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Posts Tagged ‘greenway’

Whenever I walk in the Greenway, I see where they are building the new  carousel park. Can’t wait until it launches! The carousel critters are so unusual.

Taryn Plumb writes in the Globe about the three years of painstaking work that have gone into creating them.

“A miniaturized right whale is caught in mid-spout, baleen exposed, barnacles clinging.

“A sea turtle swims, its wide shell blushed with yellow and iridescent red, flippers with waves of violet, pink, and cobalt.

“Enormous butterflies hover – monarchs in dramatic orange and black; buckeyes boasting amethyst spots; swallowtails showing off elaborate webbed patterns of scarlet, purple, and blue.

“Carousels usually evoke images of horses of various shapes and sizes, adorned with flamboyant regalia, circling endlessly in trots and leaps to a backdrop of colorful lights and carnival music.

“But this carousel – designed, sculpted, and painted by two local artists, and soon to adorn the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway in Boston – is a horse of a different color.

“In fact, it doesn’t have any horses at all.

“ ‘You’ll never see another one like this,’ said designer Jeff Briggs of Newburyport. ‘It’s much more elaborate, much more intense.’

“To be installed by Labor Day weekend, the carousel will include a resplendent assortment of local land, sea, and air creatures: lobsters, rabbits, owls, a skunk, squirrel, fox, right whale, sea turtle, cod, peregrine falcon, grasshopper, three species of butterflies, a sea serpent gondola, and a harbor seal chariot. According to the Rose Fitzgerald Greenway Conservancy, the animals were inspired by drawings from Boston schoolchildren, and the project, which also includes a new park, was funded by grants and several dozen donors.” More.

Who will join me when it opens?

Photo: Mark Wilson for The Boston Globe
Sculptor Jeff Briggs has spent the last three years creating the animals on the carousel for the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

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Photos from my wanderings in Boston and Cambridge are piling up.

Can you identify the flower from the Greenway’s demonstration garden? It seems to be blotting out the mural in Dewey Square.

How about the approach to the Longfellow Bridge on the Kendall Square side of the Charles? Early in the morning, it looks like an ancient tomb.

I took the photo of City Hall for my only friend who thinks modernism is beautiful.

The Oyster House is a landmark.

And the Manichean clock is at Northeastern University. (You do, of course, remember the Manichean Heresy, which posited good and evil as equal forces?) Comments welcome.

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I believe these marshmallows are used as  prizes in the giants’ midnight games of dodge ball. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Other photographs of summer are less cryptic.

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There is a huge structure in the middle of the Greenway that the inventive Sam and Leslie of Uni Project fame once envisioned as a projection screen for summer film festivals. It houses the Big Dig’s ventilation system.

About a week ago I was walking past and noticed what looked like window washers cleaning it. I thought, “Now, why would anyone want to wash that thing?”

A couple days later I saw why. Prepping the canvas.

This is in Dewey Square, where less than one year ago Occupy Boston pitched camp.

Now, writes Geoff Edgers in the Boston Globe, “That’s where Os Gemeos (‘the twins’), famous in the street art world for creating towering cartoonish figures with bright colors and grimacing expressions, began work on their first Boston piece. Depending on weather, they’ll need a little over a week to craft the mural on a wall of a Big Dig ventilation building and a second, smaller piece on the Revere Hotel near Boston Common.

“The pieces are part of the first solo museum exhibition in the United States for Os Gemeos. The Institute of Contemporary Art show, featuring paintings, mixed media works, and installations, opens Aug. 1.”

Read more and check out other art by these guys at the Globe.

You might also like to read the museum’s description of the brothers’ upcoming the exhibition:

“This August the ICA will present the first solo exhibition in the United States of works by the Brazilian brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo. Best known as Os Gêmeos, the twins are a major force in graffiti and urban art. The twins have a deep bond; they are tireless collaborators and say that they often experience the same dreams. In an effort to share their dreams with the world, they depict their visions in surreal paintings, sculpture, and installations: human figures with removable faces, exploding bursts of color, and room-size heads installed with shanty interiors.”

More from the ICA here.

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These photos were placed on the Greenway sidewalk near Boston’s North End. They are the result of the Flash Forward Festival for emerging photographers, which took place earlier this month. The event is sponsored by the Magenta Foundation of Magenta magazine (“publishing for the arts”).

“Set within the Boston cityscape, the five-day festival is based out of the Fairmont Battery Wharf, offering an in-depth experience through organized networking events and educational programming that brings internationally respected industry professionals together to share their knowledge with the next generation of photographers. Programming includes curated indoor and outdoor exhibitions, a Harborwalk exhibition series featuring work from local galleries, along with lectures, panel discussions, and nightly events.” Read more about it here.

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So far this spring I have walked to the office by way of North Station only a few times. But when I did, I got curious seeing people in hard hats working like they had a deadline on a part of the Greenway blocked off by a fence. I peeked in and thought, “What is that? It looks like a labyrinth.”

As someone who tends to think of Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur on
Crete when labyrinths are mentioned, it has taken me a while to realize how many people today use them for meditation. And work being what it is, there will probably come a day soon when I want to test out the possibilities.

The new labyrinth was dedicated on a rainy day this week as part of a lovely Armenian Heritage Park.

Alejandra Matos writes for the Boston Globe, “US Representative Edward Markey and other officials welcomed the rain, calling it tears of joy from generations of Armenians.

“The park, located between the North End and Faneuil Hall, includes a sculpture surrounded by a reflecting pool, and is meant to honor Armenian immigrants to the state. Middlesex Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian, who is Armenian, said he has been fighting for the park since 1999.

“ ‘This is a gift to the city, not just for the Armenian immigrants. This is a park dedicated to all immigrants who have experienced coming to this great city,’ Koutoujian said.”

The third-largest Armenian population in the United States is in nearby Watertown. Read more at the Globe.

4/8/13 Update: The sculpture gets reconfigured to reflect how immigrants adapt. Check it out here.

Photograph: Aram Boghosian for the Boston Globe

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In the Greenway area where Occupy Boston camped last fall, there is now a demonstration garden. It includes raised beds of edible plants, a rain garden to capture run-off, and examples of urban composting. It’s a teaching garden.

Also in Dewey Square are food trucks, such as this Bon Me truck, which offers great Vietnamese lunches.

Around the block, in Fort Point Channel, the first of two Boston Tea Party Ships has arrived and has docked next to the new Boston Tea Party Museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When I was a kid, April would see me heading out to the woods to check on what was new since fall and to climb on the rocks in the stream all afternoon. Inevitably, I would fall in. I remember one year coming home carrying my sopping shoes and socks, very pleased with myself for thinking to wear my mittens on my feet.

In Boston, the Greenway has lovely spring rituals. Here are two: pussy willows turning into cats and a carousel horse flaunting a spiffy new paint job.

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Who would have imagined it would be 80 degrees in March! I certainly enjoyed being able to take a walk I usually take in the summer and check out the flowers and art.

Search this blog on “Greenway” for more pictures and posts about the lovely Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in Boston. Here’s what it looked like today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The last time we checked in at the Greenway, Occupy Boston had just departed, and new sod was being laid down where there had been tents.

Today I walked in both directions along the Greenway and took pictures of the new art. In front of the Boston Harbor Hotel is a temporary exhibit called Ice Chimes. It is designed to enhance the music of icicles. In the other direction, near the gateway to Chinatown is a sculpture with what looks like the sail of a junk and another sculpture of white sticks.

Pictures may serve better than words.

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A building gets wrapped with a bow, friends volunteer to hammer in some color along Greenway walks, South Station digs out its toy trains (display by these folks).

We don’t have snow, but we’re pretty festive anyway.

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Efforts are underway to reclaim the soil pounded to smithereens by the Big Dig. Certain plants are considered especially restorative, and I have enjoyed watching them grow on the strip between the farmers market plaza and the Greenway.

By the way, the Greenway, of which I have written before is just gorgeous at this time of year. Everyone walking through there looks happy. And most people seem content to obey the rules. Here is a rule written in the Greenway’s typically lighthearted style.

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Before it got hot this morning, a yoga class was exercising at one end of the Greenway.

At the other end, carousel horses waited for riders.

Meanwhile in New York, an improv troupe approached a different carousel.

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While I was taking my morning walks elsewhere, The Greenway seems to have sprouted sculpture — and in the very spot where mere weeks ago, a sign warned “Grass is Resting” and invited me to hang my art on the rope.

The DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass., is behind the transformation.

I love that the creator of the toothy beaver and the literary opossum is called Otter-Something. Tom Otterness.

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Earlier this week, I was walking in the Greenway and noticed that new sod had been placed and roped off.

The sign said, “Grass is resting but feel free to hang your art on the rope.” I thought, “Wow, someone in the Greenway Conservancy is really thinking!”

Today I came back. I believe I was the first to hang my art on the rope.

The art is a copy of a collage I made for a greeting card. Actually for a sympathy card when my Aunt Maggie died. She liked purple. I enjoy making greeting cards from collage materials — postcards, magazine art, brochures. I collect these scraps all the time, and when I’m gearing up to make a card for someone, I sift through and pull out pieces that remind me of the person. If I really like the card a lot, I make copies.

A shot of the original card is below.

Comments may be sent to suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com.

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