SACO Jubilee Park Covered Bridge, a watercolor by award-winning artist and author, Gerard Bianco, was selected into the American Watercolor Society juried 2022 Associate Members Online Exhibit. The show will run from June 7 to Aug. 20.

One of New Englands biggest secrets is Jubilee Park Covered Bridge in Saco, Bianco said in a statement. Even many residents of this historic town do not know of its existence. The bridge connects Water Street to Jubilee Island Park, a beautifully landscaped island on the Saco River where youll find picnic tables, wildlife, summer concerts, and fabulous views of the river.

Bianco said his watercolor, a portrait of Jubilee Park Covered Bridge in winter, is sure to shine a spotlight on the relatively quiet town of Saco, attracting tourists and members of covered bridge societies in the U.S. The painting depicts the many contrasting textures in this scene, including the wooden bridge siding, the soft rock-laden snowbanks, the supporting rocks, the cool icy river, the warm sky and its reflections on the water.

Local artist Bianco is an associate member of the American Watercolor Society. He holds an MFA in Writing. He studied at the Arts Students League and the School of Visual Arts. He said his portraits and illustrations hang in corporate and private collections throughout the U.S., including the permanent U.S. Navy Collection. His website, https://gerardbianco.com/, features other New England watercolor paintings and coastal scenes.

Previous

Next

See original here:

Painting of Saco's Jubilee Park covered bridge Selected for exhibition - Press Herald

Image via Netflix

Volume One of Stranger Things season four officially dropped on Netflix this past Friday. As eagle-eyed viewers continue to binge-watch the first seven episodes of the season, many diehard fans are asking the same question: what exactly did Will Byers paint?

After the release of season fours first batch of episodes, fans are convinced now more than ever that Will is gay. And, with it now being Pride month, the rumor mill is churning as fans are dissecting clues about Wills sexuality one of them being a painting he created during the premiere episode of the fourth season.

In the season opener, Jane Eleven Hopper is penning a letter to Mike Wheeler about her new experiences and life thus far in California. The letter includes information about Joyce, Jonathan, and Will. In addition, Eleven informs Mike that Will has spent a lot of his personal time painting a picture, although Will has decided to keep the details about the painting to himself.

As mentioned before, details about the painting have been kept under wraps, but several clues hint that the painting is for Mike, who he has been best friends with since kindergarten. Many fans believe Will has a crush on Mike. While Mike has established a strong relationship with Eleven over the last three seasons, Will has never vocalized any interest in any relationship.

One clue that the painting is for Mike happens when Will and Eleven go to the airport to pick Mike up for his visit to California. During the reunion, Will is seen holding the painting rolled up, but he never gives the artwork to Mike. Instead, Will angrily crumbles up the painting when he watches Mike and Eleven kiss, which hints that the painting is for Mike.

And while we dont know for sure what Will specifically painted for Mike, folks are speculating all of the possibilities. The painting options include either Will and Mike kissing, holding hands, or their initial encounter with each other at a swingset when they were younger.

Whether the painting depicts any of these theories remains to be seen. But, we do know that the painting is significant to Wills character growth, sexuality, and development in the action-packed fourth season of the sci-fi sensation.

Well see if we find out what Will painted in Vol. 2 of Stranger Things season four, which drops on Netflix on July 1.

'+// ''+// '

Continue reading here:

What Did Will Paint in 'Stranger Things'? - We Got This Covered

Claude Rutault, a French artist whose paintings were made according to rigorous sets of rules, has died at 80. A representative for Perrotin, the Paris-based gallery that represents him, said he died of an illness on Saturday.

Those who knew him will miss his mischievousness, intelligence, strong personality, generosity, and freedom of spirit, evident in his work, Perrotin wrote on social media.

Rutaults paintings bridged the gap between postwar abstraction and the lofty ideas of the Minimalist and Conceptualist art movements. His works take the form of pared-down abstractions; many of them are monochromes. They are the result of processes done according to strict determinations written out by Rutault in advance.

Because those rules can effectively be followed by anyone, Rutault claimed he never made his works themselves. He also said he did not involve himself in these works exhibition or sales, effectively removing himself entirely.

The goal of this unusual mode of working was to disturb traditional notions about painting and how it is viewed. He labeled his sets of instructions d-finition/mthodes, and the space or collector which showed them as the charge-taker.

My proposition is about exiting the pictorial context, he said in a 2015 interview in Purple. Getting away from the painting. Going beyond the insignificance of the monochrome. For me, putting up paintings outside is a spectacle.

Born in 1941 in Trois Moutiers, France, Rutault was part of a generation of French artists who subjected painting, a hallowed medium historically associated with originality, to unusual means of production. Painters like Niele Toroni created repetitive abstractions dictated by precise mathematical systems, while the Supports/Surface movement relied on quotidian materials to question the mediums most basic elements. However, Rutault often said he felt a greater affinity with the Minimalists working in New York than with these artists.

Rutaults works were sly in ways that are less obvious than initially meets the eye. One work demanded that its creator paint a canvas the same color as the walls of the gallery in which its set. Another called on its seller to scale the price of the painting up or down in relation to the sums needed to buy local real estate, according to its size.

Paintings by Rutault are difficult to love, due to their hauteur, and this may account for why they have not often been seen outside France. Before Perrotin mounted an exhibition of his work in New York in 2014, he had not had a solo show in New York since 1979, when the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presented his art. Still, early on, he figured in important shows at important French venues such as the Muse National dArt Moderne in Paris and the Centre Pompidou, as well as the 1977 and 1982 editions of Documenta in Kassel, Germany.

Although his work was highly conceptual, Rutault did not believe it was without humor.

You dont know what my work will become, he told the artist Allan McCollum in conversation featured in Interview magazine. You dont know what color it will be painted. You dont know where it will be shown. Theres a part of playfulness and game, but its also very serious in a way.

Read more here:

Claude Rutault, French Artist Who Rewrote the Rules of Painting, Dies at 80 - ARTnews

Fall Fun by Connie Wininger, who is the featured artist at the Southside Art League in June. Winingers paintings will be on display through June 30.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

With soft, pleading eyes, the good dog stares at the viewer so lifelike you wish you could reach out and scratch behind her ears.

The bubbling exuberance of a happy child is captured in vibrant color on another canvas. Father and daughter wade carefully into the foaming waves in a third painting.

Connie Wininger has found that colors help express the best of her work.

I was always drawn to work like Vincent Van Goghs, and people who worked along those lines. I like to have a mood and feeling in my artwork, and you need to use colors to do that, she said.

Through colorful expression, Wininger tries to capture the joy of the world around her. Her vibrant paintings of people, animals and places take over the Southside Art Leagues Off Broadway Gallery throughout the month of June.

Wininger hopes that those who see her work sparks a recollection from their own lives.

Maybe theyll get a feeling or a memory that they can relate to connected to it, she said. I like for them to make a personal connection.

Wininger has grown up in creative spaces. She was immersed in art as a child, took courses through high school and then went to Franklin College to study art education. After graduation, she taught art at Perry Meridian High School and Perry Meridian Middle School, in addition to working as a librarian at Glenns Valley Elementary School.

While teaching and raising her two children, Wininger didnt have time to explore her own art. But following her retirement, she decided to get back to painting and drawing.

It brings me a real peace. When I started painting again, I had forgotten how good it made me feel, she said. I feel very at peace and it brings me a lot of satisfaction to do it.

In the past few years, she has shown her work in local art shows at the Greenwood Public Library, Southside Art League and the Art Sanctuary in Martinsville. Her time at the Art Sanctuary inspired this solo exhibition in Greenwood.

Wininger started going to an open painting class at the Art Sanctuary, where she worked with artist Nancy Maxwell to rekindle her creative spirit.

Wed come in and work for a few hours, and shed critique our things. She asked if I showed my work, and I said not really, and she suggested I start, Wininger said.

As a member of the Southside Art League, she inquired about having an exhibition of her own. The gallery had openings in its exhibition schedule, and she signed up.

The show will be an opportunity to showcase her approach to painting. Wininger looks for subjects that inspire her, sometimes people, sometimes animals and sometimes everyday scenes that she encounters.

She prefers to not paint entirely realistically, instead opting for saturated colors that radiate emotion.

I tend to choose colors for the expressive purpose. I like very expressive artwork, but also to see images in it; its not abstract, she said.

The exhibition is a blend of work that shes completed, mostly over the past two years. Her paintings will be on display through June 30. A public reception is scheduled for 3 to 5 p.m. June 5.

Read the rest here:

Powerful expression: Artist captures emotion of everyday life in paintings - Daily Journal

When it came time for my novel, Planes, to get a cover, I was thrilled to learn that Linda Huang had been assigned to make it. I met Linda in the fall of 2004, when we lived on the same dorm hall. Ive long admired her work as a cover designer; more than once, in the years since graduation, Ive found myself admiring a cover on a bookstore table, then realizing it was one of hers. So I knew I was in good handsand I was happy to feel some different chapters of my life intertwining.

I also had no idea what to expect. Id tried coming up with cover concepts on my ownjust as an exerciseand everything I came up with felt dumb or untrue to the book. When the email with Lindas cover arrived, I had butterflies in my stomach. It was bizarre and surreal to know that, when I clicked on the attachment, I would see a sprawling story Id spent almost a decade on summed up with a single image. Fortunately, I loved it. In the weeks leading up to publication, I emailed with Linda, hoping to learn more about her process and history as a designer.

*

Peter C. Baker: Can you tell me how you first approached the process of designing this cover? Are there initial steps you tend to follow for all cover projects?

Linda Huang: Before reading the manuscript, I was well aware that you wanted something abstract, typographic, and dimensionalbased on the Melissa Febos cover you sent as inspiration.

PCB: FunnyId only sent that cover over because I saw it and felt something? I cant say exactly what, but it felt like it belonged in the mix. On the mood board. I definitely didnt mean to be saying, firmly, GIVE ME SOMETHING LIKE THIS!

LH: I guess it was a visual fragment that I glommed onto, that excited me as wella license to approach it more graphically and formally, which tends to lead to more interesting visual outcomes.

There was also the question of the title. Although short, single-word titles are ideal for design, it became clear to me while reading the manuscript that the title didnt reveal much about the story. I was hoping that the cover would at least touch on some core aspects of the novellike redactions, secrecy, black sites, and incomplete storiesbut still be mysterious enough to lure you in.

After reading the manuscript, I do what I usually do for all fiction covers: jot down key themes, motifs, and what I feel like the cover needs to convey. Its a very loose, associative process, and varies from book to book. Most of the time I doodle thumbnail sketches, but looking back at my notebook, I couldnt find any sketches, only written concepts, e.g.:

Redacting using typeFragments created by folding / pleatsA head-up display (the electronic data displayed on a planes window for pilots)Repeating PLANES with some kind of interruption

Because these directions relied heavily on typography, I started sketching on the computer directly. It was a very experimental process of trial and error.

I quickly started toying with the idea of planes of existence, or a flat surface connecting two pointssymbolic of the two narratives that unfold, connecting the two female protagonists. Combining this idea with redaction and black sites led me to the final cover direction. I was hoping to convey both elegance and brutality by stylizing the title this way, and the black shapes are also reminiscent of a blueprint for something vaguely militaristic or industrialthemes relevant to the novel.

Obviously, post-9/11 torture is a heavy element in the story, but I didnt think it would be winning to convey any of that on the cover. We are always told that nobody wants to pick up a book depicting anything gruesome, depressing, or generally off-putting, especially when theres no humor involved. (In case you didnt know, Sales tends to love covers that are colorful, inviting, and accessible.) Thankfully, I didnt have to compromise much for Planes. I think the optimistic blue sky helped.

PCB: I love the blue sky: how it evokes an ideal of openness and calm thats in tension with the rest of the cover, in a way that makes the whole thing feel eerie and alive.

Once you had the ideawhat sort of work did you do to implement it? I think people who are unfamiliar with cover design can be amazed to learn how much sometimes goes into it. I remember you telling me something about printing out letters then scanning them back in

LH: I did some type tests to get the proportions right for the type-as-redaction shapes. Finding the right typeface for a cover is an important part of my process, and I can easily spend hours, if not days, researching the right letterforms.

The original background image above is a page scanned from Uncorporate Identity by Metahaven of what looks like footage from a surveillance camera. (Metahaven is a Dutch design studio whose work, very loosely speaking, explores geopolitical phenomena.) I may have leaned too much into the political aspect of the book; when I showed it at the cover meeting, the feedback was that the background was too vague. They suggested a sky, which I thought was a great idea. Way more approachable! The type also begged to be a tad larger.

My other idea was to print PLANES on a folded piece of paper, creating dimension:

In both cases, I printed out the letterforms at a reduced scale, then blew them up on the scanner. This trick imbues some imperfection to the shapes, creating jagged edges that would be difficult to create by hand.

Ive always loved this collage by Scott Dickson of fragments of sky interlocked like a puzzle. It has that vintage postcard quality that is hard to replicate nowadays. I thought it could be an alternate, perhaps more inviting cover direction (you can see the colorful sky!), hinting at a sense of interconnectedness and shared history.

PCB: Im glad I didnt see all of these at the time; it would have been really hard for me to pick between them.

In college I knew you as a visual artist, and I have a really vivid memory of coming to your studio to look at paintings you were working onI remember some of babies, and some of raw meat, right? The paintings made an impression, but I was just as struck by the feel of the studio, and my sense of how much time you were spending there. Back then I really wanted to be writing fiction but didnt do very much of it. I had a lot of trouble committing to anything or seeing it through, and seeing all of the work youd accumulated was inspiring. What was your journey from painting to cover design? And how do you feel one influences the other?

LH: Even though I chose painting as the final medium for my senior thesis, I hardly considered myself a painter. One out of my four classes per semester was a studio art class. You know how it is at liberal arts collegesbreadth over depth, at least that was my experience. Now that Ive met people who went to art school for undergrad, for whom most of their classes were rigorous studio art classes, I feel like I barely dabbled in the medium. But senior year was more immersive for sure, and in hindsight it was a very precious timeto have a dedicated studio space surrounded by like-minded others making work.

After graduation, I wanted to work in a field related to visual culture. After some unsatisfying stints interning with art dealers and galleries in the summers during college, I knew I wanted to be making the work, not managing it. But I was less interested in painting and fine art and became increasingly interested in graphic design, especially its inseparability from typography. For as long as I can recall, Ive always been obsessed with fonts. I have a memory from when I was 11 or 12 of making a bookmark from magazine cutouts of various logos and words that I collaged together and even had laminated. In college I spent far too long choosing a font before writing my papers. I realize Im very sensitive to the shapes of letterforms and their impact on how a message is received.

So I decided to enroll in a three-semester, vocational design program at Parsons, where I took a class on book cover design taught by Jason Booher, who was then a designer at Knopf. It was really hard but really rewarding. I had no idea there was such a niche field where people got paid to read books and think about how to package them. In a way, its one of the most pure forms of designresponding to someone elses work of art. And, unlike, say, designing film posters, the non-visual nature of writing allows for richer interpretation. Jason taught us that book cover design is all about the singular visual momentthe formal play that makes a cover unique.

While at Parsons, I interned with Gabriele Wilson, a former Knopf designer, working on various cover and interior design projects. After finishing the program, via Jasons connection, I started freelancing at Knopf and was eventually hired as a junior designer. I remember telling my now-husband that, in my professional life, I just wanted to be left alone to solve visual problems. It would be hard to find a more fitting match.

What I enjoy most about cover design is the opportunity to channel different visual styles and techniques. I become a chameleon, molding myself to each book. The ability to grasp an authors core thesis in a range of topicsfrom physics to historyis a necessary skill. Its also what keeps the job interesting.

On a fundamental level, painting and cover design share many similaritiescore principles such as composition, scale, color theory, foreground/background, and positive/negative space. You can also approach painting in a more designed way (Piet Mondrian, Frank Stella, and Ellsworth Kelly are obvious examples). I think the primary way painting has influenced me is purely formaltraining me to see. Those college paintings of babies were purely sensory and not conceptual. Of course, I still use some of my painting background to illustrate the occasional book cover (albeit in a very basic/crude way) and hand-letter type.

PCB: Did the process feel any different than usual because we know each other?

LH: Definitely. I felt more pressure to get it right on the first go. And while reading the manuscript, I couldnt help but think of you behind the voice of the female protagonists. I was struck by how attuned you were to their psyches. Maybe this led me to a less conventionally feminine solution (e.g. theres nothing on the cover that hints at two female protagonists). Picturing you, a male author, may have slightly biased the design to be more masculine. Male authors, even those who write female characters, have traditionally been able to get away with designs that are more graphic, abstract, and stark.

I was also extremely curious where you got the idea to write the novel from (other than the news, of course), and kept thinking about how much work it takes to write an entire book!

PCB: I was worried youd say that, about trying to get it right from the start. Thats too much pressure!

I started the book in 2011, when I was in graduate school in North Carolina. I was already doing some nonfiction writing about torture and rendition, and getting increasingly dissatisfiedwith the way I saw these subjects taken up by novels and movies. Then I read this 2005 New York Times article about the CIA using charter plane companies in North Carolina for rendition flights.

Id actually read the article before, but not at a time in my life when I was actively trying to start a novel. I suddenly felt able to approach torture and rendition in a new waythrough conventions more commonly associated with novels about small-town life, about domestic life, about marriage. And that was the start, though it took five years to start adding the sections set in Italywhich now make up over half the book.

LH: Fascinating. I found your approach to integrating torture and rendition into domestic and married life very unexpected, in a refreshing way. How did you go about planning the sub-narratives and where did you find inspiration for such different characters? It seems quite obvious from reading the book that you also spent time in Rome. Was there a particular reason you chose to set half the book there?

PCB: Adding the Rome material was a way to make the book bigger, but without swapping out the up-close, domestic lens. It helped that Id spent several weeks there in 2009. In 2017 I went back on a family vacation and I was able to go to locations I was using in the novel.

As for the characters and subplots, I think its probably a lot like cover design, or any creative process, especially since Ive never been a big advance planner or outline-maker. I try something but then realize somethings missing. I fill in whats missing but then things are out of balance. I put things back in balance but then they feel boring. I try something that doesnt feel boringand again. So its weirdly hard for me to remember where certain parts of the bookeven whole characters!originally came from. Its nice to forget, actually; that means it cant stress me out anymore. And having a great cover is part of that. Its really out there, which means Im really done with it.

______________________________

Peter C. Bakers Planes is available from Knopf

See the original post here:

Secrets of the Book Designer: On Typography, Painting, and Finding That Single Visual Moment - Literary Hub

The details surrounding hometown legends can get kind of fuzzy over time. Take the legend of the Painted Rock in Lincoln.

The rock, if you haven't been to see it in person yet, is situated in Lincoln on Route 6, about a mile from the town line.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 3, Caprice Stevens

No one can really remember exactly when the tradition of painting the rock began.

Darlene Flood grew up in the neighboring town of Lee.

"I grew up in Lee and attended Lee Academy. We passed the rock every trip to Lincoln and back."

Flood recalls the painting of this giant rock began at some point in the 70s.

"My earliest memories are of the rock in the early 1970s. And it all began when a local boy and his friends painted his name on the rock. Simply one word Jesse. It stayed for a very long time it was forbidden graffiti.1970s kids were rebels."

Flood says that the painting of the rock really started to pick up in the years to come.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 9, Martha Currier

"I raised my kids in Lincoln in the 1980s and 90s. Things really accelerated then. It became the rural version of city billboards."

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 14, Kelli McLeod Bard

Flood's father, Alton Pickering, would document the different layers of paint back then with his manual camera.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 6, Alton Pickering

"The Dunphy photo is the most well known. It was a traumatic time for our small town of Lee...The 1991 photos of troops returning were a huge deal. "

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 7, Alton Pickering

Others like lifelong Lincoln resident Ruth Birtz think it might have started earlier than the 70s.

"I don't know how far back it goes. I do know that I have lived in Lincoln my entire life...and I would say it's been as far back as 1960-something...It's certainly been in place for a number of years. "

Birtz, who has worked in one capacity or another, for the Town of Lincoln for the past 30 years, says the Famous Painted Rock has been around as far back as she can remember.

"That rock, I wouldn't even dare to say how many coats of paint are on it."

One thing all who are familiar with the rock can agree on isthe paint has always been added to mark a major life event or to commemorate the lost life of a local loved one.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 12, Kelli McLeod Bard

Birtz says historically, the rock has been painted to mark births, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, the passing of local members of EMS and military members, or even just folks who lived in the area.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 13, Kelli McLeod Bard

It's even been used, in a friendly rivalry between neighboring towns, to show support for local teams during big sporting events.

"One day you'll see is 'Go Lee Pandas!' and the next day you'll see 'Hey Lady Howlers' and then you'll get the 'Mattanawcook Academy Lynx'. It changes multiple times a year."

Usually painted under the cover of night, Birtz says she only remembers one time actually seeing someone physically paint on the rock.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 15, Kelli McLeod Bard

"It's always stealth. It's usually in the middle of the night. People go with flashlights and stuff. I think the only time I've seen it done actually during the day, was when it's to commemorate someone who has passed. Then they take a little bit more time with it."

Capt. Royce Smith 10/12/15 memorial, Painted by Heather Ann, photo by Kelli McLeod Bard

Martha Currier, who grew up in Lincoln, says she's been lucky enough to paint the rock a time or two.

"I painted 2 one for my mum n one for my best friend going to college and had my friend caprice paint it for my daughter."

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 11, Martha Currier

"I love the rock! It is a local tradition and an honor to have ur name, accomplishments, birthdays, artwork, any celebration, etc.. painted on 'the rock'! So many local memories that bring the whole community together."

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 8, Martha Currier

Local artist Caprice Stevens,who grew up in Lee but now lives in Lincon, has painted the rock a number of times.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 4, Caprice Stevens

"I was asked on a few separate occasions to paint something good that would bring cheer to the people who drove by. Its always been a fun outlet for me because I love creating."

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 2, Caprice Stevens

Kathy Lothrop Crise also has a special connection to Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock, as she helped honor her fallen nephew with a display in 2007.

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 5, Kathy Lothrop Crise

"Joel House is my nephew. The morning after Army officials notified Joels parents, my sister, and brother-in-law, my dad gathered us all and said 'lets go paint the rock'.Ive had many people tell me over the years that this is how they found out about Joels death."

Most recently, "The Rock" was painted to honor another local man named Gary Lyle Worster, who passed away unexpectedly in April of this year.

Lincoln's Famous Rock 3, Phil Drew

Worster, better known to his friends as "Swampy" was well-known and well-loved in the area.

Swampy's longtime friend and relative, Jennifer Gordon, was one of the local artistsinvolved in painting the tribute to Swampy on the rock.

"Amy Renaud contacted me shortly after Gary's passing asking if I would be interested in painting the rock in his memory. The answer was YES immediately. I have done artistic painting for over 20 years and I was honored to help with it."

Lincoln's Famous Rock 1, Phil Drew

"Gary meant a lot to all that knew him and always left a lasting impression. His personality always put a smile on your face. Amy had some ideas of what she would like it to say so we bounced some ideas back and forth. His love for the slots and vegas were among the discussion. It was definitely a joint effort between the two of us."

Lincoln's Famous Rock 2, Phil Drew

"As we were there painting the rock we both realized the last time either of us had painted it was together then also with a group of kids in remembrance of a classmate."

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 1, Caprice Stevens

"So many people complimenting and thanking me at Gary's celebration of life. I mentioned to a few it would be interesting to start a page for people to share past paintings. I got such a positive response I decided to do it"

And thus, theLincoln's Famous Painted RockFacebook Page was started. Now folks have a spot to share photos and stories of this local legend.

Birtz says she thinks it's pretty amazing that in all the years "the rock" has existed, it's never been painted up to be political or too vulgar.

"I think it's amazing that it's never been political. I don't recall ever seeing anything political on it. It's always been to commemorate a life event. Whether it's to celebrate a sports team winning or to celebrate a local person for their life achievements. There might have been one time, in my lifetime, when it had something inappropriate on it. But overnight it was gone. For the amount of years that that rock has been painted, that in itself is pretty remarkable as well."

Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock 10, Martha Currier

"It's almost like it's got this unspoken folklore, that you're going to put things on the rock that you want to celebrate."

Here are the 10 most visited Maine state parks in 2021, according to the Maine Bureau of Parks and Land.

See the rest here:

Do You Know The Story Of Lincoln's Famous Painted Rock? - q1065.fm

First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian is proud to announce their new Thrift Store Murals Project in conjunction with Pastor Jeff Woods Sabbatical scheduled for this summer. Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal Programs strengthen Christian congregations through renewal and reflection. The Lilly Corporation provides an opportunity for pastors to step away from the persistent obligations of daily parish life and engage in a period of renewal and reflection. It is meant for those congregations and pastors who have a strong relationship with one another.

Pastor Jeff Wood formed a sabbatical grant proposal team made of church members at First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian, and another pastor from the area. This team worked in concert with the session and the congregation so that the sabbatical would become a church family endeavor.

The theme of the proposal was exploring God and devotion to him through color color in flowers, fish, butterflies, stained glass, mosaics, murals, and village architecture. It incorporates two silent retreat experiences, one at the midway and one at the end. So, Pastor Wood and his wife, Denise, will roam and reflect from the lavender fields in southern France to looking for northern lights in Alaska. And the congregation will work on a mural on our site, a renewed garden at our sanctuary entrance, a mini-retreat about color and devotion, and an online course with Abbey of the Arts- titled, Earth, Our Original Monastery.

The church membership will be embarking on all of these projects on the church grounds during the Sabbatical, and the Thrift Store Murals Project is now nearing completion. Carol Makris was hired, based on her experience, to design and execute this project. I was inspired by our task to incorporate an abundance of color, and to try to make this building more welcoming, explains Carol, owner of Artistic Brushworks in Vero Beach. The theme came into my mind to create a beautiful cottage that would foster our overall goal of making it more inviting!

Church member Vicki Beyer, Mural Project Manager & Artist, lives locally in Barefoot Bay, and she & her husband, Doug, summer in Michigan. Many other members also helped with the initial blocking process. Vicki also creates a variety of artwork for our bulletins and video screen imagery at the front of our sanctuary.

For more information, please visit the website at http://www.WeLoveFirst.org. First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian is located at 1405 Louisiana Avenue. The complex is situated at the corner of Cross Street & Friendship Lane- fairly near to Sebastian City Hall. E-mail: Office@WeLoveFirst.org. Telephone: (772)-589-5656.

See original here:

2022 Sabbatical for Pastor Jeff Wood launches mural painting project at the Thrift Store next to First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian - Community...

Illustrating life after a life sentence

Wilson made that painting more than two years ago, when an attorney friend asked him to create a work as part of a larger project he was working on. We had collected a bunch of letters from people, men, women and children who were currently in solitary confinement, or had been in solitary confinement, he said. And I struggled at first, because I read these letters and I thought about all the horrible experiences that I had in solitary confinement.

I didn't want to make a morbid painting, he continued.

Filing through the letters, Wilson recognized the common theme was that most people yearned to see the outside world again. Thats when he got the idea to make Positive Delusions.

Almost all of us thought about something positive that got us through solitary confinement, he said. So I started to describe these feelings through colors of blues and pink and yellow. I put some gold in there, and some black. I researched the meanings and symbolisms behind all the colors. And I put that on the canvas.

Wilson said that one goal of the show is to confront people with issues currently unraveling in the criminal justice system. I want people to be outraged by the practice of solitary confinement in America, he said.

The shows curator, New York Academy of Art Vice President Gregory Thornbury, supported that aim.

This is an art show with a purpose, Thornbury said. There's something in Chris's biography that speaks to an incredible injustice that is currently happening in the American prison system, and it needs to end."

He added, Art is a way of forcing people to confront that in a way that both elevates the spirit but also challenges the soul."

Some of the money from sales of the paintings as well as from special edition rolling papers made by House of Puff and featuring Wilsons art imprinted on the box will go directly to Solitary Watch, a national nonprofit watchdog group. Through original reporting, the organization aims to educate the public, law enforcement, policymakers and others on the use and conditions of solitary confinement in prisons across the United States.

We wanted to partner with them to highlight the work that they've been doing for a long time, Wilson said. That's the other thing that I'm really excited about, is being able to collaborate with amazing organizations that's doing meaningful work, and putting some art behind it to help amplify it.

Life before prison

Life has changed drastically for Wilson, whose exhibition opening night coincided with the 10th anniversary of his release from prison. His storied past begins in Washington, D.C., where he was born. He lived with his grandmother during the week, but spent weekends with his mom and other siblings in Maryland.

In his book, The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose, Wilson said shootings occurred often in the area where he was raised. Though his home was supposed to be a refuge from outside violence, it was usually the opposite: His mother was in an abusive relationship with a D.C. police officer, he said.

One night he attacked us and sexually assaulted my mom, Wilson said. He got arrested and lost his job. But he came home and started stalking our family.

This, coupled with the passing of a cousin who was shot, led Wilson to carry a weapon for his own protection, he said.

Not long after this, two people came after me one night, threatened me and said they had been following me, watching my family, he recalled. And then one guy tried to jump on me and I ended up firing my weapon, and I took a person's life.

In 1996, at 17 years old, Wilson was sentenced to life in prison. He remembers his first moments in prison the chaos, the screaming, the strip search as being the most humiliating time of his life.

I kept thinking to myself that this is where Im going to spend the rest of my life, he said. It was horrifying for me.

Having been extremely depressed his first few years in prison, Wilson said he experienced solitary confinement multiple times with his longest stint lasting 117 days. The smallest infractions like having too much toilet paper, extra pencils, or staring at a correctional officer could land anyone in the small room with no windows for days at a time, he said.

Minimum human contact. You start to forget what time it is, he said. And when you go crazy, it is actually science behind it, of what solitary confinement does to your brain. It's just its torture.

In the Mandela Rules, a guide meant to protect the rights of those imprisoned, the United Nations designates solitary confinement that lasts more than 15 days as a form of torture. Yet, prisons across the U.S., including New York City, still use the practice to punish incarcerated people.

See the rest here:

Activist artist Chris Wilson promotes awareness of solitary confinement with paintings - Gothamist

This week on Urban Spelunking were visiting Jones Island, a small section of land in the Port of Milwaukee, now home to Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, among other industrial uses.

A century ago the island looked quite different, and the residents there lived much differently than the rest of Milwaukee, too. It was completely isolated from the city, requiring a boat ride to access it. But residents had many amenities on the island, including a school staffed by teachers who would boat in.

This week we learn not only about the island, but also tell the story of a painting created by a Jones Island artist. That painting was recently dedicated to MMSD and now hangs at its headquarters building, across from the Harley-Davidson Museum.

Listen to the podcast below, and visit OnMilwaukee for more history and photos.

Nonprofit Radio Milwaukee is supported by you!Your gift todaypowers all our work including the story you just read!

Original post:

This painting reflects the nearly forgotten fishing village on Jones Island - 88Nine Radio Milwaukee

If you want something done ... Sergey Pakulin / Getty Images

The report of that crash comes from 1937. As one of the first mentions of Florentia St in newspaper archives, nearly a century later it serves as an appropriate introduction to a street that has continued to be a site of unsafe speed and collision. People have reported nearly eighty crashes on that street in the last ten years, not counting an unknowable number of unreported fender-benders.

Councilmember Andrew Lewis has been working with residents on simple safety measures for Florentia since 2020, but after encountering one delay after another from the City, he and his constituents are growing increasingly frustrated. And theyre not alone. An international movement from Seattle to New York to Delhi has seen residents give up on waiting for city governments to protect them. Now they're taking the law into their own hands by quietly implementing their own guerrilla modifications to tame reckless driving.

But theres also been a backlash from city transportation departments, with many cracking down on these upgrades, creating a standoff between slow-to-act municipalities and residents fed up with delays.

Improvements perpetually a year or two away

Florentia's ready for its closeup. The Seattle Star, October 22, 1937.

In 2020, residents approached Lewis for help, and so began the long, arduous Seattle Process of performing site visits, holding community meetings, and consulting consulting consulting consulting.

The solution that emerged seemed like an easy fix: Change Florentias designation from an arterial collector to a normal residential street. That would mean dropping the speed limit by another 5 miles per hour and removing the center stripe to reduce the temptation for motorists to speed. Simple.

We were initially told that we could just do that, redesignate the street, says Lewis.

But then word came from the Seattle Department of Transportation that Florentia was designated as an arterial in the citys Comprehensive Plan. That meant that any change would require an amendment to the plan, which required a whole separate process.

Okay, thats a little annoying, but not impossible. So Lewis passed a bill to make an amendment to the plan in the spring of 2021. City staff initially said the change would be done by March of 2022.

When March of 2022 rolled around, residents started asking when the changes would be done, at which point SDOT told Lewis and stop me if youve heard this one before that they really didn't know if they wanted to change the designation.

They want to wait until we redo the Seattle Transportation Plan in 2024, says Lewis, the weariness evident in his voice. And Im like, no. We wanted to do this in the fall of 2020. Then we had to wait to spring of 2022. Now you're telling my constituents, who know the street is unsafe because they live on it they have to wait until 2024? Thats not acceptable.

"We neither promised nor dismissed potential reclassification of Florentia St," wrote an SDOT spokesperson in a statement. SDOT says they're planning a "network-level review" of the entire city's streets as part of the Comprehensive Plan update, which the City Council is expected to review in 2024. "For this reason, we, and the Office of Planning & Community Development (OPCD) recommended deferring the possible reclassification of Florentia St.," the statement explains. "The need for arterial and non-arterial traffic calming both within District 7 and citywide outpaces our limited resources," the spokesperson added.

SDOT, which has a budget of about $740 million, also cited the need for emergency vehicle speed as an obstacle to changing the designation, according to The Urbanist. The department also noted that Florentia "is in an area of Lowest Disadvantage as measured by the Citys Racial and Social Equity Composite Index," and that other neighborhoods have higher priority for reforms.

The mystery of the guerrilla crosswalk

The guerrilla crosswalk didnt meet the Citys normal requirements for pavement paint: It wasnt reflective, and it didnt have bars to indicate where drivers should stop. But neighborhood consensus generally held that it was better than nothing. Eighty-third Street is a bike route, and Greenwood was a major barrier for commuters traveling east-west. After the guerilla crosswalk appeared, drivers started pausing for pedestrians crossing the street, rather than blowing through as they had before.

(Worth noting: Seattles Comprehensive Plan, last seen impeding improvements to Florentia, specifically calls for the Greenwood area to be made more pedestrian-friendly.)

That is a totally expect-able response if the City is not living up to its obligations, Lewis says of the guerrilla crosswalk. I think its an indictment of our failure to rise to the occasion to meet our goals of Vision Zero.

Vision Zero is the Citys professed goal of having zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries by 2030. It's not going well. From 2019 to 2020, the citywide collision rate rose by 14%. That year there were 74.2 collisions per million trips, the highest rate in a decade.

The Greenwood crosswalk survived for about eight months until SDOT scraped it up earlier this month. Removing the paint, the department says, cost $40 in materials and equipment.

SDOT said they removed the crosswalk because it didnt meet safety standards. They added that they plan to install significant upgrades in the coming months. The intersection will get a traffic light, crossing signals, and an official set of crosswalks.

But locals will believe it when they see it. Those upgrades have been promised for years, but they have been eternally delayed by staffing shortages. (Even getting this information took longer than expected, due to staff availability in SDOTs communications department.)

An international movement

Citizen-led streetscape improvements are nothing new transportation safety enthusiasts refer to the practice as tactical urbanism but reports of deployment have been growing in cities and towns as residents realize that safety upgrades may never happen unless they do the work themselves. Crosswalk-painting is a relatively easy, cheap process, requiring just a few hundred dollars and a couple of volunteers.

The city doesn't keep us safe, so we keep us safe, announced a group called Crosswalk Collective LA back in March of 2022. The Crosswalk Collective has been painting crosswalks around the notoriously deadly city for the last few months, much to the chagrin of LADOT.

Last week, LADOT carved away guerrilla crosswalks at one intersection, but the neighborhood activists moved fast, and while city workers were busy removing paint, the Crosswalk Collective was busy laying down new stripes in Silverlake.

Tactical urbanism has long been a tool for pressuring cities to make streets safer. In Connecticut, a guerilla crosswalk prompted the City to implement a full overhaul of a pedestrian-unfriendly crossing in 2013. A little citizen paint on a New York curb ramp stopped drivers from blocking pedestrians. A group in Charlotte, NC built benches for bus stops. A tactical urbanism project in Delhi reduced conflicts by 32%. In Portland, a citizen-led demonstration resulted in a new bike path along the river.

In fact, some cities have encouraged tactical urbanism. Atlanta released an official guide for citizens wishing to upgrade their streets, as did the town of Jackson, Tennessee. Indiana awards grants to community groups for tactical urbanism projects.

Even Seattle has flirted with tactical urbanism in the past. Back in 2015, the city experimented with pedestrianizing Pike/Pine on weekend nights over the summer to combat overcrowding on the sidewalks. That project came together relatively quickly, requiring only a few months' worth of planning. In 2016, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways painted temporary pavement markings to improve a Burke Gillman Trail crossing, which worked well enough that SDOT made the markings permanent. In 2018, SDOT made Seattle Neighborhood Greenways' pop-up bike lane on Pike permanent.

But the City is not always so nimble. Despite dropping speed limits from 30 to 25 on arterials in 2016, SDOT left an old 30 speed limit sign in place at 12th and Republican for years, actively instructing drivers to speed.

In emails shared with The Stranger, a nearby resident asked SDOT to update the signage in June of 2021. An SDOT investigator wrote back, "We only cordoned out the downtown area with 25 mph speed limit signs to avoid sign clutter. The Vision Zero team is going to develop a cost estimate and will see if they can fit this into next year's workplan. We do not have funding or crew capacity to make this happen this year."

After waiting several more months, in December of 2021 someone made their own speed limit sign and placed it over the old one. The citizen-made sign lasted only a few weeks before the 30 sign was restored. It was finally updated to the correct speed in early 2022.

The pattern that has emerged over the last few decades is clear: Sometimes cities and citizens are able to work hand-in hand on rapidly testing streetscape improvements. But when transportation departments aren't able to move quickly enough, pop-up improvements will appear whether city agencies like it or not.

Why are we so bad at this?

Visit beautiful Seattle('s parking lots). Matt Baume

After suggesting some restrictions on private vehicles, Councilmember Lewis has been ramping up the familiar old Seattle Process, and he hopes to have made progress on improving circulation through the market by the end of the year. Thats disappointing news to anyone hoping to stroll through the market this summer, but at least its something.

The Pike Place Preservation and Development Authority [PDA] is going to be going through their campus master plan process starting in the fall, Lewis says. We had to have a big fight to even agree to have people talk about this.

When asked for comment, Madison Bristol, the Market's Marketing and PR Manager, wrote, "Its a complex operational ecosystem," noting that many tenants regard the street as "a lifeline."

Bristol added that the pandemic has left the Market in a place of "recovering and rebuilding," and that "altering that flow at such a delicate time is not in the best interests of our businesses. Once we get to a place of stability, we will discuss ways for Pike Place to function at its fullest potential with the Market community at the forefront."

There's already an eight-hundred-spot parking garage attached to the market, and a recent survey showed that 81% of Seattle residents support traffic limits. Restricting access to deliveries, emergencies, and people with mobility needs seems like it ought to be uncontroversial.

But Lewis says that in his conversations with market tenants about reducing private vehicles, many think its an existential threat to the existence of the market. He doesnt see it that way, but there are a lot of veto-gates on this. Like the PDA has a really big role in everything in its borders.

That phrase veto-gates is a helpful visualization for what stands in the way of change. Every proposal to change a street must pass through an ever-growing series of gatekeepers, each with their own veto, no matter how popular or simple or cheap the change may be. And though other cities seem to have figured out ways to expedite projects, Seattle has few options.

Thats been my frustration over the last two-and-a-half years as a council member, Lewis says, noting that City departments ultimately answer to the Mayor, not to the city council. For the last two years, he says, we had an executive who wasnt interested in doing anything. Hes hopeful that Mayor Bruce Harrell will take a different approach.

The Stranger reached out to the Mayor's office about pedestrianizing Pike Place, and we received a noncommittal response from his spokesperson:

"Mayor Harrell is focused on welcoming Seattleites and visitors back to our treasured Pike Place Market this summer," wrote Jamie Housen. He added that Harrell "looks forward" to developing a "long-term" vision for the entire city that includes Market access and economic activity, with an expected adoption date of 2024.

Meanwhile, the sagas not over for Florentia Street. Lewis has emails out to various City staffers to see what legal options might be available for making changes sometime this century.

I hate asking people to be patient. Im right there being pissed off and impatient with you, Lewis says. My colleagues do everything we can to knock down these bullshit impediments. But its frustrating.

It's true those impediments are indeed frustrating, whether in Seattle or in cities across the country. But time and time again, they've proven no match for a few buckets of paint and a handful of neighbors tired of waiting.

Read this article:

After Waiting Years for Cities to Act, People Are Painting Their Own Crosswalks - TheStranger.com