Tag Archives: street art

“Pic of the Week”, July 12, 2019: World’s largest Wagon

A popular spot for families visiting Spokane’s Riverfront Park is this interesting piece of functional public art, a massive Red Flyer Wagon, the largest of its type in the world.

Built at a cost of $36,000 in 1990, and made of 26 tons of steel and concrete, it stands 12 ft high and is 27 ft long. The wagon is designed to be a slide and you’ll often find lots of kids waiting in line waiting to use it. It can hold as many as 300 people.

I like the simplicity of the piece. I had a small version of this type of wagon as a child and used it to haul around all kids of things, from vegetables in my mom’s …

Karl on Jul 11, 2019 | Comments Off

“Pic of the Week”, May 3, 2019: Whitehorse’s Horse

Erected near the public safety building on Two-Mile hill in Whitehorse is a horse crafted by Yukon artist Daphne Mennel. You’ll see it as you drive into the city from the airport. The piece is made of what appears to be scrap metal, which it is, but the community prides itself that all of the horse’s components were donated by Yukon residents. For example, the magnificent tail is made from electrical cable donated by Yukon Electric , with many other interesting building blocks ranging from a frying pan, an anvil, a radiater, garden utensils and more.

The horse statue has a great view of the city and surrounding hills. To me it symbolizes the spirit of the people of the …

Karl on May 3, 2019 | Comments Off

Street Art in Whitehorse

Karl on May 1, 2019 with Comments Off

While by no means a large city, with only around 25,000 residents, Whitehorse is the major population center in Canada’s Yukon Territories. This large territory (482,000 km2, 186,300 miles2) is home to only 37,000 people (and about 75,000 moose), so Whitehorse’s influence in the region becomes apparent.

Whitehorse is changing and it is growing. These changes are perhaps most notable to someone like me who hadn’t been there for nearly 20 years. An appreciated addition was a proliferation of street murals on the buildings of the city. These varied greatly in theme and style, but most of them in some way represented life in and the history of the north — notably …

Tagged art, street art, Whitehorse

“Pic of the Week”, November 9, 2018: Street Art in Dubai

As one might expect in a Kingdom with fairly tight control of its society, Dubai does not have much in the way of street art. The one exception to this, at least that I encountered during my visit, was in the Al Fahidi Historical District.

The district is one of the older surviving neighborhoods in Dubai and was home to merchants and traders, many from Iran. Their homes have been restored and have converted into offices, cafés, art galleries and small shops. Interspersed was some art, mostly murals quite nicely done. But there were other interesting sights like some sculpture, a small garden growing in recycled soda bottles — even some antiques outside a café.

A pleasant and safe neighborhood in which to …

Karl on Nov 8, 2018 | Comments Off

.All Trips / Argentina / South America

A Sampler of San Telmo’s Street Art

Karl on Oct 31, 2018 with Comments Off

As I’ve previously discussed, Buenos Aires has a vibrant street art scene. In this post I’ll share some of the art we encountered in the San Telmo neighborhood. San Telmo is a popular place to go shopping and dining. While it was at its prime in the late 19th century, San Telmo is now in a state of “elegant decay”. The street art provides some relief from this.

Here is some works of street art we saw as we walked these worn lanes:

(Click on thumbnails to enlarge, right arrow to advance slideshow)

[Show slideshow]

Tagged Buenos Aires, San Telmo, street art

“Pic of the Week”, May 4, 2018: Reclining Connected Forms, CityCenter

Who would have believed that Las Vegas, in its ongoing transformation, would become a center of fine public art? Certainly not yours truly, at least not until recently.

This is especially true at the $10 billion CityCenter, where part of the master plan included $40 million to purchase some world-class pieces. One of these is by English sculptor Henry Moore, a work called Reclining Connected Forms. It is one of several similar-styled pieces by the same artist found around the globe.

Here are some specifics: Crafted between 1969-1974 of Roman travertine marble. A massive piece measuring 10 x 17 x 7 feet. It is thought to represent a baby wrapped in its mother’s embrace.

You can find this work between ARIA Resort …

Karl on May 3, 2018 | Comments Off

“Pic of the Week”, April 27, 2018: “Big Edge”, Las Vegas

Situated in the heart of Las Vegas’ City Center, in the middle of many beautifully designed skyscrapers, is a fascinating piece of street-art. It’s crafted by Nancy Rubins and is known as “Big Edge”. Like something you might imagine seeing at the bottom of a waterfall that has surprised dozens of boaters.

“Big Edge” is situated in front of the Vdara Hotel and Spa, between the Aria and Bellagio casinos, and is best seen from its elevated circular drive (its not visible from The Strip). Two hundred boats, many canoes but with some flat bottom boats and rowboats, are incorporated into this unusual piece. Given the strong desert winds, this seemingly haphazard arrangement of boats actually has to be firmly …

Karl on Apr 26, 2018 | Comments Off

“Pic of the Week”, March 2, 2018: School of Fish, Sparks, Nevada

One of our stops during a recent visit to the Reno area was the Outlets at Sparks. The store selection and shopping experience left a bit to be desired, but there were some clever pieces of public art including this one, which I really liked. Anyone who’s ever watched a school of sardines swim know how the individual fish merge into a collective organism, and that idea was brilliantly captured in this piece.