A POSITIVE CASE FOR PUBLIC ART

(Thank you, Elizabeth Agte. You went on vacation to Florida and posted on fb photographs that inspire this story.)

The small Gulf Coast town of Dunedin, Florida,  (population 35,300, 2010 census) sits just west of Tampa and is known for its Scottish roots which it celebrates in the annual Scottish Heritage Festival. More recently, it named itself “America’s Most Walkable City” but I don’t know how that was measured and against whom. Some might argue that 35,000 souls do not a city make!

Never mind.

Dunedin has a few other bragging points aside from the mere fact that it’s in the Sun Belt and has water access.  It’s the spring training grounds for the Toronto Blue Jays. It sits alongside the Orange Belt Railway. Built by a Russian immigrant in 1885, it was one of the first small gauge rail lines in the U.S. (a mere 3 feet wide) that ran from Sanford to St. Petersburg, a distance of 152 miles. The train line is no longer active but approx. 35 miles of the old bed now form a hiking/biking trail accessible to Dunedinians and visitors as part of the national “rail to trails” program.

Over the years, the town center miraculously resisted any attempt to “update” its commercial district.  No large commercial signs are allowed nor corporate franchise restaurants nor franchise retail stores. The result is an authentic town (usually labeled “quaint”), not the homogenized versions that plague our country from coast to coast. It also means that local commerce must be creative to keep “in the game.”

In 2009, two local residents - artists Steven Spathelf, age 52, and Marsha Goins, age 46, (Marsha also happened to own the Enchanted Branch, a flower/gift shop) decided that art could 1)distinguish the central commercial district, 2)provide unique promotion opportunity and 3)instill pride of place.   They picked oranges (no pun intended) as the shared symbol of their town, pre-scouted the area for smooth walls, invested $150 in paint and at 5 a.m., April 13, 2009, set about the business of painting foot high oranges on business walls. They planned to finish by 8 a.m., clean up and disappear from the scene without getting caught.

Obviously, that didn’t work. They were spotted by people coming to work. They were hugged, chatted with, laughed with and hugged again. No charges of violation were filled. Building owners that failed to get an orange?  See the sign posted by the Chamber of Commerce .

(Just reported: there are now over 350 "oranges" in Dunedin along with an orange parade.)

(Photographs: Elizabeth Agte and the Tampa News)

Quilts and Golf

I’m feeling especially sad today.  First, I have a cold and then, it’s February and I live in the north. Even when it’s a record setting mild winter like this year, February is still gray and wan. (Can a month be “wan?”) Around me, issues seem wearying whereas - when I am feeling more optimistic - they are energizing sparks, mind puzzles to solve.

For instance, in the suburban community where I live, an off-shore conglomerate is selling it’s locally owned property. Ordinarily, this could be a boon to local citizens but in this case, the property is two nearly adjoining golf courses comprising a bit over 400 acres.  A giant stone quarry sits in the arm pit of these two parcels. The quarry is still being worked but can play out within a few short years when it will become a 200 acre lake fed via underground springs. 

Citizens - as we’ve long known - may SAY they want change but only for other people, never themselves, and if their house is adjacent to a golf course that’s suddenly up for grabs? Pure panic! Meetings are called, people beat a path to the town hall, and armies are enlisted to print and pass along flyers, post lawn signs.

But golf courses are a dying business.  Growth has been flat for decades; golf courses - both private and public - are in trouble nearly everywhere.  Rounds played nationally are down 10 - 20% since 2009.  The National Golf Foundation reports that the game is down 5 million players in the last 10 years and 20% more players are likely to quit in the next few years.

At the other end, fewer younger players are coming onto greens.  The hot demographic - those players between 29 and 49 years old - have very little time to devote to 18 holes of golf and they generally have no extra money for golf trips where time becomes a non-issue.  The game is “too hard” for younger players to feel they can master - and they have a full menu of other activities anyway - and women remain poor beggers at the gate of most golf clubs.  And as if all this isn’t a stacked anti-golf deck, environmentally, golf courses are not very friendly. They are terrible water guzzlers and all those chemicals that keep the grass green filter directly to the water table. 

The perfect solution for my little suburb? I don’t know but it’s out there and I hope political leaders and citizens have the sense and will to find a compromise that elevates the quality of life for everybody, not just a few who happens to have back yards smooching the 9th green.

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Pat Pauly

I love quilts. Here are some of my favorites.  Pat Pauly is well-known for taking the quilt into print making/painting/patching arcs of originality.  But here’s a photograph that she posted on Facebook of a new quilt and it’s actually pieced and patched and top stitched and I like it very much.

Season Evans Community Quilt

Season Evans (don’t you swoon at that name?) is new to me but this Community Quilt is brilliant! Go to her website and look at these jewels. The backs are also pieced and quilted in totally unique patterns (and more traditional) from the front -  both sides are “finished art.”

Washington, D.C. foreclosure quilt

Kathryn Clark remains an artist whose work is cerebral and socially relevant as well as interesting to look at.  As soon as I saw her foreclosure quilts, I knew she had that mysterious combination that comes along rarely and I was delighted that the Smithsonian Museum agreed and purchased one of her pieces this year for the Renwick permanent collection.

Denise Schmidt

Denyse Schmidt has found a route that combines art pieces and commercial venture.  She sells quilt designs  - and the material to reach the end results - and teaches classes and writes books and…you get the idea. Therefore, among purist, she sometimes gets one of “those looks.” But I love her sense of graphic design and minimalism.

So here are my picks. The world of quilt making is vast. Make your own list and MAKE YOUR OWN QUILT! (Before golf season starts…)