Lodge Grass

The transit mall art tour continues with another example of the "Lumpy Little Dudes On Posts" movement so beloved by some unnamed art buyer at TriMet or RACC. This one, "Lodge Grass", is at least less annoying than the others we've covered so far. TriMet's official public art tour (which is less fun than mine) describes it thusly:

The title of John Buck's Lodge Grass refers to a Montana town originally settled by Native Americans and to the name for a range of plants used by indigenous peoples to make shelters. The artist has used related symbols and imagery for the figure's head and shoulders.

RACC describes it quite similarly:

The title of John Buck's sculpture, Lodge Grass, refers to a town in Big Horn County, Montana, that was originally settled by Native Americans. Lodge grass is also the name for a range of plants used by indigenous peoples to make shelters. As the environment has evolved and useful plants such as lodge grass have disappeared, the thistle and other noxious weeds have replaced them, in the same way that wilderness areas have been replaced by suburban developments.

So, in part, the piece serves to mutely reproach the commuting suburbanites who pass by it every day on the way to and from their cubicles, and they don't even know they're being reproached. Or maybe I'm reading too much into the siting decision, I'm not entirely sure. I note that neither description bothers to mention the nude female figure without a head that holds up the various symbolic bits. It's a curious omission, that's all I'm saying.

In any case, it's easy to imagine "Lodge Grass" in the Portland public-art-come-to-life horror movie I brainstormed in the last post. Magic power: Horrible woody tentacles sprouting from its head, seizing and devouring everything in its path. Key weakness: Lack of eyes and ears; complete inability to communicate with fellow monsters; tentacles are right-handed, leaving the left side vulnerable.

Burls Will Be Burls

So here's another bit of ugly transit mall art for your perusal, this time a group of small bronze figures at 6th & Burnside titled "Burls Will Be Burls", a burl being a sort of gnarled growth on a tree. The figures are sorta-anthropomorphized versions of actual burls, but made of bronze instead of wood. Makes perfect sense, right? So, another stellar example of the "Lumpy Little Dudes On Posts" movement of the mid-2000s. Of which I am sadly not a fan, if you hadn't noticed.

It occurs to me though, if there was a horror movie in which Portland public art came to life and went on a bloody rampage, these little bastards would get a lot of screen time. They look malicious, but they're also quite small, sort of like the gremlins in "Gremlins", and "Gremlins" made serious box office. So there's that. I'm thinking something along the lines of "Troll 2" (since the creatures look kind of similar), but all artsy and Portlandy and crap. Naturally there would be a Kickstarter to fund the thing, and long stretches of attempted screenwriting in hip coffee shops around town, and people schmoozing me for gigs playing "Thompson Elk Victim #247" and stuff. Honestly, I'm quickly warming up to the idea. Naturally -- and in the true spirit of Hollywood -- I have no intention of paying royalties to the artists behind our movie monsters, though a shout out in the credits might be appropriate, or maybe a quick mention in a DVD extra, or a footnote on IMDb, or an obscure blog post like the one you're reading now, or something.

The Green Man of Portland

So, here's the latest installment in our ongoing tour of public art on the Portland transit mall. This time we're visiting my new least favorite piece, "The Legend of the Green Man of Portland". It's a collection of various ugly items strewn along 5th & 6th avenues between Burnside and Glisan. They're supposed to fill you in on the details of a bit of fake mythology the artist made up, heavily inspired by (or maybe freeloading off of) actual mythology. Two big clumsy ceramic-looking pedestals with little statues on top, which I suppose are supposed to be "gateways" to the thing. Plus a series of art panels, one per block, filling the avid viewer in on more exciting details of this dumb legend, executed in a properly hipsterish graphic novel look. I took photos of several of them; I missed at least one because there was a drug dealer leaning against it, and I didn't feel like disturbing him.

I probably should have taken that photo anyway, since it was a great juxtaposition: The official vision for the area, in which hip artistic types move in and gentrify Old Town and make it safe for upscale condo towers; and the Skid Row reality on the ground, which essentially hasn't changed since Portland's lusty seaport years of the late 1800s. That would have been a great photo, if only I was a braver street photographer, and/or owned more bulletproof items.

When I do an art post, I usually try to find out more about the artist and understand what their motivations and influences are and so forth. But I can't say I'm intrigued to learn any of that this time. If I had to speculate, I'd call it a typical example of the "Lumpy Little Dudes on Posts" movement of the mid-2000s, of which we have several new (& unattractive) examples in the new batch of transit mall art (and I'll get around to the others later).

Every time I see any part of "The Green Man", I just think "Oh, gawwwd" and roll my eyes and think it was a damn fool waste of money. Which I realize is a perfectly Philistine response, but an appropriate one, I think. The fact that we celebrate (and publicly fund) amateurish hipster art like this is one of the many reasons non-Portlanders keep making fun of us.

La Ventana Arch, El Malpais

More photos from the El Malpais area in New Mexico, this time not of lava flows but of the nearby La Ventana Arch, a sandstone natural arch near the park road just north of The Narrows. If I'm reading the map right, the road is roughly the boundary between the National Monument and the BLM-administered El Malpais National Conservation Area, and the arch lies just over the line in BLM territory. This bureaucratic division has no practical implications for you as a casual visitor, as far as I know.

The Narrows, El Malpais

[View Larger Map] <0>A few old photos from El Malpais National Monument in western New Mexico, just south of the town of Grants. Much of the monument consists of an enormous, rugged lava flow (hence the name), and these photos were taken from the Narrows viewpoint, looking out over the dark expanse.

I realize giant lava flows aren't everyone's cup of tea, and it's not like there's a shortage of dramatic scenery in this corner of the world, but it's still kind of a remarkable sight. So I'm always a bit surprised when people inevitably say they've never heard of the place. Well, now you have.

Pololū Valley

[View Larger Map]

Another set of old Big Island photos, this time from Pololū Valley up toward the northern tip of the island. I stopped here and hiked down to the beach, and because it was the era of film photography (and 36 shots per roll), I took exactly eight photos of this amazing place, and just one at the beach on the valley floor. I seem to recall it's a short but fairly steep hike, but it's been 12 years and I didn't take any photos on the trail, so I might be mistaken about that part.

empire state building, july 2000

A few photos of and from the Empire State Building, taken when I was in NYC for a trade show back in July 2000. These photos had the same color issues as the Hawaii photos in the previous post, but even more so; I imagine I had both rolls developed at the same time (I was always bad about getting film developed in a timely way), so the same junior trainee probably dinked around with both rolls. In any case, I played around a little and decided I liked these photos highly desaturated, with just a touch of the cyan shading remaining.

I have one other photo I'm not posting here. Someone else took it for me, and it shows me standing there on the Empire State Building observation deck, a goofy grin on my face, with the Twin Towers over one shoulder. Looking at it really weirds me out. Which is strange since WTC photos I'm not in don't affect me that way, but there you have it. So don't expect to see that photo anytime soon.