Flat Tire Delays Blount Street Move
As I post this, the 350 ton house being moved from Wilmington to Blount Street is sitting in the road, stranded by a tire blow-out that created a sound heard for blocks. A large crowd is on hand as National Geographic films the event. Workers are developing a plan to winch up that corner of the house and replace the tire, which is deemed necessary before further progress can take place.
crowd watches preparation for next shift
sliding down on to Blount Street
Goodnight, Raleigh! post
Raleigh Rambles Blount Street page
Follow Up
The picture above is this massive house while west of Blount Street. Below it is safely parked in its future lot east of Blount. The move took a couple of hours longer than planned. We were sitting inside our house on Person Street when we heard a huge sound – not the tire blowing out but the lurch/shift of the house afterward. I had been going back and forth all morning and missed being on the scene. Once they got the tire replaced and got the house safely across Blount they started moving the smaller green house to its position on Person next to the Murphy School (along with 2 other previously moved structures). The final picture of that move was taken at 3PM this Saturday afternoon. A long day for Blake House Movers of Greensboro, a long wait for the utility workers waiting to restore the lines along Blount – and a circus of a morning for Oakwood residents, assorted vendors, and the ever present representatives (with brochures) from the Blount Street Commons development.
The park with museum included picks up steam.
Lowe’s Park Pavilion, 2007
Mike Cindric and Vincent Petrarca
Steel, wood, and aluminum
Designed and built specifically for this site overlooking the Piedmont prairie meadow at the NC Museum of Art, Lowe’s Pavilion is “art-as-shelter.” Mike Cindric, as model builder and general technical guru, has been behind the scenes with a host of interesting projects over the years, and I’m thrilled to see him get such a prominent placement for his work, though I’m still mourning the removal of the Patrick Dougherty twig and branch castle recently removed from nearly this same spot. Lowe’s Pavilion has earned a merit award from the NC AIA, and a Sir Walter Raleigh award as well. The metal skin of this outdoor classroom or meditation space changes with the available light, helping to integrate the inhabitants into the natural spaces around the highly sublimated structure.
Mike has created a unique feel inside that highlights the experience of surveying the wonderful sculpture garden, heirloom prairie garden, and wooded hillside trails that have taken shape on the huge campus of the museum. These amenities are the long fruition of one of the few positive trade-offs in the museum’s decision to leave downtown. A few more outdoor images are below.
This place is well worth visit aside from the museum, whose new exhibition space is shown in progress below. The liason with the Raleigh greenway system is also a strong piece of the project. If you haven’t made it yet to the bridge over the Beltline, do it soon! And stop by Lowe’s Pavilion to catch your breath!
Art is where you find it.
With a heads-up from Ron at Sadlacks, though I got my postcard (but mislaid it), I was off to Wendell Saturday morning. Time for another show at Lovejoy Pottery. Dan and Nancy have become old friends, but they were old guard and I was new when I first met them in the mid eighties. Dan was a big part of the Raleigh Artists Community, a late seventies art entity that I wrote a feature article about in FARCE!, the newsletter of The Paper Plant. RAC was a huge part of the development of the arts community in Raleigh, and provided some interesting memories along the way. Quoting that piece:
The house at 908 West Morgan Street [just across from Irregardless] served as gallery, studio, hang-out and apartment house to various NCSU and Raleigh artists. The atmosphere was informal, very informal by all accounts. Lovejoy, who lived in the house, described the atmosphere as “totally chaotic but a lot of fun.”
Copper Rain, Joy Haymore, Jeff Emma, Willis Williams, and Jeannie Thompson were all founding members. Later current Raleigh artists such as Sharron Parker and Madonna Phillips joined. The group organized art festivals on Fayetteville Street Mall and at Pullen Park, proposed the art center that eventually became Artspace, and in 1979 joined with the new Raleigh Arts Commission to sponsor “Downtown September,” which now goes by the name Artsplosure.
The Lovejoys proudly display this sign and continue to do their pottery. Dan paints his huge, mythical figurative acrylics. Nancy has made most of the bowls and ceramic cups in my house. They have these shows, with an open studio feel, and 6 to 8 local artisans, all well established pros, come in and display their work. Besides the Lovejoys, Marsha Owen, Nancy Redman, John Garland & Mary Paul, and Alan Tingen all participated this year. Cara and I have shown there several times in the past and probably will again.
Lovejoy Pottery is on Watkins Road, just off Rolesville Highway, off 70 East out of Raleigh. It was fun to mix purveying art and visiting with some country driving. I always take the back way home – Watkins to old Milburnie and past the Milburnie Dam. The rural scenes were nifty!
And then to cap it off, here come these young fellows, barreling along in their buggy!
Blount Street Commons and the Pell Street River
My Blount Street Project page is partly about my fascination with all construction sites – this one being across my street is particularly convenient. Moving houses is always fun to watch. This large imposing structure just made it’s move. But we are obviously watching for the pros and cons of this project with respect to our own interests. The Pell Street River is a big “current” concern. It was given that name by our children as they played years ago in the large rainwater flows that gush down our tiny side street after a big rain. With the new drainage system (at the front end, at least) and the large exposed areas of red clay, we knew there might be problems. I have written a story on the Blount Street page about the problem.
Pell Street River descends
Below are a few more house moving images. It sure is fun to watch. Progress is a back and forth thing!
- where it came from
(pictures click to enlarge)
White Squirrel Update
So I start this blog just as I’m furiously finishing my school year. Before I know it, time for a 6 day Env. Ed. teachers camp in Brevard, home of the white squirrels. I get back, and my nature blog’s been attacked by a robot hack and has to be rebuilt. Take care of that and promptly get sick. Rare visit to the doctor, start my Z-pack, and it’s time for the week of full time teaching at Artspace I’m in the midst of. So that’s why I didn’t tell you sooner,
I’M FEATURING AT ARTSPACE’S STAMMER THIS FRIDAY NIGHT!!
Stammer is a wonderful, quirky, imfamously late-running, over-packed event that very much follows in a direct line of downtown open mike traditions reaching back to The Paper Plant. Mz Julee, seen below, ministers to a fervent and incredibly diverse cast of performers. Stammer has seen experimental music, health department sex ed films, a massuese interspersing his body work with poetry, break dancers, and along the way a few poets. The audiences are usually large and appreciative. The open mike runs late in the event, but always has pleasant surprises. Doors open at 8 o’clock – an early start that will be part of Artspace’s “First Friday after July 4th” event, which is being celebrated by several other galleries, such as Adam Cave and Flanders.
I can’t wait to get back to health and time to write – it’s been a great early summer for art. Susan Toplikar opened a fantastic show consisting mostly of a deconstructed notebook of bird drawings, her husband Mike Cindric has a fascinating new structure at the Art Museum, and Artspace has an interesting artist in residence working on an installation to open later this summer. I should mention that Grimenesa Amoros had a show in Miami extended to August 31. Images of her work and more about all of the former will come soon.
And if you want more of the white squirrels, you’ll have to check Raleigh Nature – after I get caught up!!
update
the white squirrel post
and picture album
raleighrambles.com
portrait by Guillermo Velasco
Raleigh Rambles 