posted by Hatty

Two years ago, I remember confessing to the Tumblr world my slight obsession with street art. I've watched a few documentaries, followed a bunch of photoblogs and posted one or two pieces on the art form myself. It's like French, this kind of curiosity--if you don't practice everyday with people who are fluent in your subject of curiosity, it goes away.

When my RSS feed started blowing up with everyone getting excited about Banky's NYC residency, I naturally felt a little sad for not keeping up my study of street art. But enough with my personal lack of commitment to creative outlets. This NPR interview of the Tabachnick family raises some excellent questions about commodification of art: who truly owns this piece, the public (meaning free viewing as I'm sure Banksy has meant to be) or a private collector who may eventually buy the wall? Should the wall be left as is and possibly "destroyed?" Should the Tabachnicks, for the sake of posterity move the piece inside a gallery? Would it even be considered "street" art then? Who decides which stroke of spray paint counts as art and which doesn't? 

posted by Hatty

Mint by Night by Alfred Barrett from Strand Bookstore on the corner of East 12th Street, New York City

I picked it up without much thought, last November during my post-election vaca. Sidewalk booksales is a dangerous thing.

It's the first poem in the book and also the title. The rest quickly becomes a little less aromatic than the opening--Father Barrett likes to write almost exclusively about the life of Jesuit priests and their candlelit rituals.

Free as Air and Water

posted by Hatty

The first time I heard of Cooper Union was when my ex roommate (Lana Choi, the former Peel Pages' Artistic Director, not that you asked) told me about her trip to check out the East Coast art school scene. I knew next to nothing about undergrad arts programs in general and if Lana was considering Cooper Union, it must be a decent school (she ended up going to just as decent, I mean awesome, of an art school in Canada, not that you asked). Fast forward a year and half and this tiny college popped up on my Twitter feed via another artist friend's update: "FYI, @FreeCooperUnion is livetweeting some very important questions about the economics of higher ed right now. Go read."

Read I did. And more--I've been following the news of the occupation every day this past week and researching Cooper's history, especially since this video dropped.

I won't comment on the content of the reenactment. About 20 minutes in you can understand for yourself (all the memorable lines from the leaked Board meeting transcript are quoted via tweets: "In 2500 there will be no tenured faculty anyways." Again, not that you asked). What's noteworthy is the medium chosen for the occupiers' message to public. Not all of the 17 students in that office are theater majors; some probably have never staged a shoot before, and you can tell watching the awkward camera angles and fumbling of lines. But it's moving. I'm thinking again of the relationship between art and an alternative vision for what could be, not to mention the relationship between what’s being discussed on the screen and the future of arts education at Cooper, and maybe of liberal arts education in general.

posted by Hatty

So this is the year the rest of my class who has put off grad school decides to finally go the Masters degree route--four years ago it was med school, last couple years law school and public policy, fall of 2013 would be urban planning.

Aside from the fact that I have many overachieving high-achieving friends, I wonder if this trend is revealing of my local-eating, bike-riding, occupy-sympathetic generation's growing interest in understanding cities and infrastructures. Only recently has San Francisco Bay Area, along with other metropolitan areas like New York and Los Angeles, been hearing "sustainability" and "complete communities" in public discourse, not just in architecture and design elite circles. And the fascination--almost an obsession--with neighborhoods, local economy, walkability and open spaces is making into a lot of blog posts by young and overeducated hipsters everywhere.

It was through this lens I read the story of Martin Wichary's trans-American road trip in the footsteps of Robert Moses. Ironically, or maybe not, I read it on my commute via BART from downtown San Francisco to what some would call a suburbia, Berkeley. And the names of proposed freeways Moses would have built had he had his way did send shivers down my back: Golden Gate Freeway, Panhandle Freeway, Park Presidio Freeway, Crosstown Freeway, Mission Freeway...

Towards the end Wichary says some cities had to be created by and for traffic for us to understand that they weren't supposed to. He counts as his personal blessing that New York and San Francisco, two of his favorite places in the world, have escaped that fate. Without naming names from the blog post, I can think of a handful of my beloved cities that apparently have not. Moreover, I'm now thinking about the ways transit-oriented development--what Wichary and many other new urban dwellers will consider an answer to Moses' nightmarish vision of cities designed for cars--is displacing poor people of color virtually the same way Moses' freeways would have.

posted by Hatty

Beautiful paintings by Makoto Fujimura. I am usually pretty critical of Christian art, but I find these absolutely lovely.

posted by Hatty

Better late than never: a piece of Black History Month and architecture and love for the city of angels all in one post!

Living in and loving cities for me has always meant to see more, wider, longer, higher and deeper— under the surface, behind what people have said and sometimes off the shelves of dusty cupboards in your downstairs neighbor’s overcrowded kitchen. Los Angeles is exactly how I've learned to read local history, and actually care about it in this way.

posted by Hatty

A somewhat random chance--I had the pleasure of meeting one of our poet contributors Geoffrey from Flagstaff, Arizona two Fridays ago. He let me read one of his favorite poems by Matthew Dickman, and I happened to find a recording of his reading!