Rendering of "Doughty Do" by Sharon Engelstein. The installation to open in March 29 at the Animal Service Facility includes 38 cast aluminum horses and two dogs.
In November 2008, the Houston Arts Alliance was the target of an ABC13 Wayne Dolcefino report on the civic art program. The segment—titled “Where’s the Art?”—questions the purpose of Margo Sawyer’s “Synchronicity of Color” installations at Discovery Green. The structures, which cover stairwells, are repeatedly referred to as a “waste” by an interviewee. The report goes on to question the rate at which projects have been completed.
The civic art team at the Houston Arts Alliance has responded with an exhibit and series of discussions at the Space125gallery about upcoming plans for Houston municipal artwork. It includes sketches, design elements, information about the process, and examples of civic artwork. The next event is tomorrow, Thursday, February 19 from 6:00 to 7:30pm. It features artist Sharon Engelstein and Cite editorial committee member José Solis.
The above video was made by Sara Fernandez. She wrote, “Setting my camera on interval record looking out of my bedroom window (my home is in Montrose, west of downtown Houston) was always on my list of things to do. Hurricane Ike was the motivator to get it done. I wanted to capture the movement of the clouds and to see the storm that I would not have the guts to stand in front of my window to watch. I set the camera up at sunrise, 7:07 a.m.
Emergency Response Artist Studio [Photo courtesy of Jonathan Ferrara Gallery]
The Rice Gallery features site-specific, commissioned installations and every one that I have visited there has been extraordinary. Last Fall, an installation by Aurora Robson used cut plastic bottles and rivets to create winding translucent tunnels and domes. When I took my two-year-old daughter to visit she ran through it with arms outstretched pretending to be a dragon. The gallery’s next adventure is a departure from the lyrical, morphogenic pieces I have come to associate with it. In fact, it’s a “FEMA trailer.”
"Nimby" by Kevin Curry. [Photo by Eric Hester]
The cover of the Fall 2008 issue of Cite draws together much of the content from the issue, which includes features on affordable housing and Hurricane Ike. The photograph shows “NIMBY,” a structure fashioned by Kevin Curry from fence boards, posts, rails, and other hurricane debris he scavenged from the streets. Built just large enough to hold a single bed, the structure, according to Curry, “addresses the fragility of safety and comfort.” What a timely word – fragility. Not just because a hurricane cast us into darkness for weeks and demolished the coastline, but also because of the financial crisis, the housing market, rising unemployment, the fluctuating price of oil, wars, attacks, and everything else headlining the papers.
MOCAH students make art. Photo by Reginald Adams
During the summer of 1999, when my wife, Rhonda Radford-Adams, and I stepped out on a limb and decided to both quit our jobs to begin on an incredible journey now known as the Museum of Cultural Arts Houston (MOCAH), we had no idea what impact our work would have on Houston. What we did know for sure was that we were committed to the idea of bringing public art and creative learning and life experiences to inner-city youth and communities. Through a myriad of public/private partnerships and collaborations involving development authorities, schools, community organizations, and major corporations, MOCAH has been enabled to fulfill its mission of using art and creativity as tools for social and community development.
Cite magazine, the architecture and design review of Houston, has been published quarterly
by the Rice Design Alliance
since 1982.
