Category gardens
“PlanTable” in Chin Park Serves Many Important Purposes
Quotes and photos below focus on a few features. Links at the end lead to more. “At a time when cities like Boston face intensifying summer heat and widening environmental disparities, PlanTable offers a living, participatory response—merging ecology, culture, and community in one dynamic space. This multidisciplinary project, presented in partnership with Pao Arts Center, emerges from a deep collaboration between artists, designers, community advocates, and climate thinkers. ” ( Quote from Greenway Public Art, PlanTable)
Indoor Exhibit Extends Outdoor Art: Banners by Liz Shepherd and Suzanne Moseley in Arlington
This sequel to Banners and Audio Tour Celebrate “People, Plants & Revolution” in Arlington adds photos of the indoor banners and more resources about the art.
The outdoor views are enticing, though distant and dependent on traffic, weather, and your own mode of transport. The indoor venue is generously unrestricted for close-up viewing of each banner.
Recent Art Combines with Earlier Creative Features on the Bikeway in Somerville
On an April walk along Somerville Community Path (or Bikeway), I stopped to enjoy some new discoveries and familiar favorites. In this post I begin with photos of the recent additions and then share older photos, plus links to supporting information in earlier posts or new resources. As always, I appreciate the reliable richness and intriguing changes on this path.
Artists Add New Life to Familiar Forms: “GO OUT DOORS – ARLINGTON 2021” November Notes and Quotes
Guided by the very helpful interactive map on the GO OUT DOORS NEIGHBORS!, Arts Arlington, I have visited most of the 2021 doors. I hope to see them all before November ends, when they’ll be kept safe from the threats of winter weather. Then I will watch for their return in spring 2022 and for newly created doors as well. If able, I will want to show and tell more about “Go Out Doors” beyond Arlington.* Meanwhile here are names, art titles, links ( click on artists’ names in red for their websites), and quotes for the doors I’ve seen so far.
New Views Come in through Art for “Go Out Doors” in Minute Man National Historical Park
“Mission: “Go Out Doors” inspires discovery and exploration of outdoors spaces and trails, and the intersection of place, history, community, spirit, and nature. On View Through November 15, 2021” (quote from Umbrella Arts Go Out Doors @ Minute Man National Historical Park) This mission addresses my experience visiting the three doors!
Doors created by artists Yetti Frenkel, Cassandra Charles, and BARD at three separate sites within Minute Man National Historical Park
New Murals on Blue Hill Avenue by Ekua Holmes and London Parker-McWhorter Make Many Meaningful Connections
My visit to “Honoring the past, seeding the future,” the newest Grove Hall murals, extended my own range of travel after too long a time. Simply walking a few blocks around their location (on and near 345 Blue Hill Avenue) offered such an abundance of promising connections that I must now choose a few of many for focus in this post. Here are the chosen three.
Artists Ekua Holmes and Elizabeth James-Perry Bring MFA Lawn to Life with “Garden for Boston”
Whether or not you go inside the Museum of Fine Arts, on the front lawn you will find rich offerings by artists and curators attentive to soil, sun, sea, community, and history. One morning in early August, I joined other visitors enthralled by plantings and perspective in the collaborative venture called “Garden for Boston.” Delighted by discoveries, I’ll share a few of my iPhone photos with quotes from enlightening resources on the MFA website and other specified links.
Art Grows from Trees: Alan Sonfist and Richard Rosenblum at deCordova
Sonfist’s The Endangered Species of New England has been part of the Sculpture Park since 2013. Rosenblum’s Venusvine, created 1990, has been there since 1996. Both artworks reflect their artists’ deeply rooted work with trees. Both are metal renderings of natural forms. Both artworks have decisive locations in the park. They’ve held their ground while other artworks have moved around, left or entered in recent years.
Applaud Playground Turtles and their Creators: Nancy Schön and Lilli Ann Killen Rosenberg
Endurance is a quality shared by the turtle sculptures in this post. Lilli Ann Roseberg’s colorful concrete turtles in Cambridge have been ridden, jumped on, snowed in, flooded over and lots more in the past three decades. Nancy Schön’s bronze Myrtle the Turtle was bound up and relocated within Boston’s Myrtle Street Playground soon after settling in last year. These sculptures endured isolation while playgrounds were closed in the spring and then cautiously reopened.
Animal Sculptures by Judy McKie and Jay Coogan Prove Patient, Purposeful and Playful
Judy McKie’s bronze cat benches and Jay Coogan’s aluminum dogs and cats were kept off location during extensive construction of Cambridge Public school and library properties where they had become favorite features. Soon after they returned ready to resume their roles, the closing of all schools and libraries in March 2020 cut short the opportunities for children and adults to interact with them again. Though I had found opportunities to admire and photograph these artful animals, I didn’t want to share the images until the sculptures could be part of daily life once more.
Art Outdoors 