Jaye Elizabeth Johnson

October 2: Village Walking Tour

1. 2 W 13th Street – Parsons

2. Pratt Manhattan - Gallery

3. Google NYC

4. Fort Gansevoort

Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me 

5. Abingdon Square Park & Arthur Strucker Triangle

memorial & green space

6. Bleeker Playground

The Family, Chaim Cross

Bleeker Street & Perry street

7. Jazz Musicians

8. "Love" Pop-Up Storefront

9. Wrapped Trees

            

10. Perry Street 

tourists meet window politics

 11. Village Vanguard

12. NYC AIDS Memorial

13. 9/11 Tiles for America Memorial

McCarthy Square

Greenstreets

14. Hess Triangle

15-16. Sheridan Square

          Gay Liberation Monument, Sheridan Monument

17. (Near) Jefferson Market Garden

Poetry Jukebox

18. West 4th Street Station

to catch the C!

October 9: Subway Station Survey

8th Street Station, Broadway Diary

Christopher Street Station, The Greenwich Village Murals

I visited two sites, the 8th Street Station and the Christopher Street Station in the Village. Though the 8th Street Station is not within my territory of study for this course, I figured it might be a better mirror to the area than subway artwork in another neighborhood entirely--though the eastern, central, and western parts of the Village can be vastly different from each other.

Broadway Diary, by Tim Snell and installed in 2002, consists of 40 mosaics across both sides of the platform walls. They depict images of students, tourists, storefronts, nature, and other important aspects of city life on Broadway. Some interact with each other, though isolated in form. For example, the child in the photograph above points toward the bird in wonder, across the confines of their circular enclosures.

The Greenwich Village Murals, created by Lee Brogzol in collaboration with children at PS 41 in 1994, consists of 12 large mosaic depictions of critical figures in Greenwich Village history. There are four panels, each labeled "Bohemians" or "Rebels" or "Founders" or "Providers." Pictured above is the "Bohemians" iteration. It illustrates the artist salons critical to the Village's position as a cultural gathering place for artists and thinkers. Across the way lives the "Providers".

October 16: Project Proposals
Engaging Public Narratives

1. The repurposing and use of underutilized concrete areas for green space transformation. Looking at the various sites of Greenstreets, starting from McCarthy Square, and looking also at Mary Mattingly’s SWALE and The New School’s own Street Seats, I would explore how to utilize categorization of public art and alliance/subversion of government agency to create change in food, environment rehabilitation, sustainability, and the reestablishment of a meaningful human-nature connection.

2. A historical recounting/tracking of queer gentrification in the Village: on race, class, and (dis)place(ment). Because of my distance in upbringing and personal understanding as well as my age, I would like to travel back in time to investigate an intersectional history of the location. This project could involve an app or map of sites that no longer remain, so people could retrace the steps of important historical moments and now-gone communities.

3. An argument for representative public artworks, in response to Creative Time. In an interview we read earlier in the semester, public art powers discussed what kinds of public art are important and the distinctions between them, however, their conversation began to transition into value judgments, especially on uplifting, representative, and realistically rendered public artworks situated especially around marginalized and disenfranchised populations. This would be a more survey-based work, I am unsure what would be produced from this investigation.

October 23: Project Proposal
Answering Questions

The repurposing and use of underutilized concrete areas for green space transformation. Looking at the various sites of Greenstreets, starting from McCarthy Square, and looking also at Mary Mattingly’s SWALE and The New School’s own Street Seats, I would explore how to utilize categorization of public art and alliance/subversion of government agency to create change in food, environment rehabilitation, sustainability, and the reestablishment of a meaningful human-nature connection.

Greenstreets, McCarthy Square

SWALE, Pier 4 near Sunset Park in Brooklyn

Street Seats, The New School

October 30: Preliminary Project Plan

Inspired by creative works that marry art, plant life, and public space, I wanted to repurpose and utilize concrete areas into green space for viewing, sitting, and possibly eating. Looking at NY Parks Department’s Greenstreets, Mary Mattingly’s SWALE, and The New School’s own Street Seats, I would explore the marriage of public art and public green. Looking to Jeff Koons’ Puppy, artworks created by botanical gardens like Atlanta’s, and hybrids of seating and sculpture by artists like El Ultimo Primo and Makoto Azuma.

Jeff Koons, Puppy

Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Earth Goddess, Imaginary Worlds, a New Kingdom of Plant Giants

El Ultimo Grito, Mexico DF

Makoto Azuma, The Art of Plants (Located in a shopping mall)

I want to engage methods used by Mattingly and SWALE to subvert government resistance to public food growth and use within the naming of the project as artwork. And, I want to recontextualize the Street Seats methodology of reclaiming underutilized concrete space, like parts of the street not required for parking or thru lanes. This process would require a lot of observation or surveil of spaces that might work, and I am unsure how to begin research on sites like that. I’m dealing with the challenge of creating a form without having a site.

Makoto Azuma for Fendi

Adam Kalinowski, Infinite Green

Adam Kalinowski, Vertical Biosphere

I would like the product to be sculptural, and the sculpture to be living. I am also interested in the technique and visual effect of mosaic to echo the patchwork, piecemeal quality of planting multiple plants within an armature. I need to look into how plants can grow within that structure and whether the structure can grow food or different plants. I am having some challenges creating an original 3D work, but hopefully, I can begin designing something worthwhile once I answer some of my questions of how, why, and where.