|
By ESTHER SMITH
News staff writer
May 24, 2006
Hood River is about to see the unveiling
of a new map of the city: A walking map showing the area’s plentiful
public art spots. The map will be presented to the community June 2,
at the First Friday event.
About 35 Hood River Middle School students have been working on the
project since November; doing research, identifying public art,
developing criteria, photographing, sketching, designing, mapping, and
producing the art maps.
“It’s been fun to see them sort of wake up to what’s around them,”
said Shelley Toon-Hight, who has been working as artist-in-residence
on the project. It was funded by a grant from the Hood River Cultural
Trust. The idea came from Leigh Hancock, who also wrote the grant.
The sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students all volunteered to work
on the special project, which meant giving up sixth period a couple of
times a month. Three committees were formed to focus on the
historical, map design and technical/computer aspects of the
map-making. Two eighth-graders, Katherine Rouse and Hilary Sager, were
chosen to be student executives.
Photo by Esther Smith
Architectual detail at the
entry to Celilo Restaurant is photographed by Alice, noted by Sara,
and sketched by Carson, as Patty Salmon, an adult volunteer, looks on.
In the first phase of the project, the
students were given a background in public art.
“We saw slides of public art, studied different public artists, such
as Christo and Chihuly,” Rouse said, “and a historian came and showed
slides of downtown, and we discussed what public art is; what
qualified as public art.
“I had never really thought about that before,” she said.
“I kind of thought that a lot of modern art was just random,” Carson
Wright said. “But there’s order to it.”
At the end of November the students piled into a bus and drove
downtown to find and photograph all public art within a one-mile
radius of downtown Hood River. They were divided into seven groups,
each assigned an area and each asked to designate a map person, a
photographer, a note-taker, and a sketch artist.
As a starting point, a list of suggestions for each area was put
together by Toon-Hight, who had scoped it out earlier, but the
students were instructed to photograph anything they thought might
qualify.
“I want your heart and soul involved in this art project,” HRMS
teacher Ann McDonald, who coordinated the project, told the students
as they fanned out on their quest for public art.
Photo by Esther Smith
Alice photographs a potential
“public art” subject,
while Sara takes notes.
Group 3 concentrated on Oak Street and
photographed — or sketched — architectural features, murals,
sculptures, doorknobs and anything else that caught the group’s fancy:
the entry of Celilo Restaurant; Trillium Café’s sign; Silverado’s
silver statue, “Sylvia”; the clock on the International Museum of
Carousel Art building (formerly First National Bank); carousel horses;
and a myriad other things. At this point in the process, anything had
potential as public art.
For the next meeting, Toon-Hight had put all the groups’ photos
together into a slide show so that everyone could see the other
groups’ results.
“The things I want you to keep in mind as you look at these
photographs are: Is it art? What is art?” she said.
“Something that represents something? Something with passion?
Something that makes you think?” were some of the responses.
“Who gets to decide? Does anyone really get to decide what is art?”
she asked. “We need to think about these things to develop our
criteria.”
As the students watched images of driftwood sculptures, murals, the
salmon fountain, stained glass windows, mosaics, architectural details
— even flags and banners on lampposts — Toon-Hight asked them to
consider the merits of each one.
Photo by Esther Smith
Carson sketches a carousel animal inside the
Carousel Museum.
“The Children’s Park — is it art?” she
asked. “Architecture art — not something you commonly see. The Rainbow
House — art? Kind of yes, kind of no; it’s showy, flashy; expressing
who they are.”
“The wall below Wine Sellers — architecturally interesting, but is it
art?” she asked. The goal of this meeting was to get the students
thinking.
“We’re going to meet again at the first of the year, and we’ll decide
which pieces to put on the map, and come up with criteria,” Toon-Hight
said.
At a meeting for the more artistic volunteers of the project,
Toon-Hight asked the group to form teams of two, and together choose
one of three art techniques to make pieces based on selected
photographs.
“I’ve gone through the art you’ve found and divided them into three
categories: architectural, detail on buildings, and art on buildings,”
she said. “This is for the actual map so you want it to be your best
work.
The choices in technique were crayon with black wash, line drawings
with watercolor, or a realistic sketch.
“The crayon with black wash will create a whimsical rendering — think
light, funky colors,” Toon-Hight said. “Don’t worry about getting the
colors realistic, but make sure the drawing is realistic.
“Each team member needs to use the same technique and do the same
subject as his or her teammate.”
Photo by Esther Smith
Eyeing “Sylvia,” a metal
sculpture inside Silverado are, from left, Sara Brunk, Alice Zanmiller,
Katherine Rouse and Carson Wright.
The next meetings tackled the difficult
job of developing criteria, and the art that was ultimately deemed
public art came under one of four categories: quirky neighborhood art,
art done by a professional artist, architectural art, or student art
done with a professional artist.
“We called the police chief to see whether we should include the
graffiti as public art, but he said no; it was a criminal way of
expressing yourself,” said one of the students.
“They never did come up with a ‘list of 10’-type criteria, but there
were some things they decided,” Toon-Hight said. “One was that the art
should speak to the outdoor lifestyle, and another was to relate
somehow to the river, since the river is such a main feature of our
community.
“They’ve had many discussions, and ruled out a few things.”
One discussion centered on whether to include art that was inside
commercial buildings, such as the carousel horses inside the museum
and the metal sculpture inside Silverado, or paintings in a dental
office. They finally decided to leave the decision to the proprietors.
Once all the decisions and choices had been made, the students plotted
the public art sites on a map, which brought them to the final phase:
map production.
Computer students computerized the map and worked on design and
layout, with the help of Scotia Bauer, a graphic designer. She also
photographed the cover shot, a take-off of The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”
album cover, which was conceived by Carly Peterson, Demi Piatt and
Katherine Rouse. (The students’ garb and gait closely echo the famous
image of George, Paul, Ringo, and John crossing a London street.)
“We went to ‘That’s Swank’ and rented clothes — nothing fit! — and
dressed up in these funny clothes and took about 50 pictures walking
back and forth across that street!” said Carson Wright. Somebody was
always out of step, he said, “usually me!”
The maps are in the final stages of production, and Bauer said they
will be glossy black and white with an accent color. The students will
meet at the Center for the Arts on First Friday, June 2, to present
the maps to the community and they also plan to present them to the
city council at its next meeting June 12.
“This is the coolest project for the city of Hood River that I’ve seen
in a long time,” pronounced Mayor Linda Streich when she attended the
students’ final meeting May 15. She shared a recent experience in
Joseph, Ore., where she had seen lots of public art.
“Public art really does make a difference,” Toon-Hight said. |
