Plans for temporium spaces in the Central 14th Street corridor taking shape

DC's Office of Planning is preparing to launch a series of temporium projects in vacant spaces along the Central 14th Street corridor, which stretches from Spring Road to Longfellow Street NW. The project is funded by a $250,000 grant from ArtPlace, a collaboration between federal agencies and private foundations that seeks to revitalize commercial corridors through arts-based uses. The same grant money helped to fund the Lumen8Anacostia series of events (which had a very successful opening day last weekend).

The Office of Planning is partnering with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the 14th Street Uptown Business Association on the project, which is being referred to as Summer of the Arts. OP has enlisted the assistance of the arts planning collective Rebar to assist with designing the temporary spaces (which is exciting, as Rebar has implemented lots of innovative projects all around the country).

The project was developed in coordination with the recommendations of the Central 14th Street Revitalization Strategy Plan, which calls for creative uses of the commercial spaces along the corridor in order to spur revitalization.

Two events this weekend will kick off planning for the project. Both are free and open to the public:

When: Friday, April 20, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Where: Sorg Architects, 918 U St NW
Panel discussion on how commercial corridors like 14th Street can use art to bolster neighborhood vitality.
Moderator: Donald Russell, executive director, Provisions Learning Project/Provisions Library
Panelists:
John Bela, founder, Rebar
Liesel Fenner, public art program manager, Americans for the Arts
Julian Hunt, AIA, Hunt Laudi Studio
Linn Meyers, artist
Suman Sorg, Sorg Architects
Harriet Tregoning, director, DC Office of Planning

When: Saturday, April 21, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm
Where: The plaza in the 5500 block of Colorado Avenue NW
From the Office of Planning: "Community residents will re-create a temporary art-plaza in the 5500 block of Colorado Avenue and 14th Street (in front of the old Colorado Dry Cleaners). This will be a hands-on and fun activity using chalk, stencils and plantings to create a short term art plaza as recommended in the Central 14th Plan. After the mock-up, everyone is invited to join Rebar and business owners for a hands-on discussion on how street furniture will help with revitalization. The discussion will address the following questions: How are sidewalks currently used? Could street furniture support a more active and engaging street? What are the needs of businesses to attract more visitors? This discussion will take place from 4:00 – 6:00 pm at 5538 1/2 Colorado Avenue (Linn Meyer's studio)."

A performance space with a lot of history resurrected at 1365 Kennedy Street NW

Image from backalleytheater.tumblr.com/

You may know the basement of 1365 Kennedy Street NW as the site of the two most recent DC Grey Markets, but the residents of the Madison Terrace Cooperative have more plans for creative uses of their space. It's my pleasure to introduce you to Back Alley Theater and its new Tumblr, which contains a list of planned events at the space (mark February 16 on your calendars for an evening of bass performances with Thomas Helton, Brit Powell, and Luke Stewart).

The new blog also contains a really interesting history of the space. Here's a short excerpt:

The Back Alley Theater was born in 1967 in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Naomi Eftis started the theater in the garage in the alley behind her house at 1929 Lamont St., NW. She started it because she wanted to give kids in the neighborhood the experience of theater.

In 1968, the theater moved into St. Stephen’s Church, at 16th and Newton Streets, NW. They then moved briefly into the Church of the Reformation on East Capitol Street on Capitol Hill, before settling in 1969 into permanent quarters in the basement of an apartment building at 1365 Kennedy Street, NW.

In 1981, the tenants who lived in the apartment building that housed the Back Alley Theater joined forces to collectively purchase their building from their landlord, forming the Madison Terrace Cooperative. Thirty years later, in 2011, Madison Terrace Cooperative members began to resurrect the Back Alley Theater for musical performances and community events.

Very exciting to see a new(ish) DIY space dedicated to community performances and events spring up in the neighborhood.

Georgia Avenue's new art in vacant spaces project launches on Sunday

I first wrote about the Georgia Avenue Window Walk project here, and I'm really excited that it's getting off the ground! The pilot project is starting in Pleasant Plains, and we're aiming to get enough owners of vacant spaces involved for the Window Walk to encompass all of the commercial nodes on Georgia Avenue, stretching all the way up to Eastern Avenue.

From the Georgia Avenue Community Development Task Force:

Please join us on Sunday November 13th from 3-6pm for a launch event for the Georgia Avenue Window Walk and a celebration of the first two window installations by artists, John Grunwell and Emily Sloat Shaw. Meet at Pleasant Plains Workshop at 2608 Georgia Avenue for refreshments and tunes courtesy of DJ Emma Woodhouse starting at 3pm. At 4pm there will be a walking tour with the artists, followed by more merriment at Pleasant Plains Workshop!

The Georgia Avenue Window Walk is a temporary public art project that engages residents, businesses and visitors to the community by placing art installations in existing and vacant storefront spaces along the lower Georgia Avenue Corridor.

Our Objectives:
Improve the look of Georgia Avenue
Connect residents and visitors to historical and cultural aspects of Georgia Avenue
Provide local artists with an opportunity for exposure
Engage community members in a process resulting in positive change
Attract visitors to the area to dine and shop at the existing businesses
Attract new retail to Georgia Avenue

Why Clybourne Park matters

As you may know, Woolly Mammoth Theatre is in the midst of a second run of Bruce Norris' play Clybourne Park. If you didn't catch it the first time around, (before it picked up the Pulitzer Prize for Drama), now through August 14 is your chance.

The theatre also runs a great blog containing thoughts from the people who are involved in the production of the play. A recent post from Rachel Grossman, Woolly's connectivity director, illustrates how the play's themes relate to Brightwood and many other neighborhoods in DC, and how the play can encourage further dialogue about the changes that are taking place in the city:

The Washington, DC area is undergoing a mind-bogglingly rapid economic growth and development, and is simultaneously experiencing a striking shift in population (both as result of and in response to the former). Right on their coattails is a significant, potentially seismic, cultural shift in the city which is heard foreshadowed in phrases like “Chocolate City is going vanilla” and “Chocolate City is melting.” As the face of our city changes—architecturally, economically, and, quite literally, of the faces of the people who live here—a charge is building up with few ways to productively release it widely and publically. I would argue that this is because we lack a shared experience, common ground and neutral territory on which to meet and engage in open dialogue. For many, Clybourne Park is that shared experience and provides us perspective from which to begin conversation.

In 13 years of leading discussions following theatrical performances, I have yet to see a show that primes people to talk intimately in a room of strangers about heated topics like race and gentrification as Clybourne Park. It is the “perfect storm” of connectivity: linking audience members with one another and the artists through the work of art. During the initial run in March and April 2010, I was humbled by the willingness of audiences to speak from the heart sharing deeply personal stories and beliefs of the “way the world works” which were suddenly questioned. The outpouring of conversation led to the decision to create opportunity for dialogue after every performance of the remount.

15 months after the initial run, the landscape in DC has shifted—from the change in DC’s mayoral seat to the shifting racial makeup of the city’s citizenry. We’ll be engaging with Clybourne Park this time from a different starting point. What shape will the conversation take in the theatre? Only the next four weeks will tell. Can it have an impact on the city’s larger capacity to dialogue about race and gentrification? We hope so.

So if you ask me why this show matters, to me or to Woolly... Sure, it is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Of course, the production is hilarious and poignant. Yes, we expect many people to purchase tickets. But it matters because it models as a function that theatre could play in this city and in American society. It unites citizens in the pleasurable act of collective imagining, while also challenging us to examine innermost portions of ourselves as individuals, a community, a nation.

Grossman has organized a series of post-performance forums for audience exchanges with various artists, scholars, journalists, and community activists that have been sparking interesting discussions and are well worth attending.

Call for artists: new installation projects planned for vacant Georgia Avenue spaces

Here's something exciting I've been working on.

Anyone who spends any time on or around Georgia Avenue knows that it has lots of vacant storefronts, many with large (or large-ish) display windows, right? So a couple of the community and business development groups in the area got together and started discussing ways to spruce up the Avenue by allowing local artists to use those vacant storefronts for installations. (For a prototype, see District Modular at 3216 GA Ave.)

This call is for the initial phase of the project, which will consist of just one window (located at 2702 Georgia Avenue) and will serve as a model for the larger-scale project we're planning for the future.

Please share this post with friends in the visual arts community.

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The community is providing an opportunity for artists to participate in the Georgia Avenue Window Walk, a project inviting local artists to create installations on vacant properties along Georgia Avenue:

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Georgia Avenue Window Walk - Installment 1
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: August 29, 2011
NOTIFICATION: September 19, 2011
EXHIBITION LOCATION: The window display case at 2702 Georgia Avenue NW, DC 20001 (on
the corner of Georgia Avenue and Fairmont Streets NW, adjacent to retail business, The Guild)

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The Georgia Avenue Window Walk is a temporary public art project that engages residents, businesses and visitors to the community by placing art installations in vacant storefront spaces along the Georgia Avenue Corridor. The works on view will comprise of visual art and educational installations by local artists, organizations and youth groups. The projects on display will tie back to the Georgia Avenue community, culture, or its history in some way.

Note: This call is for the first window installation which will act a model for the larger scale project.

ELIGIBILITY ( Open to individual artists or organizations)
- This call is open to artists who live or work in DC and organizations located in DC
- Applicants must be at least 18 years old (if working with a youth group, lead applicant must be at least 18 years old).
- Submissions for site-specific installations in all media are welcome including (but not limited to) painting, sculpture, installation, street art, photography, educational installations, wheat-pasting, mural, digital art, and video art.

SELECTION PROCESS
Proposals will be reviewed by a committee consisting of members of the community, business owners, the building owners, and project leaders. Proposals not selected for this window may be kept on file for review as other window opportunities arise. The selected project will be warded a stipend of $200. Selected applicant(s) will be notified on September 19, 2011 and the nstallation must be completed by October 14, 2011.

An info session will be held on Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 6:30pm at the Emergence Community Arts Collective, 733 Euclid St NW DC.

For more information, see the Call to Artists online
You can also call (202) 462-2285 or email GeorgiaAveWindowWalk at gmail dot com

Brightwood Park gets an infoshop

Before the Dream City Collective came along, the District had been without an honest-to-goodness infoshop for several years, as places like the Brian McKenzie Infoshop and the Peoples’ Media Center had closed down in the late 2000s.

After a few years of nomadic existence, tabling at events but having no space to call its own, Dream City filled that void by setting up shop at a space on Monroe Street in Columbia Heights in February of 2011. Just a few short months later, however, the space changed ownership and Dream City was summarily ousted.

Losing space often means the end for collectives like Dream City. Fortunately for them, Fhar Miess, Bike House member and proprietor of Sumoud Cycle Works, and his partner had recently purchased 5525 Illinois Avenue NW with the intent of using the lower level for bike frame building. Miess had a vision for using the building’s main floor for community events, and when he found out that Dream City was in need of a space, a new collaboration was born.

Dream City held their first event at 5525 Illinois Avenue in early July. Collective member Vallan told me they intend to have events several times a month, including two movie nights (on the first and third Wednesday of the month) and two “open days”, during which community members are invited to stop by, hang out, peruse Dream City’s reading materials, and enjoy a coffee or a lime spritzer (I had a lime spritzer when I was there and it was scrumptious). Vallan says that he and the other collective members aim to make Dream City “a hub, and a space for the promotion of grassroots projects.”

The Dream City Collective is open to new ideas and new projects. You can reach them through Facebook or through their blog. Or stop by on their next Open Day: Saturday, July 30 from 12 noon through 8pm

New murals at Paul Public Charter School

These brighten up the corner of 8th and Peabody Streets NW pretty significantly.

There are more segments of the wall that have outlines painted on them that look like they'll soon be filled in; I'll post photos of those when they're completed.

Sculptures created from recycled bike parts start appearing this week in Old Takoma

Mandala
by Robert Wertz
at 6903 Laurel Avenue


The Amazing Alien Egg
A Phenakistoscope by Alison Baker
at 201 Ethan Allen Avenue at the TPSS Co-op



Wheels in the Sky
by Howard Connelly Design
at B.Y. Morrison Park

Photos: Laura Barclay


Who doesn't love bikes, art, and recycling? Artists from all over the world have been known to use old bike parts as their media, and that spirit is being brought to our area thanks to the Old Takoma Business Association.

Installation of the OTBA's reCYCLE Art of Bike Project began last weekend and will continue throughout the week. The project was "designed to celebrate the art, bicycling and recycling cultures of Takoma", according to the OTBA press release.

Artists were commissioned to build seven outdoor sculptures, using mostly bicycle parts. Some sculptures are kinetic, including The Amazing Alien Egg and Wheels in the Sky, pictured above. They will be displayed throughout Old Takoma (though notably only one of them is located on the DC side; it's at 341 Cedar Street NW) (EDIT: OK, as Laura points out in the comments, the lawn of 6930 Carroll Avenue is just inside the District line [although the building is in Maryland], therefore so is the sculpture that is placed on its lawn) until October 2, when they will be auctioned off to the public at the annual Takoma Park Street Festival. Proceeds will benefit future OTBA public art projects.

Check out more photos and a map. I also understand that the Green Commuter and Takoma Bicycle have reCYCLE t-shirts available for sale.

OTBA will host an official unveiling this Saturday, June 18th at 10:00am at B.Y. Morrison Park (at the intersection of Carroll Avenue and Rt. 410 in Takoma Park). Car parking is available in the public lot next to 201 Ethan Allen Avenue; bike parking is available everywhere.

Saturday: Dedication of Sam Gilliam piece at Takoma Metro underpass; Gray decides to attend after all

Photo: Rich Holzsager, takomadc.info

Bring yourselves to Takoma tomorrow morning for the official dedication ceremony for From a Model to a Rainbow, the Sam Gilliam piece that was recently installed in the Takoma Metro underpass. Here's the relevant info:

When: Saturday, June 11th, 10:00am
Where: The grassy area in front of the Takoma Metro entrance (across Cedar St. NW from the 7-11)

From a Model to a Rainbow is a hand-blown Italian glass mosaic, and it definitely does a lot to liven up the not-so-lovely underpass.

The ceremony will be attended by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Takoma Park Mayor Bruce Williams, Councilmember Muriel Bowser, and even Mayor Gray, who reportedly announced a few days ago that he was backing out of attending the ceremony, but did an about-face pretty quickly once he started hearing that people in the neighborhood were peeved by his decision. The power of community outrage prevailed.

Sam Gilliam will be on hand to speak, and entertainment will be provided by the Takoma Baptist Church Choir and the Calvin Coolidge Senior High School Drum Line.

These things happen in lands without Advisory Neighborhood Commissions

My realtor called me up yesterday and told me she thought of me when she heard about Home, which showed at the Avalon Theatre last night as part of their monthly French Cinemathque series.

It's the story of a family living an idyllic, isolated, quirky, non-conformist-y existence somewhere in the French countryside. Their house is right next to a long-abandonded highway which is closed off to cars and which the family uses for such activities as street hockey games and leisurely, destination-less bike riding. They leave their belongings (wading pools, chairs, toys) strewn across the highway, and nobody ever bothers them. Then one day, their seven year old son mentions that while on his bike ride he noticed construction workers at the far end of the highway. Before the family knows it (because in the French countryside they don't have ANC meetings at which to discuss these issues to death), the highway is being paved in preparation to reopen it. Soon cars start to zoom past the house, destroying the family's nice quiet existence (the scenes of the first cars racing down the highway are hilariously accompanied by the voice of an announcer on the family's radio extolling the virtues of the reopened highway and how much easier it's going to make everybody's life). After the reopening, the family begins to unravel, while coming up with some drastic solutions for blocking the noise and creating some privacy; toward the end of the film the family's patriarch brings home a massive quantity of cinderblocks and blocks off all of the house's windows.

And my realtor totally said to me: "Promise me you won't block of all your house's windows with cinderblocks if the Walmart happens."

(I would never do such a thing; I enjoy sunlight.)

Home was only playing at the Avalon for one night, but it's available on Netflix streaming. Add it to your queue if you enjoy bizarre films.

Sam Gilliam piece to be installed in Takoma Metro underpass next week

After a long wait. From an email from Deirdre Ehlen, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities' public art coordinator:

The much-anticipated public art installation by renowned artist Sam Gilliam, From a Model to Rainbow, will be installed next week at the Takoma Metro Underpass. The installation will begin on Monday, May 2nd and will most likely conclude by Wednesday, May 11th. In addition, the Mayor will be attending the unveiling ceremony, which will occur on Saturday, June 11th at 10:00am. Formal invitations and details will follow in the next few weeks regarding the dedication ceremony. Please email Deirdre.Ehlen@dc.gov or call 202-724-5613 if you have any questions. It has been an absolute pleasure working on this project and I hope you share in my excitement!

Electric Maid grand reopening this weekend

The Electric Maid art space (aka "community living room", aka third place) has received a makeover, which includes the restoration of the cool art deco neon sign that adorns the front of the building.

Here's info about the grand reopening ceremony on Saturday, 05/01/10:

The Electric Maid Community Living Room at 268 Carroll St, NW, Washington, DC 20012 (202-545-3980)(one block from Takoma Park Metro Station, across from the 7-11 between Seekers Church and Torchinsky's Funeral Home) has scheduled its Grand Reopening this coming Saturday, May 1st from Noon to 11 PM to highlight its role as Takoma's "Community Living Room", a coffeehouse style art space and community hangout in the vein of the old Takoma Cafe. The day's events will be followed with the unveiling and of the fully restored landmark neon sign that had graced the building since the 1940's, but had not been functional in recent years. It has now been restored to its full art deco style artistic glory.

The "Friedrich's Dry Cleaners" and "Electric Maid" sign restoration was funded by Friends of Old Takoma, Inc. (FOOT), which sponsors the Electric Maid project, with additional funding by Main Street's Facade Improvement Program. Special thanks will also be given to community leaders who have invested their diligent efforts in the restoration of the sign and interior.

During the all-day reception, a brand new mural by local artist Meghan Taylor will also be unveiled inside the space at 5 PM. The sign will be lit, for the first time in decades, during a ceremony at 8 PM.

Other events during the course of the all day open house event highlight some of the community, social, and educational uses planned for the space (We welcome YOUR suggestions and input as the community!) including free talks, an exhibition of hanging art by local artist Tuesday Winslow, and workshops from Noon to 3 PM followed by a community party from 3 to 8 PM with live music, food, and non-alcoholic beverages available. Please come on by and join us!

Is our neighborhood Clybourne Park?

I caught Clybourne Park at the Woolly Mammoth the other day (I made use of the special discount rate that Woolly has graciously given to neighborhood bloggers and readers of neighborhood blogs; the show is in its final days and I don't know if the discount code still works but give it a shot: the code is 789 for $15 tickets).

A brief synopsis: the playwright was inspired by A Raisin in the Sun, and the first act of the play, set in 1959, is told from the point of view of the white family that sells their house to the Youngers (or the Hansberrys). The sale of the house in the all-white Clybourne Park section of Chicago incites white flight, and in the next few decades the neighborhood's demographics change dramatically.

The second act takes place in 2009, in the same house. It's been purchased by a well-off and way neurotic white couple. They're building a koi pond in the backyard, fighting the zoning codes in order to build additions onto the house and McMansionize it, and are thrilled to be moving so close to Clybourne Park's newly-opened Whole Foods.

To answer the question that Woolly has been posing, "Is your neighborhood Clybourne Park?", well, yes, Clybourne Park is a lot like Brightwood, and many other neighborhoods throughout DC (as well as many other major cities all over the United States). The houses on my block were built in the early 1920s and housed a white (mostly Jewish, from what I understand) majority at the time. Further investigation of exactly how much Brightwood's history reflects the story of Clybourne Park will require a few trips to the Washintoniana room at MLK. I'll write more about that in the future, but wanted to post this now in order to give the excellent show a plug before it closes on April 17.