Artsramble Archive

The "Urban Anthropology Project" opened to a continually flowing packed house. Speakers detailed the positive force of downtown beautification. While a first-time artist, normally a downtown developer, made a cardboard alley, converted to an altar that bears testament to survival, and provides sanctuary to those willing to light a candle for the cause.
Then there was the purely conceptual: Poison Ivey was "for sale" (although you weren't allowed to buy any).
Artists reactions to the assignment to document a downtown Durham "Spandrel" varied from architectural renderings of a mobile track-based housing unit that had already found spaces to park in Durham, to placing different objects in a traffic roundabout and taking photographs of the object at home in its new home.
A spandrel is the arced square that forms when a series of archways are connected together. it's the vital place, but also the place the eye does not tune to first, if at all. Urban Anthropology is a term, it appears, used to show how downtown architectural spandrels have a life of their own, and to document how humans can make a positive force out of a place that holds little potential. Sabri Reed, who came up with the idea for the project, described her goals for the participating artists this way: Our aim is to assert the place of our dreams, our actions, the hypothetical, the fantastical, the personal, the historical, and the specific into the discourse of the public realm and the transformation of society. What better place to assert ourselves than through the holes in the broken tapestry of our downtown? We project upon the heart of our city both our deepest desires for connectedness and belonging as well as our despair for our own isolation. Thus, the outdoor public spaces of downtown Durham are the openings for all of us into both the physical reality and the poetics of community.
I was given six or seven places to chose from, including an alley next to the police station, a wonderful unused moat around the Durham Central Schools building, a three sided courtyard with perfectly white walls, an area under and between an outdoor staircase at the Federal Building, a large traffic circle, and the first place Sabri showed me, which is a private parking lot on the corner of Church and Main.
That place stuck in my craw partly because there were so many people that used or walked by the place without seeing it, or understanding it, and partly because, with the assignment being to imagine setting up a living space in the outdoor space we were given, mine came complete with trees that had already found this a hospitable home.
For weeks I thought the trees, that grow right out of concrete or asphalt, were sumacs, but I was corrected by a passerby who said they were not sumacs,. but "Trees of Heaven." The miracle about these trees is that their seeds find a crack in the asphalt parking lot and blow through whatever concrete they have to, to sustain the trees life.
They particularly like the places where the side wall and parking lot meet. Less than four inches of soil or sand is needed to start the trees on their way, and with no one watering them, they have managed to decorate almost the entire perimeter of the below-street-level parking lot.
So I took pictures, made drawings, wrote poems, and,. n the end, attempted to represent the trees with, well, a tree, only this time not growing outside, and form concrete, but attached to the gallery wall and with original Tree of Heaven branches, since the tree I had to work with was an already-cut-down maple.
Many discussions and suggestions were made, with Sabri continually challenging any attempts to take the easy way to a piece, in favor of expressing the spandrel in a way that could be beautiful yet universally understood as well.
This is the type of challenge-from-a-critique-group that leads to a constructive collaboration I had never experienced, having skipped art school in favor of working for an artist, and taking only occasional tips.
At first I felt confined by a vision that was not completely my own, but then I felt liberated by being able to live up to expectations and make what I thought best described my spandrel.
The exhibit got people thinking about the so-far untapped potential that exists in downtown Durham. With Branch gallery moving over form Carrboro, and the art crawls drawing larger and larger crowds, Durham may eventually be added to a huge list of cities that are experiencing economic salvation via the creative class. As in any location, artists outnumber collectors, so the opportunity to be a part of this project will reverberate for some time. After 30 years in the Green movement and 28 as an exhibiting artist, the natural flow of The transom, and the great ideas shared there finally gave me a chance to mix my two passions in a way that I never had before.
See opening night shots, one shot of my piece, and some further photographs of my spandrel below. As part of my exhibit, a small book of the photographs and the poem that comes next sat on a shelf to the left of the tree.
Cheers to The Transom, and here's to the artists who push the envelope at their studios there: 305 E. Chapel Hill St. Durham NC. and at http://www.transomgallery.com/ and at 919.299.7904.
I think there are still some studio spaces open. Just ask for Andrew Barco or Sabri Reed to see if I'm right.

Glad to see the coverage of The Transom Gallery. Andrew has been
doing a great job with the gallery, making it an exciting and
thought-provoking place. Just wanted to make sure that folks know
that The Transom is located in a building known as Durham Arts Place,
which just celebrated its 10th anniversary of providing affordable
artist studio spaces in downtown Durham. We just had an exhibit
there, at The Transom, of works by artists that have had studios there
over the past ten years. If an artist is interested in getting on the mailing
list to find out when a studio space opens up, they should be get up with me at 919-491-4625, or email me at artandmuseumlaw@aol.com .

Thanks
Dan Ellison
Durham Arts Place
2. Administrator Says:
July 8th, 2006 at 9:28 am e

[note from the artsRambler: Dan asked me to post info on an upcoming seminar entitled Legal Issues for Arts Organizations. Look for it on page nine under Meetings and Seminars.]

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