There are some really good bike paths in my neck of the woods, although they don’t all connect yet because some property owners fear them. But where they do exist, they give delight to all kinds of people, not just bikers. In many sections, artists have put up temporary displays, which add to the delight.
As I showed, here, the Bruce Freeman Trail currently has imaginatively painted doors by Umbrella Arts Center artists.
And when Cate McQuaid reported in the Boston Globe about crocheted plastic-bag art in the Arlington section of the Minuteman Trail, I knew I had to check it out. Three good things at once: a pretty walk, art, and volunteers fighting to end plastic litter!
While hunting the location of “Persistence: A Community Response to Pervasive Plastic,” I also got to see the Colony installation, which was scheduled to come down. It consisted of castle-like architecture that invited visitors to add their own little elements — for example, Fisher-Price “Sesame Street” figures.
About the crocheted creations, McQuaid wrote, “Plastic persists, breaking down into microplastics, which fish eat — and if we eat fish, we also eat plastic. But there’s another reason ‘Persistence: A Community Response to Pervasive Plastic,’ an installation by Michelle Lougee along the Minuteman Bikeway, got its title.
“ ‘It’s also the persistence it took everyone to get through this time, and who helped our project persist,’ said organizer Cecily Miller, public art curator for the Arlington Commission of Arts & Culture.
“The project kicked off late last year, with rosy hopes of community crafters coming together to crochet plastic bags. Lougee would turn the components they made into sculptures of aquatic microorganisms and suspend them from trees along the Bikeway overlooking Spy Pond. Workshops and meetups kept the momentum going. Miller says more than 100 people were collecting plastic, flattening, and folding it into plastic yarn, and doing the needlework. Then came the fog of COVID-19.
“ ‘Do the plastic bags hold the virus? Can we quarantine them? Nobody really knew the answers,’ Miller said.
“Miller and Lougee forged ahead with plastic the sculptor had in storage. The social element of the project came to a halt. They posted online resources for volunteers at home. …
“ ‘We had people who did more than they would have done without the pandemic,’ Lougee said. ‘Some people were happy to have this to focus on.’ “
They persisted. The display will be up through Halloween of next year. See www.artsarlington.org/artist-in-residence. And read more from Cate McQuaid at the Globe, here.
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