Category Archives: grand lake / lake merritt

Something old…

So I’m all out of whack now… after several days of enjoying what we Americans have just recently come to know as “slow food” (the Europeans have been doing it for centuries folks), today I found myself scarfing a piece of pizza while sitting alone in my car on a very short lunch break.  Granted, it was Arizmendi pizza, but still… so uncivilized.

I’ve been thinking about how sometimes revisiting the way things were done in the past can guide us in developing models of sustainability for the future.  Amsterdam is a perfect example… here you have a city of three-quarters of a million people and the primary form of transportation is the bicycle.  It’s fantastic.  No auto noise, no auto exhaust, no vast stretches of ugly concrete designed for nothing other than spaces to put all the cars.  There’s an extensive mass transit system too.

We now have this concept that city planners talk about quite a bit… the “20-minute neighborhood,” where everything we need to go about our daily lives in both work and play are easily walkable within 20 minutes.  That’s how they did it in the old days. It may sound like a crazy model for a country that came of age during its love affair with the automobile, but hey, we’re making headway.  We are getting smarter.

So I’m gonna change topics a bit here, though my visit to Europe did get me thinking of the old versus the new. And we have a nice example of this near our lovely Lake Merritt, which I’ve been wanting to focus on anyway (more on this later).

Now I’m not a particularly religious person, but I do love visiting churches for the amazing art and architecture these grand buildings typically display.  We happen to have two catholic churches perched on opposite ends of the lake.  Today we will visit the old one…

She is called Our Lady of the Lourdes, and is quite near to what is historically considered to have been the site of the first catholic mass ever held within the county of Alameda (1772). Though the church building itself was not erected until the mid-20th century, it has an old world European feel, built in the Romanesque style out of Italian marble, complete with 110 foot bell tower.

oaktownart_20091014_1

oaktownart_20091014_2

oaktownart_20091014_3

oaktownart_20091014_4

oaktownart_20091014_5

My pictures don’t quite do this church justice… it’s got wonderful sculptural work on the exterior and rows of stunning stained glass windows from the interior.  Not to mention it’s lovely location.

Tomorrow we visit the new!

Delightful and Disturbing

Wow… so yesterday was a bit controversial… on a couple levels.  That’s GOOD.

First, we got reprimanded for promoting illegal activity (and even making fun of the ways to not get caught… which I still think is hilarious).  Let me say here in public, what I also wrote directly to this commenter, who since, retracted his comment of critique and offered up a more positive response…

My goal here is to promote ART. Both the conventional (legal, publicly condoned/sanctioned) and the unconventional (which yes, at times, can be illegal).  I am not a proponent of altering or defacing private (or public for that matter) property without permission.  That’s ME… those are my values. For the most part, I believe the laws enacted by our representative government are designed for the benefit of society at large.  Though there have certainly been many mistakes along the way… we learn as we go.  I also said in a past post (see There Are Laws About These Things…) that I believe it’s up to each artist to decide for him/herself what is acceptable behavior, and what risks are willing to be undertaken.

We live in a society based upon liberty.  And the First Amendment to our Constitution (its position at the top of the list indicates its primary importance) guarantees us all the rights of free speech.  Yes, this can be interpreted in a mind boggling number of ways, exampled by the current legal challenges to campaign finance reform (who knew money was speech?!?)  But I would argue, and I’m sure others have too, that displays of art can be considered speech as well.

This doesn’t give the artist the right to deface another individual’s property… that person has guaranteed rights as well.  But it does guarantee the artist the right to display his message (his speech) somewhere.  And here is my beef… we’ve left few public spaces for the artists.

We’ve got plenty of abandoned, dilapidated properties in this city that certainly aren’t being tended to by their owners.  Artists take advantage of these sites because they have few other options if they want to display their art publicly, and I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.  If kids are running around w/ paint, chalk, posters, and wheatpaste in an effort to be creative, isn’t that a hell of a lot better than running around with guns and drugs?

Let’s find ways to support their creativity… channel it in positive ways, eh?  Some cities have designed skate parks for skateboarders… can’t we set aside Art parks for Artists? I personally think this would be way cool.  And a magnet, not just for artists, but art patrons and tourists alike.  My upcoming interview with Mark Bode talks about just such a project in San Francisco.  Check back soon for that…

The second controversy from yesterday’s post involved the content of the images.  A friend of mine said she found the newsprint photographs of what I assume are developmentally challenged individuals, disturbing.

I believe there is plenty of great art that can (and is designed to) delight us.  That’s one function. But there are other functions as well, and sometimes the best art, the kind that moves society forward in new ways of thinking, is, well… disturbing.

I’m not saying the wheat pastes from yesterday fall into that category… maybe they do, maybe they don’t.  What I am saying is that we can choose to live in a sanitized world where we are spared from disturbing imagery (think of the Bush era’s manipulation of the media to prevent us from seeing any of the deceased soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan).  Or we can live in a world where we confront reality… disturbing as it may be at times.

Having said all that, today I will delight you with something I think few would find controversial.  It’s another pet hospital mural by our friend Stefen from Land of the Sky Blue Waters.  It’s titled “Promenade at Lake Merrit” and was created in 2004, and dedicated to the protection of Lake Merritt in 2005.  Enjoy…

oaktownart_20091001_1

oaktownart_20091001_2oaktownart_20091001_dtl

Wheaties…

So here’s something random I came across yesterday… These are wheat pastes, which are essentially home made stickers.  These were spotted around Lake Merritt on the bases of a few light fixtures.  I’ll be covering Lake Merritt in more depth in upcoming posts… there a lot going on there right now.

Each base had a bunny/carrot cartoon on one side, and what seems to be a piece of newsprint on the other.  I have no idea if this was all done by one artist, or a pair, each claiming one side.  In either case, it’s pretty weird.

oaktownart_20090930_1

Wheat paste is commonly used by graffiti artists to hang posters & smaller applications and is a simple solution made out of water and flour. It’s one of the most environmentally friendly adhesives because it’s made from organic materials that eventually break down.

It’s also essentially the same goop we all used as kids to make paper mache piggy banks around balloons in arts & crafts… do you remember? I do!

oaktownart_20090930_2

Here’s a link to “the best wheat paste recipe” (self-proclaimed):
http://www.citynoise.org/article/1177

The post also offers some tips for how to go about applying your art without getting caught, and undoubtedly my favorite is “Carry a Gap shopping bag.” Who could possibly suspect a fine upstanding consumer of Gap products?  I love it!

oaktownart_20090930_3

Meta…

So I’ve become a little bit of a sticker stalker… I’ve seen numerous stickers from our friend from yesterday all over town. I was beginning to think he/she was a West Oakland neighbor, but today I found one by Grand/Lake when I had to go to the hardware store.

This design is similar to larger ones I’ve seen that seem to have been reproduced in glossier more finished applications than his hand-drawn postal stickers. I like this one particularly because of the way it is cut out… nice touch. See the underlying same wide nose and thick lips from his faces on yesterday’s post?

oaktownart_20090910_1

On the newspaper stand next to this one I spotted this sweet little post-it that someone had left as well… If you can’t read it, it says “Meta… to love, feel & appreciate everything to your fullest capacity without expectation or attachment”

oaktownart_20090910_2

It’s entirely different of course, but in essence, it’s still a piece of sticker art, because it is, in fact, stuck.

Part of what got me started on this whole art blog idea was a book a girlfriend gave me for my birthday earlier this summer… a great little creative project guide called The Guerilla Art Kit by Keri Smith. It’s a nice primer on guerilla art for the novice… discussing philosophy, various techniques, and loads of exercises to get you inspired to put your art out into the world.

In her section on stickers, she includes recipes for making your own out of simple household items, including a lick-n-stick recipe made out of gelatin; info about pre-made stickers and labels (she mentions the post office labels too… no wonder they’re going broke!); and great tips about weather-proofing your stickers with packing tape, acrylic medium, and spray enamel.

One of the most adorable tips she gives is the following:

Quickest Stickers in the World
Materials: post-it notes, a pen
1. Do a drawing
2. Stick it up

And this is precisely what someone did outside the Grand Avenue Ace Hardware, which incidentally is a great store, even though the guy gave me a hard time about returning my hose.