Tag Archives: public art

EARTH Sticker

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Saw this cool bumper sticker the other day in the Redwood Park parking lot… As I was snapping the picture, I heard the car beep and unlock and realized its owners were behind me and approaching the car. I immediately felt guilty and suspect! But the 12 year old boy was smiling at me, as was his mom, who simply asked, “Would you like one?”

Yes please!!

Her friend (artist Philip Kohn) created the sticker as a means to raise money for non-profit organizations working to protect biodiversity and wilderness. Seems fitting that I would come across this in our lovely protected Redwood Park, which undoubtedly is one of my favorite things about Oakland.  In addition to the redwood groves (just a few miles from downtown), the park contains over 1800 acres of evergreens, chaparral, streams, and grasslands and is home to many critters including the rare golden eagle! This according to their literature… I can’t say I’ve ever seen one.  Though I did see a great horned owl once.

If you want to support his cause, or just have a cool bumper sticker, you can pick them up here: http://www.earthsticker.com/

Time’ll Tell

I was at a party last weekend and a friend was talking philosophically about how the rate of change is continually accelerating. What once might have taken a century in terms of transformation, now takes a decade. In the future, maybe just a year.

This not-so-little piece of graffiti art seems to touch on that…

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It’s actually a giant wheat paste! The bicycle rack gives a sense of scale… needless to say, it’s large. The buffalo probably measures a good 10 ft in length and nearly 7 ft in height, and seems to be a reproduction of a smaller drawing. It was printed out onto 5 large sheets of poster paper, then cut out into pieces and pasted up onto this shuttered Wolf’s camera drive-thru. There is no artist’s signature.

I’m not sure what it means… a clash between eras, and the conflicts that result? Man’s domination of nature? The title lends a clue, I suppose. What do you think it’s about?

It’s technically in Berkeley, at the intersection of Ashby & Telegraph, but it’s only about 6 blocks from the Oakland border, and cool enough to warrant the border crossing.

SF Shout Out!

I zipped into San Francisco early Saturday morning to pick up my new Canon G11 from Calumet.  Have you guys been there?  It’s a great professional photography store with really just about everything… cameras (of course), studio & lighting equipment, seamless supplies, printers with a wide assortment of papers, a fantastic equipment rental department, and an art gallery upstairs.

The G11 is the first camera I’ve bought in over three years since buying my 5D (except for my Holga), and I am very excited! Nearly all of the photos I’ve posted on this blog were taken either with a 8 year old camera (which isn’t particularly pocket-sized) or with my iPhone, because I am too lazy to carry my big camera everywhere. With this new smaller camera, I plan to take my photo-documentarianism to the next level! (And yes, I do believe I made up that word.)

While waiting for the camera store to open, I spotted CELLspace across the street. I haven’t been there in a few years (sadly), and I definitely don’t remember it being quite this amazingly cool outside…

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Recognize the hand above? The same stencil exists in Oakland… have you seen it? Check back for the Oaktown version, and hopefully a bit more info about the artist who created it.

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The one above reminds me of a cool poster slapped up in multiple parts by Ashby and Telegraph. It’s Berkeley, not Oakland, but peeps keep mentioning it to me so I think I’ll throw that up later this week too. Please visit again. We’ll be headed to the cemetery at the end of the week for a properly spooky Halloween!

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The Gardens continued…

Here’s my wrap up on The Gardens… I just had to inject a little punk energy following the serenity of the Asian gardens. Hope you don’t mind.

There are several more gardens that comprise “The Gardens at Lake Merritt”: Bay Friendly, Edible, Sensory, Mediterranean, Palm, Rhododendron, and more. It’s really quite impressive.

There are a few different entrance gates into the gardens from Bellevue Avenue; I used the gate nearest the Boathouse which takes you right into the Edible Garden (aka Lakeside Kitchen Garden) on your left and the Sensory Garden on your right.

The Edible Garden focuses on food….duh. Through the Community Gardening program, these plots of land are open to all members of the community for stewardship, and master gardeners are available to teach organic gardening methods, composting, best practices for water conservation, how to attract bees & butterflies (the all-important pollinators), and much much more. The program also works in partnership with local schools and youth service programs to teach kids about nutrition, sustainability, and community involvement in the midst of a beautiful natural setting.

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The Sensory Garden, previously called the Herb & Fragrance Garden, was recently renovated and redesigned, incorporating new seating areas, tactile oriented pathways, and more drought tolerant plants.  Volunteers meet every Tuesday evening from 5:00 – 7:00 pm to maintain the garden.

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And here are a couple of shots of the Palm Garden, or palmetum, which was established in the park nearly 30 years ago and includes over 80 varieties of cool weather Mediterranean and high altitude tropical species and hybrids. It’s the largest collection of its kind in the United States. Woo hoo!!

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