Art – Page 2 – Geeky Girl Engineer

Rapid City

Posted on August 29, 2017 by geek

I spent a total of five days in the Rapid City area, but I barely spent any time in Rapid City itself. The last day I was there, I spent a little bit of time wandering around downtown Rapid City. It is a rather cute town. I have clear preferences in towns. I like towns that still have some of their old buildings, and Rapid City does. It also has some new art and a town square of sorts. On several street corners, there are statues of various Presidents, presumably with keeping with the theme set by Mt. Rushmore. Most unique, it has an art alley, where people can paint the backs of buildings and evidently everything else in the alley that doesn’t generally move. Permits are required for the painting, which is a rather interesting touch considering some of it looks like graffiti.

Downtown Rapid City

Town square of sorts that kids clearly like

Art Alley

Statues of Presidents on most corners

NYC’s Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station

Posted on August 13, 2017 by geek

I took a tour with the New York Transit Museum of the artwork in the new Q-train stations. The artwork are all mosaics, but they are they are not all the same type of mosaic. This is the fourth of four blog entries to show some of the amazing mosaics.

The Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station is an expansion of an old station. The new area features mosaics by Jean Shin entitled “Elevated.” The mosaics are based on archival photos of the area. Some of the mosaics show people with a blue sky in the shape of the elevated train tracks that were removed decades ago to show how the sky opened up when the elevated was removed. At one of the entrances to the subway, the mosaic portrays the old elevated with all its steel beams and piers.

Elevated by Jean Shin

NYC’s 72nd Street station

Posted on August 13, 2017 by geek

I took a tour with the New York Transit Museum of the artwork in the new Q-train stations. The artwork are all mosaics, but they are they are not all the same type of mosaic. This is the third of four blog entries to show some of the amazing mosaics.

The 72nd Street station has a set of 36 mosaics by Vik Muinz titled “Perfect Strangers.” The people represent people that might be found at the station. They are delightful, wonderful, beautiful, and amazingly detailed. I think my favorite one, although I admit I haven’t seen them all, is one that is sort of hidden. The mosaic (photo below) of a workman on a ladder is hidden away by a set of elevators before passing the fare gates. It is sort of a hidden treat to see if you find it.

Perfect Strangers by Vik Muniz

NYC’s 86th Street station

Posted on August 13, 2017 by geek

I took a tour with the New York Transit Museum of the artwork in the new Q-train stations. The artwork are all mosaics, but they are they are not all the same type of mosaic. This is the second of four blog entries to show some of the amazing mosaics.

The 86th Street station has mosaics by Chuck Close titled “Subway Portraits.” There are twelve mosaics in different mosaics styles. Several mosaics are glass, and others are different types of clay tiles. While all the mosaics are lovely, there are some that are made with so many different pieces, I was awestruck by how much time it must have taken to put then together. There are two self portraits of Chuck Close, and the one in glass has slivers that must have required tweezers or some other type of tool to carefully put the pieces in.

“Subway Portraits” by Chuck Close: Kara Walker’s portrait

“Subway Portraits” by Chuck Close: up close view of Kara Walker’s portrait

“Subway Portraits” by Chuck Close: Philip Glass’s portrait

“Subway Portraits” by Chuck Close: self portrait

“Subway Portraits” by Chuck Close: self portrait, up close view

“Subway Portraits” by Chuck Close: self portrait

“Subway Portraits” by Chuck Close: self portrait, up close view

NYC’s 96th St Station

Posted on August 13, 2017 by geek

I took a tour with the New York Transit Museum of the artwork in the new Q-train stations. The artwork are all mosaics, but they are they are not all the same type of mosaic. This is the first of four blog entries to show some of the amazing mosaics.

The 96th Street station is essentially one big mosaic by Sarah Sze titled “Blueprint for a Landscape”. The art is supposed to portray the movement in the station, especially the air movement as trains come in and out. The piece consists of porcelain tile.

Blueprint for a Landscape by Sarah Sze

Rain: Madgalena Fernández at the Houston Cistern

Posted on December 23, 2016 by geek

After touring the Houston Cistern, we took another tour of it with an art installation completely encompassing it. Rain: Madgalena Fernández at the Houston Cistern is a video installation with the video projected from all sides onto and into the cistern while sound plays. I don’t think I can fully explain it other than to say it is really, really cool, and you can read more about it here. The sound sounds likes rain, but it is completely human made sound. The video starts off looking a little like rain falling then becomes something that looks like how Hollywood loves to portray cyberspace. It is incredibly neat to watch, and I love the way takes over the space.

Icebergs DC

Posted on August 19, 2016 by geek

In what is now an annual tradition, the National Building Museum creates a fun, exhibit or installation in which children and adults can play. Last year it was The Beach, and the year before it was The Big Maze. This year, it is Icebergs. The museum’s great hall is filled with structures resembling icebergs, and blue mesh surrounds them to denote the water. The “water line” is about two stories high with the tops of many icebergs popping above it, like real icebergs. The exhibit is complete with an underwater bridge between two icebergs, which leads to two slides. White bean bags are scattered about, so you can sit down and relax.

Under the water

Gorgeous giant iceberg

Outside the exhibit, looking through the blue mesh

Ice shoots

On observation pier looking down to water

Under the water

Rainbow Wonder

Posted on June 13, 2016 by geek

There is an exhibit at the Renwick Gallery called Wonder that will be leaving soon. It is amazing. One of the pieces in the exhibit is Gabriel Dawe’s Plexus A1. It took my breath away. I just stood there staring at it wondering how to photograph it properly. Then I photographed it from every angle and every zoom and every focal point I could think of, and I still could not capture the beauty and, well, wonder of it. Below are a few photographs of mine just trying to capture it. I want to go back and stare it some more. It is just thread, yet it is so much more.

Rust

Posted on June 12, 2016 by geek

While I was photographing the ruins of the Elkins Roundhouse, I saw some rust on the big turnstile. Actually, I saw a lot of rust on everything, but the point is, I really started looking at the rust. It was beautiful. It was all variations of colors and textures. It was peeling paint cracking and folding and turning up to reveal other layers of paint, all being pushed away from the metal by the rust forming. It was rust forming on rust. It was Mother Nature laughing at the work of humans. It is one of those things where the average person would not give something the shortest glance, but I want to stop them and show them the beauty they are missing. Maybe you just have to be really detail oriented like me to see it. Maybe you have to be an engineer or scientist like me to appreciate rust. Or maybe you just have to be a crazy photographer like me to spend 15 minutes photographing rust.

Re-Ball

Posted on May 22, 2016 by geek

Dupont Underground is an abandoned trolley station underneath Dupont Circle that recently had a design competition to reuse a whole lot of plastic balls from National Building Museum’s The Beach. The winning entry was Raise/Raze, which formed the balls into 3 x 3 cubes that were used to build columns and walls in a portion of Dupont Underground. The structures built by the balls were rather interesting, especially when considering they were built with spheres. I also rather liked the way the cube blocks mimicked the tiles on the outer wall of the underground.