15 July 2015

From July 6th through August 21st, free lunches can be picked up Monday through Friday between 12pm - 1pm at the Tree Table (corner of Michigan Ave and Laurel St) 

15 July 2015

“Pavilion for Forgotten Skies”, a new sculpture proposal from artist Matthew Walker for the Pelion Community Garden. Sculpture was designed to engage the adjacent school in topics such as anthropology, geometry, botany and structural design.

From the artist:

“The first thing we did when we learned to control electricity was to turn the lights on, and they have rarely been off ever since. When night lost its influence on our lives, we also lost the insights that it provides. The alternative cycles that it offers; its rich variety and complexity; its counter rhythms and asymmetry; its spatial and spiritual nuance.

The geometric movements of the night sky inspire both musical and mathematical expressions, while it pulls at us with its gravity. Night offers us a connection to the invisible dark matter that is at the center of life’s greater questions. Night is the moon’s influence on biological life; and, the meanings we have extrapolated from the stars; it is the view away from the regular rise and fall of the sun, and it’s time that we count. When we lost our sky we lost our true connectivity, and we entered what Clark Strand has called ‘the most persistent of all illusions: that human progress is the reason for the world’.

I am proposing an informal architecture for the Pelion Garden that will serve as a pavilion to these forgotten skies. The structure is modeled after indigenous architectures and will co-function as an ecological structure. From street level the work will appear as an 8’ high x 300 sq’ hugelkulture (garden mound) with a 20’ domestic windmill-generator. Planting in collaboration with the Pelion Garden will include exploring night blooming plants. The pavilion, situated within this mound, will be accessed through the garden by a wheelchair accessible pathway and a lockable entrance door.”

29 October 2014

Our first sculpture, Tree, by artist Michael Beitz, can now be seen from Google Earth! The sculpture was installed on the Michigan Riley Farm in May of 2014. 

05 February 2014

Studying the newly drafted Buffalo Green Code carefully for specific    "Place-Based Planning" civic allowances that relate to our project.

2.2 Embrace arts and culture as economic drivers

-Support public art installations in strategic locations

6.5 Establish interim uses for vacant land

- Permit the development of community gardens on public lands, with landscaping and beauticiation standards that ensure community benefit

- Allow pilot projects for aestheticlly-pleasing...urban agriculture within high-vacancy blocks to reduce City maintenance expense

Artfarms of Buffalo

Previously, What's New Buffalo has explored the blight of vacant lots (or zombie neighborhoods) on the city. Evidence divines the answer is in urban horticulture and agriculture of which Buffalo has a healthy collection. Yet, what will draw people to these farms and gardens? Aside from the conspicuous natural beauty, Buffalo's East Side thinks building functional art structures that provides support for the farmers as well as draws in the community is the answer.

ArtFarms in Buffalo! "Urban vacancy in the East Side of Buffalo is widespread. With over 20% of its land empty, it feeds negative perceptions that discourage the city's redevelopment." What better way to build up community pride and work to build sustainability than combining art and farming!

From ArtFarms website (check it out!):

"In Buffalo’s East Side, urban agriculture is transforming once residential, abandoned land into small farms serving local groups. And although vacant land is abundant, it is often contaminated. Historically farmers used above ground grow structures to overcome poor soil conditions – an approach which could provide a solution to the contamination problem.

ARTFARMS invites recognized artists to design grow sculptures for the East Side urban farms. Made from lightweight materials, their ghost-like appearance highlights the neighborhood’s exodus of homes, people and activity.

Used as growth structures for fruits, vegetables and flowers, these large scale planted sculptures attract new visitors and attention.

ARTFARMS turns the area’s vacant properties into a new landscape of growing sculpture. It invites a wider audience to witness the formation of a new perception for the area that brings more visitors to the farm produce stores, more positive impressions of the area’s future, more potential of attracting other small business development. The result is a synergy where ongoing local reuse efforts are enhanced by their coordination with a larger cultural perspective."