06/05/14 10:30am

Kenan Ince Performing Rice, Ashby at Cafe Brasil, 2604 Dunlavy St., Montrose, HoustonRice U. math Ph.D. student, Boulevard Oaks resident, and poet Kenan Ince has been making the rounds of local open-mic nights with his brief ode to the as-yet-invisible but still-ominous spectre looming over 1717 Bissonnet St. known as the Ashby Highrise. The poem, entitled Rise, Ashby, begins with an epigraph clipped from a Swamplot story about the lawsuit that was filed by a few of the 21-story apartment tower’s Southampton and Boulevard Oaks neighbors last year. A video of Ince’s recent performance at Montrose’s Cafe Brasil (seen at left) has been posted on Youtube; you can read the poem — with its original, towering typography intact — below:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Rise, Ashby
04/07/14 12:15pm

Installation of Tree and Three Flowers Sculpture on Kirby Dr. South of Westheimer, Upper Kirby, Houston

Here’s an overhead view of the installation over the weekend of the 38-ft.-tall, 7,000-lb. sculpture by James Surls on the previously treeless median between West Ave and the 2727 Kirby condo tower on Kirby Dr., just south of Westheimer. Assembled from bronze and stainless-steel components, Tree and Three Flowers was commissioned by the Upper Kirby District; it’s meant to move in the wind. It’ll join other Surls public works in Houston — at Rice University, in Market Square, and at the Parks and Recreation department headquarters on Gragg St. The Kirby sculpture went in on this base:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Won’t Grow, but Will Move
02/04/14 10:15am

Statue of Chief Touch the Clouds, Reliant Arena, Reliant Park, HoustonThe Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo last Thursday approved the sale of its 18-ft.-tall painted but weathered bronze statue of Chief ‘Touch the Clouds’ from outside the Reliant Arena to an Oklahoma City suburb — for $50,000. The statue of the Miniconjou chief, who fought alongside his cousin Crazy Horse at the Battle of Little Big Horn, was donated to the Rodeo 16 years ago by its sculptor, Dave McGary. Reports that the Rodeo was looking to offload the sculpture from its perch about 300 yards southeast of the Astrodome surfaced late last year, a few months after McGary died of liver cancer.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

So Long, Chief
12/03/13 4:00pm

Statue of Chief Touch the Clouds by Dave McGary, Reliant Park, HoustonEven the art is getting out of Reliant Park: The bronze Miniconjou chief with outstretched arms that’s stood warily outside the Astrodome since 1998 will likely be skipping town soon and making its way to Oklahoma. The city council of the city of Edmond voted last week to spend up to $90,000 to remove the 18-ft. tall, 20,000-lb. sculpture of Chief Touch the Clouds from its stone base and transport it about 450 miles north; $50,000 of that amount is scheduled to go toward a “donation” to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for the privilege of extracting the artwork. Arizona sculptor Dave McGary, who gave the work to the Rodeo 15 years ago, passed away earlier this year at the age of 55, from a rare form of kidney cancer.

Former Edmond mayor Randel Shadid, who’s been eager to bring more public artworks to the municipality just north of Oklahoma City, tells the Edmond Sun that “a representative from Houston” had told him that the sculpture of a cousin of Sioux warrior Crazy Horse “has been maintained and is in good structural condition.” But the artist’s widow paints a different picture of how the sculpture’s been treated at Reliant Park: that it’s in bad shape and will need to be refurbished. “They never took care of it,” Molly McGary told a reporter from the Oklahoman last week. Edmond city council’s agreement to spend the money is contingent on the sculpture being in good condition.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Rodeo Astrodome Sell-Off
11/08/13 11:15am

The Art Guys say their van will be doing about 60 mph around the 38-mile-circumference of the 610 Loop this weekend, which means that in 12 hours of continuous driving, they should make something shy of 19 times around the Inner Loop — minus pit stops for gassing up and, uh, watering down. Then they’ll turn around and unwind for an additional 12 hours in the opposite direction. What are these guys driving at? Feel free to call the artists themselves while they’re on the road, using the number emblazoned on the side of the van (832-712-6207) if you’ve got questions about the project; they plan to start their 24-hour freeway adventure at 5 p.m. this Saturday from the North Shepherd entrance ramp.

Who’s footing the bill for such loopiness?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

10/04/13 11:10am

It’s been 20 years since artist Rick Lowe and friends bought up that row of shotgun shacks on the 2500 block of Holman St. and transformed them — and much of the neighboring Third Ward blocks — into a lively community of art installations and performances, duplexes for low- to moderate-income residents, and architectural experimentation. The latest round of installations kicks off this Saturday.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

10/02/13 3:45pm

It would seem that tilt-wall technology is not just for office buildings in the suburbs — but war memorials in the suburbs too! Yesterday, the Sugar Land Parks Dept. and local members of the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (whose national conference is in Houston this year) dedicated this site in Sugar Land’s Memorial Park for the Veterans’ Memorial, designed by the same firm, Powers Brown, that’s engineering the 6-story Sierra Pines II in The Woodlands, thought to be the tallest tilt-wall building in Texas. If you’re into this sort of thing, you can see how the memorial was propped up into place, thanks to plenty of pics the Parks Dept. posted to Facebook:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/13/13 11:00am

HIGHLY VISIBLE BILLBOARD REMINDS HOUSTON DRIVERS OF THE INVISIBILITY OF HOMELESSNESS You can’t miss it: Just south of Downtown, this pristine billboard went up recently above the northbound feeder of I-45. Its lonesome assertion, “Even the pigeons don’t see me,” is attributed to the “voice of the homeless.” What gives? Glasstire’s Paula Newton explains: “[I]t’s meant to raise awareness about homelessness. The billboard is a project by artist Jessica Crute in conjunction with a group show at Deborah Colton Gallery called Collective Identity. Crute [is] president and founder of a young non-profit organization Voice of the Homeless.” [Glasstire] Photo: Glasstire

08/21/13 10:05am

A 3-block stretch of the median along Navigation Blvd. was outfitted yesterday with some functional swag — bike racks, bus stops, solar panels and LED string lights, shade screens, benches — designed to perk up the East End streetscape into a shaded little walkable market dubbed The Esplanade. The stretch in question spans N. St. Charles and Delano, running alongside the Original Ninfa’s and the recently opened El Tiempo Cantina.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/13/13 4:30pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: LISTENING TO THE MONTROSE VORTEX “This looks like the tornadic vortex that tunneled through and created the Inversion House and could do the same to any bungalow left in Montrose. I’ve seen some of Renner’s gigantic spheres of the same colorful slats and this seems like the humongous fallopian tube that spit them out. It appears to move faster than the traffic that sits alongside it. I love that the colors reflect the rainbow flags along Westheimer left from the parade. Best of all is that HAA money went to a Houston artist! If I put my ear up to the big end, do I hear the live oaks singing? It appeals to all my senses.” [Mike, commenting on Now Ready To Be Looked At: Montrose “Funnel Tunnel”] Illustration: Lulu

08/13/13 10:15am

On Friday the volunteer-painted strips of donated scrap wood were weaved through the previously installed steel frame, completing Patrick Renner’s “Funnel Tunnel.” Funded in part by $10,000 from the Houston Arts Alliance, the 6,700-pound, 180-ft. long — umm, thing, wriggles through the live oaks on the Montrose Blvd. median between Bomar and Willard, right in front of Inversion and Art League Houston. The Houston Chronicle’s Molly Glentzer reports: “The wood came from a turn-of-the-century cotton gin that was being dismantled near Interstate 10 East just inside the 610 Loop.”

A few more pics of the thing:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

07/26/13 3:00pm

It’s taken a bit longer than Patrick Renner initially expected — he told Glasstire back in January that the “Funnel Tunnel” would be installed in February — but at least the sinuous steel frame that will be covered in repainted salvaged lumber was set up today in Hyde Park. You can see the giant tomato cage on Montrose Blvd., right in front of Inversion and the Art League of Houston.

Photos: Allyn West

07/11/13 12:15pm

A pair of Houston artists have really spruced up what’s left of the interior of this former beauty parlor on Dowling St. in the Third Ward. Funded in part by the Houston Arts Alliance, reports Glasstire, Robert Hodge and Phillip Pyle II bought secondhand furniture, wallpaper, knick-knacks, framed photographs of JFK, MLK, Jr., and JC (Jesus Christ, that is) and a rug for this crumbling shell of a building at Dowling and Stuart near the Project Row Houses, turning it into an temporary installation they’re calling “Beauty Box.”

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/19/13 4:00pm

BUFFALO BAYOU PUMP-N-SPRITZ ON THE FRITZ Open Channel Flow — that 60-ft. public showerhead behind the Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark — cost $154,000 to build. Apparently, that sum didn’t include any rainy-day money for maintenance: Pump all you’d like, reports Hair Balls’ Brittanie Shey, but nothing’s coming out. To find out why, Shey says she contacted the artist, Matthew Geller, city council member Ed Gonzalez, and members of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and Houston Parks, and no one had an answer. Eventually, Gonzalez’s chief of staff was able to pass the buck: “He told me that the artwork falls under the jurisdiction of the Public Works and Engineering department, and that the department had fielded a request in March to repair the sculpture. That repair had apparently not been made. ‘We’ve asked for that to be investigated,’ he said.” [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Photos: Metalab

05/17/13 1:45pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: HOW TO MEMORIALIZE A CITY OF OPEN SPACES, ONCE ALL THE VACANT LOTS ARE FILLED “. . . I’ve been saying for a long time that the city should be actively acquiring and developing one lot in each neighborhood as a pocket park with some kind of unique sculpture or statue as its centerpiece. Some kind of consistent theme of that sort could form the basis for grassroots tourism of a unique variety. Sort of a park crawl rather than a pub crawl . . . or perhaps both at the same [time]. Houston’s best assets, after all, are our neighborhoods. We should show them off.” [TheNiche, commenting on Headlines: Vargo’s Comes Down; The Honeywood Trail House of Honey]