The Doxa

Nomadic Grove was installed last Wednesday followed by a lovely opening reception at the Contemporary Jewish Museum to mark the beginning of the exhibit, Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art, and Jewish Thought. Many thanks to the museum’s security, Rebar’s intrepid staff and volunteers, and the amazing crew from Treemover who stood in the rain all day to make this installation a success. The gems will be in the plaza until May. Come check them out!

image by Molly Fiffer

The rainy install day started with a very early morning at our studio. Lawson Drayage secured the gems on 2 flatbeds using a 15,000 lb forklift with 7-foot blades. The gems braved the city streets and headed for the Contemporary Jewish Museum for the install.

Loading the gems on 20th Street

In front of the Rebar studio and fabrication shop

The gems arriving at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

It was a rainy installation day.

Waiting at the plaza with Fernando from Treemovers were the two olive trees one an oak, ready to be dropped into the planters. As soon as they were unloaded from the truck, we were ready to place the trees using an enormous grade-all brought by the tree nursery.

Our trees, waiting for us in the plaza of the museum

Grade-All

Gems before lids

For more than a year, Rebar has been working on a monumental public art piece for Portland Tri-Met’s Clinton Street station, a stop along Portland’s new Portland-Milwaukie light rail line. The design is finalized and we are please to unveil the piece here:

Named “Intersection,” the sculpture comprises repurposed surplus light rail track extracted from a location mere feet from the sculpture site. The intersecting geometry is inspired by the abstract topological subway maps you see on train platforms the world over.  At night, the sculpture will be lit for dynamic views of the piece and to help it become a way finding landmark for folks in the Brooklyn or HAND neighborhoods who are looking to catch the train.

How do you get rail (which is called “light rail” though it weighs well over 100 lbs per foot) to bend at such impossible angles? We’re not giving away any secrets, but suffice it to say Portland fabricator and artist Jim Schmidt and his team at Art & Design Works, are alchemists, and may well be wizards too. We have also been pleased to collaborate on the piece with the excellent structural engineers at Grummel Engineering and the talented designers and engineers at Interface Engineering, who did the lighting design. Look for the piece to be standing tall sometime in 2015!

Rail like it’s never been bent before

Rebar’s John Bela was recently in DC to be part of a session organized by the National Endownment for the Arts (NEA), City Parks Alliance, National Capital Planning Commission, and Trust for the National Mall at the National Archives. Jason Shupbach, NEA Director of Design, moderated the panel and led a discussion about new exciting models that can guide the future of public space, including ”evolutionary parks,” which are older spaces that have creatively adapted to new uses, and “revolutionary parks” like parklets, which dramatically diverge from what’s been created before.

Panelists included Tupper Thomas, former administrator of Prospect Park, and  Theaster Gates, an artist and cultural planner. See press and video link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE6OeVsrj5s

ASLA The Dirt

The Future of Public Space: Evolution and Revolution

http://dirt.asla.org/2012/01/12/the-future-of-public-space-evolution-and-revolution/

Greater Greater Washington

Designers try to keep the Mall “grand and personal”

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/13364/designers-try-to-keep-the-mall-grand-and-personal/

You can't miss the brightly colored Nomadic Grove at the entrance of San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum on Mission Street between 3rd and 4th Streets.

We are just moments away from installing Nomadic Grove at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in downtown San Francisco, as part of the upcoming exhibition, Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art, and Jewish Thought, opening February 16th. (more)

Our crew has been working around the clock on constructing gigantic planter modules, which are mobile, reconfigurable, gem-shaped islands sited at the museum’s entrance. Many thanks to Kristin Saunders, Noah Brezel, the Rebar family, and friends who have helped out in the shop in the past weeks.

Take a moment out of your day to sit calmly under a cypress, an oak, or an olive tree to contemplate their stoic demeanor amidst the city’s relentless motion.

Look out for these roving trees in Jessie Plaza at CJM, which will unveil on February 15th.