The week has been eventful, visiting family, celebrating special moments, partaay's full of love and respect, close looking at art...
Happy to share the things that make my brain so happy.
Last ART post looked at the mapping of artist studios, neighbouring artists and art influences in the hood. During these crazy times of change, (fingers crossed we'll preserve the artistic treasures we have) I've decided this week, to simplify. There have been many exhibitions on drawing and the references to the fundamentals of line, so why not take a trip to Project 851 with that in mind?
BIG HOUSE lines:
OCTOPUS lines:
...and the Editor's Cut...
There could be a whole series on the "line" as drawn by the "cord"! (maybe next time )
Pick a color! Not so easy, even when you narrow it down to one -- like how many different whites are there, right? I've been walking the "hood" looking at houses, nature and just colors with the hope to develop my eye to the to perfect match for the Big House exterior.
Before we look at the things around us let's take a look back at what was in the Big House. Welcome to the hazmat zone...
Now for some back to nature inspiration. Grab yourself an icecream and take a walk in the hood...
Now for a little contrast let's look to the industrial edge...
Looking to what exists in the "hood". Let's note what is already present and think about how we might express a different voice...
Hmmmm, so let's take a little of the Old and mix it all up with the New, wonder what we'll finally decide on?
Probably grey!
Taking pause -- true dat! This week that's exactly what we did; took a moment to pause and celebrate all the hard work done up until this point with a roof over the Big House. As mentioned last week bring on that roofing party! (check)
In the Croatian culture, a roofing party is a must. It's a time to bring the workers together and have some wine, beer, ROAST PORK, bread, salads, green onions with salt, and in our case tribal cheesecake (made by Mom). A tree goes on the roof, I'm not sure what that symbolizes, as part of the celebration -- perhaps it's a "strong like TREE" reference, or a symbol of family, maybe even a solid place for growth to take root. Whatever the tree represents I'm happy to leave to the imagination of all; our tree is a nice maple we've kept from the original landscape which is planted at the east side of the property.
Roofing parties are not unique to my tribe as I've discovered by talking to others. Apparently, this tradition is also referred to as Topping - out and celebrated by Eastern Europeans, Germans, Scandinavians, Czechs, Poles and other Western Europeans to name a few. The idea of a construction ritual to appease the tree-dwelling spirits displaced in its construction is certainly appealing. For this project it's been a time to reflect on the work, transformation, honour of people (past, present and future). Every so often I find myself racing, feeling burdened with decisions and stresses, so to take pause to celebrate most certainly puts things into perspective.
Power to the worker(s) and security of a roof over head!