstrations of civic pride..." (208).

Research Blitz: The Corkscrew

Topic of Research: What is the history of a corkscrew and are they designed differently for aesthetics or function?

Questions To Be Answered:

• Who invented the first corkscrew and where?
• What came first: the corkscrew or the cork?
• Are corkscrews still a necessary household item to have today?
• To open a bottle of wine swiftly, does it depend more on the corkscrew or the users efficiency of using it?

I researched my topic with key words that lead to the important facts I was looking for such as dates and regions that I needed to be reliable. From there I typed questions in on the Google search engine that led to sites where authors and bloggers wrote about their knowledge on the corkscrew. These sites discussed similar points, some word for word, that led me to have concrete evidence and facts on the design as well as function on the corkscrew.

Bottlenotes. 2010. "A Twisted Tale of Innovation and Wine." Last modified February 19. Accessed February 16.
https://www.bottlenotes.com/dailysip/wine-tips/history-of-the-corkscrew-steel-worm


Bellis, Mary. "Popping the Cork." Accessed February 16.
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa122000b.htm


Kissack, Chris. 2013. "Corks and Corkscrews." Accessed February 16.
http://www.thewinedoctor.com/advisory/openservecorks.shtml


Stag's Leap Wine Cellar. 2012. "Three Centuries of Imagination and Engineering."Accessed February 16.
www.cask23.com/collectorsCorner/article/78


Julio's Liquors. 2013. "The History of the Wine Bottle Corkscrew." Accessed February 16. http://www.juliosliquors.com/wp/index.php/the-history-of-the-wine-bottle-corkscrew/

Researching information on the importance of the corkscrews leads to the other main factor involved with this topic; the wine bottle. Wine has been a part of society for decades whether for pleasure or entertaining. This topic addresses other materials involved with wine besides the corkscrew; the wine glass, the wine rack, the ideal cork, wine coolers, wine accessories, etc., that invented a whole new department for products. This could lead to an assignment that asks the question: why are products intra-dependent?

Art In Transit- "Happy World"

Artists that were involved with Art In Transit proposed by the MTA, were asked to create an aesthetic in the subway stations to engage commuters. I chose Flushing Queens, (the 7 line) to observe Ik- Joong Kang's work, a Korean artist who moved to New York in 1984 to further his education. During 1999, Kang's means of transportation among many New Yorkers, was the subway system. He spent many hours traveling his first years in New York and utilized his time most efficiently by seeing the subway as 'his personal mobile studio'. The inspiration for "Happy World" developed from responses, people, events and the surroundings Kang encountered on the 7 line in Queens. That area is known to be the second largest Chinatown in New York and is a vibrant diverse community. 

“These miniature canvases functioned like pages in a diary upon which I recorded my immediate responses to life in a foreign country.”

- Kang

He began to design the artwork by carrying 3x3 canvases with him everyday for the practicality they could fit in his hand and pocket and drew what he saw and imagined. The mural resides over one of the subway's turnstile, covering the top wall entirely with tiles- 2,000 to be exact. Each tile's background contributes to the whirl of color in the background of the mural that gives the composition a finished look. The small, simple black and white drawing's on each one represent fun and dynamic aspects within the community. Kang's goal was to design this mural for people to discuss and engage with eachother. Unfortunately, like other subway stations with art, the pieces tend to get over looked by the busy passerby's who see this everyday. However, the pleasure and creativity that is reflected in this mural at the Flushing Queens subway station is symbolic to the neighborhood and represents them most appropriately. 

The Parts That Make Whole Food's Whole

What is Whole Foods exactly? Well on their site they inform customers that they, "...seek out the finest and natural and organic foods available...have an unshakeable commitment to sustainable agriculture and fun we bring to shopping for groceries..." which seems like the quite the ideal trip to the food store. But does their actual
stores communicate all that to patrons? Taking a look at Whole Foods on 14th Street right across from Union Square, I give it two-thumbs up for conveying their core values in the store.Their commercial space was extremely successful in communicating with customers from informative signs to properly aligned vegetables. Here are a few things my group noticed as effective:

• Upstairs had good lighting, air quality and acoustics
• 3-5 feet between shelving allowing for the flow of traffic to work
• The floor color was a mud-ish green which hides scratches from carts and fallen crumbs from samples to give the store a polished look
• Bold, concise and affective coloring of advertisement

Whole Food's exercises the fact that they carry vegan / organic / gluten-free and local products to provide customers with the highest quality food in terms of nutrition, freshness, appearance and taste. The store itself is sectioned into areas such as the bakery or food-on-the-go. From seafood to body care products, all the items on the shelf in my opinion looked of high quality; from the ingredients label to the packaging. This is because Whole Food's has a high standard of regulations products must meet. Because of the diverse regions you can find their store's, Whole Food's analyze a product on a regional level. On their website, they have videos and pages of criteria vendors must meet for products to even be considered being sold in the store. They really put the customer's best interest in mind with health choices. The store I examined has two levels of produce, meats, beers and wine, as well as prepared food. With the store's setup, customers wander quite a bit to get all the things they need. So even if someone was to pick up something that was not on their grocery list, they need not to worry. They can be assured it is of the same high quality of all other products they use because of the coordinators and buyers careful judgement when choosing products for the store.

For more information visit Whole Food's Company to learn more.

Porches in the Sky: Studio Reading

"Stairs and balconies are viewing platforms, looking out onto the world..."this includes fire escapes that symbolize romance and personal getaways. So it makes me wonder why the numbers of fire escapes are decreasing in New York to nearly an estimated 200,000. In reality, when us New Yorkers have "alone time" it resides in us being tucked away in our small apartments. It took many attempts and explanations of why an egress was so important to be a human right and until destructive warehouse fires, owners could not give residents personal access to safety from their building. And like nearly all designs, it encountered design failures and never met its expectations. Edward Croker, Chief of the Fire Department of New York City, discusses all the negative elements of the fire escape design. The article describes fire escapes as, "...uniquely shaped, simply engineered and easy to understand. They are also disfiguring...". However, I personally like the rustic contrast fire escapes bring  to the city in comparison to all the new, technology-savy buildings that are up and coming. It will always be character and charm that makes New York well, New York.

Grand Central Scavenger Hunt

Here are some of today's shots that I discovered off the scavenger hunt list at Grand Central Terminal. Running around and snapping shots made me stand out from the crowd because I was in a sea full of tired commuters. Some of the people passing by me discussed topics of women, taxes and rates, and money. I heard a lot of "excuses me's" from people as well as mumbled curse words under their breath. Grand Central Terminal really is an iconic public space. As it successfully feels up to date with boutiques and fast-food accommodations, there is charm all around in the air. Especially on the wall too, thanks to Guastavino and other architects and artists that made the interior of the terminal as amazing as it is today.

To Give and To Take- Simultaneous Perception

Simultaneous Perception is quite real and can be complicated. But after reading Tony Hiss', "Simultaneous Perception", I can break it down to give or take one sentence. It is the moment when your mind allows you to be at complete peace and to reflect and take in your surroundings using all your senses equally and simultaneously. That's when you get the most out of an experience of a place. Hiss digs deep into readers mind and provokes questions and thoughts overlooked in our everyday lives. Like the fact that there is evidence, a lot of evidence Hiss claims that show high buildings can actually damage people's mind and feelings. With me currently living in New York, I wonder what would happen if I stayed long enough in Manhattan. One of my favorite quotes from this passage reads, “People are often drawn to places that offer rich experiences: beautiful landscapes, glittering theater districts, tranquil neighborhoods. But changes made over the years to such places which fail to consider the experiential impact produced by physical alterations can turn pearls into paste and convert the real into a mirage” (Hiss 24). Here Hiss is mentioning that as much as people want to enjoy these spaces they need to give as much even more than they are taking in order to preserve and support that beauty. This exchange will allow people to have the most fulfilled experience of simultaneous perception in those places.

Labor of Love- Making Artistic Connections..

While I was reading the NY Times interview article with the Starns brothers, creators of the "See It Split, See It Change", it reminded me of my favorite quotes by Oscar Wilde, "An artist never sees things as they really are, if he did he would cease to be an artist." Their art work was chosen for Art in Transit at the South Ferry station where they designed ominous looking trees as well as maps in the shape of leaves. What I like most about these brothers is how they approached their design and more importantly followed through with this elaborate idea regardless of complications they encountered as well as cost and time spent. As Mike said, "We wanted to make something that could be entertaining day in, day out...It's simple and complicated at the same time." Mike and Doug's thought process is similar to my own. They establish these straightforward connections to describe their art work but it is no reflection on how intricate and detailed their art work is. Being an artist really is a labor of love.