GLOW 2012 at Triangle L Ranch (2 of 2)

 Interactive art was the name of the game in this art piece at last Friday night's GLOW festival in Oracle.  Touching various places on the panel adjusted the colors displayed.  This piece was an eye catcher even from a distance.

 Jellyfish hanging out in the Sonoran desert.  This exhibit also has a hidden voice talking to visitors that was very well done, funny.

Melted bottles were used to form this flat stained glass panel.  Illuminated from the back with christmas lights.

OK when walking the path at GLOW, but not sure I would want to see this if I was out on a real trail!

 This was an overhead projector, catching the shapes and flow of a continuous stream of water running down the plate below the light on the projected.  Very effective in motion.  I'd like to see it with possible a blue gel filter between the light and water panel.

Another one of the night's artist's working with things that glow...   She was making some really nice candle holders out of metal food cans by cutting/melting away parts of the can to make interesting shapes and designs.  They would place a colored glass tea light holder inside of each finished holder which would cast a subtle colored light through the designs.  Nice!

This is one that I purchased, you can see how its got a pretty elaborate design that casts interesting shadows.

GLOW 2012 at Triangle L Ranch (1 of 2)

The annual GLOW night art festival was held this weekend out at the Triangle L Ranch in Oracle Arizona.  I made it out there Friday night and enjoyed wandering around the many eclectic night art pieces under the full moon and listening to some great music.  It was also a great opportunity to work on trying to improve my lowlight, no flash, photography skills.

A beautiful patch of glow, out of this world, flowers and plants

This was pretty cool, a giant rotating chandelier made of plastic baskets, colanders, funnels, bowls, etc.

This group of arts students were fundraising by selling "toast your own" marshmallows.  Great idea!

Several blacksmiths were working their craft, adding a spark to the evening.

One of the bands performing during the night was Mitzi Cowell.  I sat through and enjoyed her entire set -- I've enjoyed her music for many years.

This was pretty neat -- two people could hold a pair of hand grips on each side of the drum which would determine their heartbeats and automatically beat the the respective drumstick to the beat of their own heart.

I'll post a 2nd set of pictures later in the week.  But for the impatient or anyone who wants to see my full set of GLOW 2012 pictures in a full screen slideshow format, you can go see them on flickr (click the lower right expansion box to expand slideshow to full screen):

here's looking at you

8/14/2012, Tucson, Arizona

I'm aways amused by this reflection/diffraction pattern in the window of the Covington Gallery in east Tucson.  The smiling face appears and disappears totally based on your viewing position.  Unintentional, but nice.  Its actually just a clear window.

one last Endeavour

Here are 5 photos of the Tucson Endeavour Space Shuttle flyover yesterday that can be viewed fullscreen in slideshow format from my flickr account.



Here's a nice video I found on YouTube of the Endeavour Shuttle landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California later in the day on September 20th, 2012:

Space Shuttle Endeavour's Tucson flyby

9/20/2012, Shuttle Endeavour, Tucson, Arizona

It was wonderful to see the space shuttle Endeavour on the back of a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in the skies over Tucson today!  The Endeavour is headed to California to be retired and put on permanent display.  (click on pics for larger images)

  

The Endeavour has been on a multi day trip from Florida to California and is being flown across some areas that had major roles in the construction or operation of the now retired shuttle program.  Tucson was not on this list, but former shuttle commander and pilot Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords (my former congressional rep for the Tucson area), requested that it do a fly-by over Tucson on its way from New Mexico to California since we were only slightly off its planned route.  Thanks Mark!

 Here it comes, piggy back on its 747 shuttle carrier approaching the University of Arizona area, Santa Catalina Mountains in the background.  For an idea of scale, the wingspan of the 747 is 195 ft (60 m).

9/20/2012, Shuttle Endeavour, Tucson, Arizona

 Flying over the University of Arizona campus...

9/20/2012, Shuttle Endeavour, Tucson, Arizona

They were purposely flying low (about 1500 ft) and doing a few turns so that viewers on the ground could see this particular phase of U.S. space program for the last time in the air.

9/20/2012, Shuttle Endeavour, Tucson, Arizona

9/20/2012, Shuttle Endeavour, Tucson, Arizona

 I like the picture below a lot, but it almost looks like a model instead of the real thing airborne.  For an idea of scale, the 747 shuttle carrier plane is 231 ft long (70.5 m).

9/20/2012, Shuttle Endeavour, Tucson, Arizona

 After the approach, turn across the UofA Campus, another bank and turn, it flew northwest between us and the Tucson mountains on its way to California.  It was very nice for Tucson to be included in the retirement of the Space Shuttle program by way of this overflight.  Great photo op of a piece of U.S. history!

9/20/2012, Shuttle Endeavour, Tucson, Arizona

 Several of my co-workers and I decided to view the shuttle flight from the top of one of the University's parking garages.  While we were waiting for Endeavour's arrival, we noticed this group of students standing on a nearby house.  Probably related, but you can never tell...  ;-)

9/20/2012, Shuttle watchers, Tucson, Arizona

[LINKS: In addition to the Space Shuttle related links included in my blog post above, here is a link that some of my reader's may find useful/interesting: The Congress.gov web site was unveiled September 19th and looks pretty interesting.  I've just begun exploring it, but it looks like a pretty cool way to check on status of bills, who did what, read bill summaries or full contents, etc. etc.  Worth a look.  "The Library of Congress, in collaboration with the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the Government Printing Office (GPO), today unveiled Congress.gov, a new public beta site for accessing free, fact-based legislative information. Congress.gov features platform mobility, comprehensive information retrieval and user-friendly presentation." ]

riding off into the saguaro forest

9/3/2012, Saguaro National Park East, Tucson, Arizona

Speaking of horses, I saw a really great horse movie last week that is currently playing at The Loft Cinema in Tucson: Wild Horse, Wild Ride.  [It ends Thursday, Sept 20th, so if you want to see it in Tucson you better rush... worth it.]

This movie follows several trainer/horse pairs as they participate in the Wild Horse Makeover competition.  It starts with them getting assigned a wild mustang and follows them as they work with the horse over 100 days, taking the wild horses from being very wary/terrified of humans to being rideable and even doing tricks.

Its very interesting to watch the different human/horse interactions as they get used to each other.  Lots of great characters in this movie.  If you have any interest in human - animal interactions, horse or otherwise, I'd really recommend this movie.  It features trainers/riders from several areas of the U.S. including several from Arizona.

Here's the trailer:  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYr0YozIcoQ )

keeping an eye on the parking

9/15/2012, parking lot SW of 4th Ave & 6th St, Tucson, Arizona

the Raven Rocks

9/12/2012, East Speedway Blvd sculptures, Tucson, Arizona

These cool new sculptures are associated with the recent road widening project of East Speedway Blvd between Camino Seco and Houghton on my side of town.  The rock cairns on the left, made of large boulders, were created by artist Simon Donovan and stone carver Will Chamberlain.  The large raven with 19 ft wingspan was created by artist Caryl Clement of Wheat Scharf Associates.

9/12/2012, "Messenger" by Caryl Clement

While I was taking pictures this morning a woman walked up and introduced herself as the artist of the large raven, Caryl Clement.  She just happened to be walking down the sidewalk on her way to work.

Caryl said that the raven sculpture is made out of concrete footings excavated during the road construction project and then shaped by Mark Yaglowski.  Caryl also mentioned that the land right behind the sculptures is city property and in a flood plain so it is likely to maintain a great view of the Santa Catalina mountains behind the sculptures.

9/12/2012, Cairns by Simon Donovan with Will Chamberlain

My picture of the cairns doesn't do justice to their height -- it almost looks like they are the small rocks you see marking trails.   They're not, these are all boulders.  Very cool.

as seen from the road

I really like both sculptures and think they complement each other nicely.  I think its great that our road construction projects put a little of the budget into various diverse forms of public art.  The road project also turned out nicely, two lanes each direction with bike lanes, rubberized asphalt for low noise, sidewalks, and several other nice features for traffic flow and safety.

[Links: The City of Tucson has put together a presentation with some great road art pictures (some Tucson, some not): An Introduction to Public Art in Transportation.]

Two horse mural at the feed store

8/26/2012, Feed Store near Dodge & Fort Lowell, Tucson, Arizona

This feed store mural goes nicely with the real vegetation growing next to the wall.

Flying Carpets at the Airport

I dropped in on the Tucson International Airport (TIA) today to check out the current art rotation as well as snap a few pics of some of the permanent installations.  I really like "Another Way to Fly", a set of 30 glass flying carpets ascending in a vortex.  This work is by Tucson artist Tom Philabaum.

The current rotating art exhibit down by the Terminal A luggage carousals includes a photographic exhibit "Blooms & Bugs" as well as paintings and sculptures featuring artists from the Tucson Mountain Artists Collective.

"Butterfly Spirit" by Ellen Sidor

"Portrait of Marion DeGrazia" by Ursela Gurau

"Portrait of Ted DeGrazia" by Ursela Gurau

You might want to click this one to get a bigger image.  Those are paint brushes in famed local artist Ted DeGrazia's head.

You may recognize the Pegasus from an evening picture of it that I posted earlier this year.

The upper link gallery area currently features laser etched aluminum sunset/landscape art by Lynn Rae Lowe.

"Angel with X-Ray Eyes" (2001) by Rose Johnson (left) and "Walking on Lightning" (1988) by Charlotte Bender

"Angel with X-Ray Eyes" (2001) by Rose Johnson

My picture doesn't do it justice, but this large painting was really nice.

"Illusion of the Familiar" (1988) by Gail Marcus Orlen and "Moving" (1990) by Gail Marcus Orlen

So that's a sampling of some of the cool art currently at the Tucson International Airport.  I'll repeat my past recommendation that there is some really good art worth seeing at the airport, both in the permanent and rotating featured artists exhibits (remember the now gone, but very cool cardboard guitars I posted pics of earlier in the year?).

I'm guessing that far too many people miss out on the current art, even if they are at the airport!  

If you're going to the airport anyway, try allowing a little extra time to wander around the upstairs and downstairs terminals.  Not flying?  Not picking anyone up?   Well you can still go, just like I did today, since most of the art is in the public area and not past the security checkpoints.  And it will only cost you 2 or 3 dollars to park.  Not a bad deal at all.

Here's what to do if you just want to visit for an hour or so...   Drive to Tucson International Airport.  As you approach the airport follow the signs for hourly parking.

The hourly parking lot, very close to the terminals, is currently $1 per 30 minutes.  Depending on the art on display and your interest in it, you might want to allow an hour to an hour and a half to view what's on display in the downstairs and upstairs terminals.

push button, grab ticket

there is usually parking pretty close to the terminal

I'd recommend starting at the Terminal A luggage and traveler reception area (left above), then heading left (still inside terminal) up the moving sidewalks to the second level, Pegasus horse, and then across both terminals on the the second level to view more art, the glass flying carpets (in the center area above), and then back down to the luggage pickup level.

You can grab a coffee at Ike's coffee at ground level in Terminal B if you want something to drink.  The airport is not that large, so its pretty pleasant wandering around.   On your way in or out, don't forget to check out the natural art (below) between the terminals and parking lot.

Once you return to your car, head out and pay based on how long you stayed.  Couldn't be simpler.

So, just to illustrate my point, today I went to view art at the airport, took pictures, did NOT see everything, stayed a little under an hour, and got out for a total of $2.00.  They are making a really good art effort here.

Here is the TIA Art in the Airport brochure.  A list of art exhibits currently showing at any particular time can be found here.  Enjoy!

To view all my posts regarding TIA Art in the Airport, click here.