Great article in the Seattle Times about the celebration at the Herbert Bayer Earthworks this evening.
When inviting artists to come and work at the Herbert Bayer Earthworks, I think about the interplay between art, landscape and community. The line-up for the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day is especially evocative. Mandy Greer, Paul Rucker, Kristin Tollefson and acornDance are all contributing to our celebration at Earthworks Park in Kent.
Thursday, April 22 from 7-8:30pm
Free, All Ages Welcome, Rain or Shine
Earthworks Park, 742 E Titus Street, Kent, WA
This event is sponsored by 4Culture and the Kent Arts Commission
Last summer, I went to see Mandy Greer’s Mater Matrix Mother and Medium* at Camp Long. It was mysterious to follow the installation through the woods, awakening in me a deep sense of intrigue. The extension of the work through space is substantial, and impossible to convey in photographs. For Earth Day, Mandy is installing this river of blue yarn above Mill Creek. In revealing this physical tributary, she is also paying tribute to the community in which she’s being hosted.
Last Saturday, my daughter and I joined Mandy at the Kent Senior Activity Center to learn to crochet. Let’s just say that I was a bit more excited than my daughter (who at the age of eight is dubious of “work” events – a view that many artists’ children understandably share). After the first five minutes of working with Mandy, my small skeptic was a convert. In truth, crocheting was a revelation to us both. I had learned to crochet from my grandmother, and the memory remained in my hands.
What I had forgotten is that unlike painting, drawing or sculpture, crocheting doesn’t require my full concentration. My daughter and I can talk freely to each other while working with color, texture and form – and at the same time, through Mandy, meet people who remember “happenings” from the ‘60s. After the workshop, we headed directly to Renaissance Yarns, a destination shop for fiber artists located at Kent Station. My daughter filled her arms with spools of variegated yarn: green, brown, pink and green again. She settled on pink because that’s the color of scarves her stuffed animals would like best. I chose green.
Mandy will be installing Mater Matrix Mother and Medium this coming Saturday, April 17 during a sold-out volunteer event at Earthworks Park. She and Paul Margolis will continue working throughout the week, and the artwork will be fully installed by Earth Day on April 22.
Paul Rucker contributed the music to A Place for People: The Herbert Bayer Earthworks, a documentary that I wrote and co-produced/directed (with Seth Frankel, our City of Kent videographer, who came to Kent via the Humbolt County, California PBS station). Matching Paul’s music to our story was intensely serendipitous. His music fit the film perfectly, which was a stroke of brilliant luck since we’d waited to the very end to add the soundtrack. For the premier at the Henry Art Gallery last September, Paul played solo cello. He improvised a piece where the motion of his arm was circular, like the shape of the Earthworks itself. It was stunning. On Earth Day, Paul will perform on the stage at Earthworks with his quintet.
Kristin Tollefson’s roots are as a jewelry maker. The intimacy of her approach has remained intact, even as she has increased her scale to include outdoor sculpture. The sculptural bike racks that she made for the Kent Downtown Partnership are rendered in green tube metal, inset with hand-cast resin jewels, and take the form of leaves. For Earth Day, Kristin is leading a leaf boat art making activity for children and adult. Join us in making leaf-boat luminarias while listening to Paul’s group play.
acornDance, led by Aiko Kinoshita, is a dance group based in Bellevue. I have not had the pleasure of seeing them perform live, only on video. I am deeply intrigued by how the dancers’ movements will reshape and reveal the Earthworks anew. The performance will begin at sundown. As part of the audience, we will move with the dancers from the amphitheater at the back of the park through the Earthworks, gathering together at the end to release our leaf-boat luminaria into the double-ring pond. These boats will probably not float very far, as the pond itself is overgrown with water plants. So our leaf-boats will also serve as mementos to the Earth Day celebration.
All of these artists are part of the 4Culture SITE SPECIFIC roster. As an administrator for the Kent Arts Commission, I review applications yearly. It is my hope that despite the current funding climate, both my program and 4Culture’s will remain intact for many years to come. By celebrating Earth Day at Earthworks, you support both the earth and the arts! Hope to see you there!
Guest blogger Cheryl dos Remedios is an artist, civic activist and public art administrator with the City of Kent.
Photo: Courtesy of acornDance
*Mater Matrix Mother and Medium was originally commissioned by the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs using the Seattle Public Utilities 1% for Art Funds.
