         
group message boardWe can use this page for group announcements. Post new messages at the top of the page with the date, and your name. This page is set up to send notification to everyone whenever it is changed.4/13 Zona I have just notices that April 29th is Arbor Day. I wish it was possible for us to take part in planting some trees fro creston. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I created links on the home page under 'organization', for the calendar and for the larger curatorial discussion (curatorial talk). I'm not sure where the best place is for these, so if you want to move them feel free. :)
jenn
am i missing anything? what forms and possibilites for presentation do people see as inexpensive and sharp visually. how do people feel about the current text is it readable and accessible? hey i just heard not 10 minutes ago that shaafsma got cracked in the face, bum-mer dude. see yall friday.... still feels lke puking jenn
I posted an agenda for the studio - 25th. This includes a studio writing assignment reflecting on last friday (mitch and marc, or balimore). Please review recent posts of the last few weeks to be up to date on any ideas about studios or events.
Paul 3/21
Zona 3/21/05
I think we should go to Pat's Place on Division after we eat dinner. It is near emily's too. ben 3/17
I spoke with Mitch this evening and he said he's bringing along the artist Marc Horowitz, (whose work consists of having dinner with people). Mark is from California and is here for the MORE project. Check out his work at http://www.slivanddulet.com/marc/ Mitch is interested in playing it by ear with the studio time. Discussions about artists in these times, taking some walks, show and tell studio work. 10-12
1-3:30 studio time 4 Mitch presentation
I have been researching how to make soda from scratch. i have found recipes for root beer and ginerale, i am guessing cause the ingredients are easier to find and natural. is anyone interested in attempting to make a batch with me? ben
Rockers, Besides being ready for Mitch it is important that we keep other things rolling. For friday, please bring any visual evidence/artifacts of studio work. We need to be experiencing these things in form and image. We can spend some time reviewing these. I think it would be good for us to aim at some kind of presentation of finished studio products near the end of the project. I also want to throw out to you all the prospect of doing a large collective project of some sort. Past studio examples include the stockbridge to scale project on bridge and the swing thing event on alabama. What ideas are boiling that might contain or contribute to our collective imagination and understanding what might take form in public space. We've had some discussions about gatherings of people in the crotch and I think there is fun and meaning to be wrought from the towne club (see recent posts). We'll set aside some time Friday morning for this discussion so bring ideas to engage. Becky has expressed interest in the curatorial aspect of what we do. I noticed that one of the mirror-windowed businesses in Creston is the Interconnect company that does video audio telephone. Paul ps. Please post public theory notes to the swiki. If you need help making the link let someone know. Please confirm neighborhood service contacts. Let me know if you are having difficulties.
I will be in this wed (3/16) at 5pm, more are welcome. sorry I missed last time (I had to pick up my aunt from the airport that night)
swiki went down friday evening. zona rebooted and it is up now
I am sorry I couldn't open the studio last night Wednesday. I do plan to stop down tonight fro a few hours and open up shop if anyone wants to coem down. 7-9 Zona
I've been contacted by Nathan Peck of the Advance Newspaper regarding the Civic Studio. He's interested in doing an article on the broad project and has asked to interview studio members involved in current and past projects. With press dealings I am interested in you all gaining experience thinking about and presenting projects to the press. I told Nathan that I prefer he talk mainly with studio participants rather than have me speak as "leader". I agreed to follow up and answer any questions after. He asked to interview a few folks from the current project on Friday at 3pm. He'll also be interviewing a group from past projects. I've offered to provide visuals of past projects for the article as evidence of finished projects. He checked out the civicstudio.org web site and is quite excited. We'll need to discuss dealing with the press and select/extract 1. volunteers to be our voice with the press. The considerations are twofold. Who can represent the project with clarity, control, energy and convey the excitement, seriousness, and mystery of what we are doing? 2. Who would this experience benefit the most? who has not done this and would like to give it a try - or who would like to do it again after thinking about it. I think we need 2 or 3 interviewees and I assume he'll talk with the small group together for about 15-20 minutes. We'll talk about it Friday and figure it out.
Rockers, Great studio on Friday. We're moving into the phase when the focus shifts to studio work. The whole effort of this project is rooted in the idea that visual/material/action is a rich way of engaging difficult and complex human situations. I would like to emphasize that our resources should go primarily to 2 things: studio work and discourse (about everything) that is engaged by the work. Please continue to refer to the doing studio and concepts pages to reflect on studio considerations. We need to get a bit more traction on studio activities. We can see and share studio work in process when we are all at the space. In the interim it is highly effective to share ideas/forms/images in the studio section of the swiki. Please use this space as a place to share your ideas in form and in process. I know it is a bit artificial, but it is also more artifactual than nothing. Please post some studio work by Friday, March 4th. Public Theory Post notes on your public theory by the end of spring Break, March 11th. Please turn the theorists name into a link and post your research on the new page that you create. If you need help with this check out the help (question mark button) or get help from someone who knows how to do this. Walk Designs It was great to see the walks. The do a great job of experientially demonstrating a wide variety of ways of representing the area and how one might engage it. Many of them need to be materialized in a more complete and deliberate way. 1. First post them to the swiki. I've put up a page for this walk designs. You can either post right to the page or created a link to a fresh page. Post what you have so far by Friday, March 4. 2. Work on a more complete and deliberate visual presentation so they can be displayed in the space. Talk with me for feedback on what this might entail. I think this could become a little display that would be of immediate interest/engagement for us and visitors. Who would like to curate this project. Curating involves mediating the context of presentation through text, display and promotion. We'll have a flurry of work in preparation for the Mitch Cope visit. This will be coordinated by the project committee. We're in the publicity phase of the project. We should be concerned about getting the posters and cards distributed to the best locations to build a buzz and audience for the event. Also, we need to prepare the space. Paul
Emily/Zona/Kate 2/22
kate 2/22
2/23 (Zona)
The swiki is back up. Sorry for the problems. I'm trying to make it more stable. In the mean-time I'll show more people how to restart it. Anyone who is around Calder often, please have me show you how to restart it when it crashes.
Rockers, First thing be sure to take care of doing any past-due postings; post any studio writing due in past weeks and sign up for neighborhood service. studio writing due Wednesday, Feb 16 is to restate and report on our reading and discussion of Chapter 4: "From Site to Community in New Genre Public Art". Please sign up for a public theory and begin to study them, but we'll wait on scheduling any presentations. We'll conclude our discussion of the Kwon text on Friday, Feb. 18 with Chas. 5 and 6. Chapter 5 "The (Un)siting of Community" brings together sharp criticism of art and community. The chapter brings to head Kwon's criticism in the last few pages beginning at the last line on 152 ("Without doubt, ....). Be sure to study this section in particular. Chapter 6 "By Way of Conclusion: One Place After Another" brings together the major theme of the book; the role art might serve in the future consideration of locational identity. Check out the agenda for planned group work for our next meeting, Friday the 18th. The agenda includes a time for critical feedback on studio projects. You can put any project on the agenda here. We'll have this item every week. I've rearranged the front page of the swiki by dividing the links into two columns; one for Organizational things and one for Studio things. The new Studio section is for exchange and documentation of studio ideas and works in process. There are two major parts to this Studio section: one is the studio roster and the other is a place for studio projects. Studio Roster; I've linked each of your names to new individual studio pages. This is a place for you to report on studio interests, topics, inquiries, and investigations. Consider this your own Civic Studio blog. Put everything here from little areas of interest or concepts to project details as they emerge. If you are involved in group-studio projects make a link to them from your page. Your individual page is then a complete index to your studio activity. Studio Projects: This is a new area for studio projects that are separate from the Studio Roster pages. Start a Studio Project page if more than one person is working on the project, or if as an individual you would rather have separate page for a particular project. Click on the help button or ask Paul or a fellow studio member for any assistance with the swiki. You can check out my name and the towne club or Text in the Window link for examples. I also made a Studio Project link for the walk designs idea that the Program Work Group initiated; they requested that people produce/ collect maps and bring them to the studio on Feb. 18. I've added event planning links for the following: Mitch Cope visit and chicago trip research.
paul will you look at the side notes page an tell me how to fix it so that the text doesn't go on into infinity off the side of the page... it is really hard to catch on that their is more just out of your reach and i am not sure how to fix it i already looked at the editing tips am i missing something? jenn s
Why are we focusing our study of community on just Creston? All our talk about the “public” and the “community” has been somewhat geographically confined to “Creston.” I think this is kind of redunk-a-dunk. After reading about the Ahearn problem, I think we might want to re-evaluate this. This is something I think we should consider as we start to learn about community theories. Is Creston a real and continuous community or are we just saying “Creston” because it has already been established as a “neighborhood” or community. Jane Jacobs recognized at least three functional levels of community/neighborhood within a City: 1: The City as a whole 2: Street neighborhoods 3: Districts – smaller than cities but larger than street neighborhoods Each level exists concurrently but serve a unique function when applied to the needs of communities in cities. Quick examples. If there is a push to improve the public schools, that is an instance in which the whole city works together as a community. In the case of interpersonal and social needs such as friendship and concern for individual level concerns (street lights, personal safety, etc…) street neighborhoods work well. Still other circumstances are too large for a community to address without utilizing the resources available in a larger zone or district “community.” I don’t know if this is clear or if anyone will read this since I am posting it on Thursday night so I might talk about this in class. -Anthony
take a look at this website for our friends JAM (Jane Palmer and Marianne Fairbanks) http://www.jamwork.com/ I would recommend them to your for Civic Studio. TS has worked with them and they also help co-run Mess Hall. Maybe they could work out?
I forgot to tell all of you in the last class thaht I am having a show in the CAlder Art Gallery Showing my most recient works. I am showing with Chris Scamehorn, Eliese Venia, Christina Strybus, and Cut Dye. It is a wondeful collection of Ceramic works along with Drawings and Prints. The closing reception will be on this Thursday 5-7 there will be free food some stop by and enjoy some art and yummy brownies!!! THanks ZOna
I turned in reciepts today and I am learning how do to simple things on the program Microsoft Excel. If anyone is interested in learning about the program I will be doing the accounting every week/few weeks. J. Pope
Landscapes, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is hosting a panel discussion on art and nature. Wayne Norlin, AIA will be one of the panelists. His portion of the talk will be about Maya Lin's Ecliptic at Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids. Lecture/Discussion: Inspired by Nature Thursday, February 10, 7 pm Panel discussion with Brent Dennis, landscape designer; Wayne Norlin, architect; Jim Karsina, painter; and Chuck Heiney, photographer Check meijergardens.org for further information on the Henry Moore exhibit and related events." BS
Also, I posted a studio writing. Please post by Wednesday midnight. I've made other additions to the swiki. Studio participants and associates have recorded dreams they've involving the studio. If you have dreams about the project and want to share them you can put them up on civic dreams Please review the swiki often as it helps keep us all connected between meetings. It is good to just browse through it occasionally as well as check a few times a week specifically for updates. If you click on the clock button, it will take you to a chronological listing of any recent changes. I put links up for the Learning to Love you More project as well as the Center for Urban Pedagogy. Also I put up a new section called "Big Public Lists" that are links to good indexes of public projects. I keep forgetting to remind us to upload images of the project to the studio computer each week. We should be sure to continuously document what we are doing. I know Jules and Zona have been doing this as may others. Jules is keeping these organized, but we should gather more. Jenny Pope is keeping the financial books for the project. She set up a ledger on Friday and has begun to record transactions. These are available for anyone to review and follow. Neil posted designs for the signage/logo on the group message board. There is a link to a sign comment page where you can post comments. Jesse had a cool article on using window spaces as sites of exhibition/display. Hopefully he can post something about it in the side notes area. Would work groups review original list of tasks, and figure out leadership. Please post to the swiki your group proceedings, plans and thoughts. - paul 2/6/2005
here are the chops for the window design. i numbered them for easy voting. neil sign comment    
if you are a keyholdere please contribute the times you will be in the space who is opening the space on W? jenns
Hey, Zona, Kate and I swung by the Rock Shop and grabbed the CD's. I'll put them in my studio in ceramics (right hand side all the way in the back) Any problems, my email is gangster_of_love333@yahoo.com Becky
Sign up for your preferred public artists on the swiki. I burned all of the cd's on Saturday. They'll be available at the studio. If anyone is there on Monday they can bring them out to school. If no-one can I can bring a bunch out on Tuesday. If you need further research assistance, or help with the cd's, please let me know. We'll resume our readings on from the Kwon text with Chapter 3. I think it is key that we get right to the major issues that inform our situation, and these begin most clearly in chapter 3: "Sitings of Public Art: Integration Versus Intervention". There is bubbling discussion about what we'll do. Please give this text some time and energy as the things covered are important historical events as well as prototypes to have at hand as kinds of studio foils. This chapter demonstrates the mix of consequences and meanings that converge on public art; be they monumental plaza work or community engaged projects. In this chapter each work implodes from these forces and is eventually removed. While it shows the problematic of doing public work, it also lays a clear historical and theoretic grounding for many alternate tactics that can find their own energy and engagement. This and the following chapters and discussions can go a long way to informing our studio and enabling us to participate in significant and informed contributions to this challenging prospect. Would someone volunteer to to coordinate the discussion? studio writing Please post if you missed last week. It sounds like there is interest in pursuing area history as possible project material. For this week I'm not requiring studio writing, but there is an Open studio writing spot for any thoughts to share. I listed the above items on the agenda page as well as putting a notice for the neighborhood service contacts by Feb. 11th. The wireless and internet are now working in the studio. We have a batch of computers that will be available for your use at the space. Each one equipped with appropriate stuff to do internet (swiki/research/email. . . .), print to the laser printer, and process digital images. Some can do light graphics work. We also have web software for anyone interested in doing some web design as well as databases and other things. We'll also be able to use the network to upload any images we take into a central archive on the server in the space using any of the portables. I've been trying to figure out a place to keep the portable computers secure in the space. I finally realized that the dresser drawers work for this. Each portable has it's own power cable and the batteries are weak - so plug them in. I suggest that we suspend plans for pot-lucking lunch. While it is a great community builder I feel we have too much going on to do this as well. Each of us has reading, research, studio, and work-group things to prepare for friday without the added task of prepping food to share. This might work better if planned for after we get the space in better control. We meet only one 6 hour block. I strongly encourage having food with you so that lunch does not cut 1/6th of studio time. Hopefully the swiki crashing last week was a fluke. I've shown a few of you how to reboot it and would like to show more of you. If you see me in calder this week please let me know if you have the skills to restart a computer.
I've nearly completed the neighborhood service listings (linked on swiki). Please check them out and we'll begin signing up on Friday. I'm asking everyone to make contact with their placements before February 11th. I wrote to the Bridge and Alabama studios and invited them to come by. We should do a blanket invite after we set a weekly schedule. Please be well prepared to participate in the discussion this Friday of "The City as SIte" by Thomas FInkpearl. The reading is significant in how it puts the recent development of public art in context of planning, development, and culture. Because of this (and our desire to engage the broader discussion) we've invited guests who work in varied relevant disciplines. Suzanne Schultz is an Assistant City Planner and involved in zoning and community development. James Moyer is GVSU VP for Facilities Planning and an architect. Gustavo Rontandaro is part of the GVSU Community Research Institute and compiles data and maps about important things in community. Paul W. 1/27
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