Friday, July 9, 2010
Study with bike and arrows
Looking North East past the new Baker Building, 1926
There is a Chevrolet dealer close to the Rent-a-Ford establishment on Second Ave, and no skyscrapers to be seen. There is a Marquette New England Annex, and beyond that Second Hand Home Furnishings. There was no Foshay Tower. Minneapolis had an ordinance banning tall buildings, in fact. This photo in the Baker Building, along with some other classy historical photos.
A skyway is a machine for meandering
subway art matisse jazz
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Similarities, contrasts and primaries, in search of the Harmonies
A group of people spin a wheel of fortune and try for a hole in one at a small street fair. How can we have a street fair in the skyways? Or are the bustling arcade moments on the skyway level a form of street fair? Naw.
Cafe table, light and stone
There is a tiny sort of stone porch outside the 3rd Avenue entrance to Capella Towers, on which several of these sidewalk tables sit, mostly unused during the day. They look inviting, but don't give a sense of the fabric of human activity in a city...it is more as though they were stored here against some future time when people would suddenly relax, and find some shared frivolity on the stone stage, spilling crumbs and drinks in their escalating joy. In the meantime, these sit as armatures, awaiting life.
Figure Ground relationship on sidewalk outside Capella tower
He seemed about to collapse. I had just photographed the cafe tables on this plaza and took his picture by reflex, not so much intent. When I moved toward him to ask if he needed help, he straighted up and moved to the bus bench, where he looked up and down the street with some sense of privacy and dignity intact. I didn't want to disrupt that sense any further. But I thought about it for hours afterwards.
Being in a visual mode to capture images divorces you, however slightly, form the moral continuum of perception, response, and action. This experience made me question what dimension of the city experience I was missing completely by walking through the skyways as a visual predator, and not so much a citizen, a man, a companion to those around me. I know there is a strong message about this man, his circumstances, and the dynamics of the city excluded by the skyways logistics. But that message only exists in this image for now. I will work on giving it some context as I continue this project.
Still Life with Bicycle
My sensibility was formed during the heyday of minimalism, when Modernism was unquestioned. I have an ironic and sentimental attachment to the spare beauty of geometries barely touched by objects and grounds -- tableaux with suppressed texture and stark contrast, in which light and the essentials of form move into the foreground and declare themselves simply.
What drives wives crazy -- not in a good way
See the guy? See the ladder? See the person holding the ladder? My point.
I don't want to pick on this guy, because I like to take pictures of people doing work around the skyway. It's just part of my interest. But I am getting to the age when ladders and longevity don't mix very well any more, and reviewing this stretch made me wince. Maybe an argument for Metro Transit to send out two-man crews for jobs that are more than 6' off the ground.
Melty curtainwall
Still Life with Skyway
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Optical illusion
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