IMA: Autumn Equinox: A Girl and Her Guitar

The beautiful young woman above 

was among fifty to sixty other guitarists 

who joined composer Stuart Hyatt 

in the performance/sound installation, 

E is for Equinox.

The musicians stood in a circle beneath

an existing sculpture, Team Building (Align),
 installed in the IMA 100 Acres.

The sound of the E chord being played was nice,

although it didn't seem to take over 
the (air) space with as much power as I'd 
have thought sixty guitars could make. 

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable afternoon; 

people were everywhere on the IMA grounds, 

with family and friendly dogs in tow.

IMA Art Park: Eden II

Stranded in the middle of the lake, Eden II is monitored 

from the bank by a security system that watches the on-board 

activities of an imaginary group of refugees

displaced from their own country by climate change 

and rising sea levels. The security cameras are located

in a guard shack that can be used by visitors

to both view interior of the ship and of the shack.

The creator of Eden II, Finnish artist, Tia Makipaa, is known

for her multi-media projects using photo landscapes,

video documentation, and built objects to record

"human habits and habituations."

IMA: Stratum Pier

Among the pieces inhabiting the IMA's Art Park, I believe Kendall Buster's 

Stratum Pier is my favorite. Its undulating layers and shapes, 

jutting from the bank of the lake, is a three-dimensional representation 

of a topographical map. Fitting in nicely with the landscape,

the fiberglass and steel structure provides a pleasant place to quietly

view the surrounding landscape in quiet privacy.

Small Discovery

I went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art this afternoon to wander the galleries 

and the museum's beautiful grounds.There's a fountain near 

the Lilly mansion, Oldfields, where I caught sight of some fallen leaves. 

They had clotted together on the surface of the pond 

to create a colorful composition of their own.

Afterwards, I crossed the Central Canal to visit the 100-Acre Wood. 

The picture below is a view of the canal taken from the west side 

of the foot bridge, looking south towards 38th Street.

On an Island

Mercifully, the past few days gave us a break in the drought

the area has been enduring for the past two months - just a small break,

though, because the weather has been forecast to return to high 90's

to 100's temperatures next week. Damn.

In the meanwhile, I was scheduled to join the Indigenous Artist

for dinner at the IMA Indy Island. The price for admission

was to bring an entree, side dish, or dessert for dinner.

I interpreted that as "enough for yourself, the artist,

and the other two guests." I made up a recipe from a post

on Small Glass Planet and sliced up a few oranges and 

cucumbers for a salad of sorts - something cool 

and refreshing because of the heat.

The above picture of the artist I've come to think of as Didge, 

(AKA A. Bitterman) shows his typical posture whenever his picture is taken.

He does not speak, but has a system of signals one can use to

communicate with him. He's been on the Island and the museum

grounds all month, with his residency ending after this

coming week.

I was joined by two other women for a boat ride

to the Island with the Artist, where he underwent a magic

transformation, suddenly acquiring the ability to speak.

And speak quite well, too, on how most humans do not regard

themselves as a part of nature, seeing trees and animals as

something separate from our existences in our little

"civilized" world, not acknowledging our place in the

greater scheme of things.

For those people who view the artistic 

community as a bunch of artsy flakes, who do not 

recognize artists as involved and caring people, 

with well-considered opinions about affairs of the world,

I suggest you visit with A. Bitterman at Indy Island.

The exhibit he has installed on the grounds of IMA's

100-Acre Park is both funny and thought-provoking. 

The grounds of the Museum and the 100-Acre wood are dense 

with greenery and the shade takes many degrees off the

glare of the hot sun. Don't just visit, make a point of returning

to the place where we all belong.

Textured Tuesday: Fringe Element

The bark on this tree had its own

texture accented by the remains of a vine

that had grown up the side, which appeared to have

been pulled off, leaving a feathery rope.

A Tree-Shirt?

Yes, it was a hot day in the 100-Acre Wood a couple weeks ago, 

but it was a place covered by the natural shade of the trees.

So why would someone leave behind a perfectly

useful T-shirt? Were they perhaps offended by the 

entwined limbs, the sensuous lines of a woodland tryst

among the inhabitants of the woods? Or were they

heated up by the sight and just made barking mad?

A Quiet Place

On my first visit to the IMA's 100 Acres: The Virginia B Fairbanks

Art and Nature Park, I found its Visitors' Pavilion set among the trees, 

a cool place to take a break from the heat and humidity 

of the day. Though surrounded by the woods, 

the Pavilion is not far from the Michigan Road

entrance to the Museum grounds.

The structure, known officially as the Ruth Lilly Visitors' Pavilion, 

was designed by Marlon Blackwell of Fayetteville, Arkansas,

following practices for environmental sensitivity and conservation, 

making it an LEED certified building.  

Built in a flood plain, the structure was designed to allow

for the occasional free flow of water around and 

beneath its base.

When You Come to a Fork in the Road ...

... TAKE IT!
                                         - Yogi Berra

My mission on Wednesday was to explore

the back half of the 100-Acres Park lake. While the front part is

edged by the Meadow and most of the installations, the back

has been left as a trail, marked by pins for Mary Miss' installation,

FLOW: Can You See the River? and a number of Jeppe Hein's

yellow benches, this part of the path merely has tree branches

trimmed to keep the path open. 

I did happen to meet A. Bitterman, who was working to

complete the kiosk for, Indigenous, the Indy Island project for 2012.

I intend to return, hopefully for dinner and a movie and

the opportunity to wear the giant beaver suit.

"Geometry of Light"

When I walked through the main entrance of the 

Indianapolis Museum of Art this afternoon, I was greeted by 

Geometry of Light, a sculpture by Alyson Shotz made up 

of hand-cut plastic Fresnel lenses, silvered glass beads and stainless 

steel wire. The lenses,of varying diameters, were strung 

along the wires with the silver beads serving both as spacers 

and reflective surfaces, spanning the space from the windows 

up into the upper floors of the entrance.

I stood among the strands, marveling at their simplicity;

I could have made them myself, but I didn't because my mind 

had never before made a connection that told me a simple

piece of plastic could be strung with its brothers and some beads

to make something beautiful. When I blew on one of the disks,

the entire strand bobbed a bit, shimmering in the light.

Seen from above, the disks resembled a stopped-motion

shot of water as it spurts from a hose, bright, clear and cool.

Once again, I spent an entire afternoon wandering the IMA,

visiting new exhibits and old, walking around the lake

of the 100-Acre Park. Admission is FREE, dammit!

I couldn't imagine a better way to spend 

a day without spending money 

Bumps

After yesterday's fog had settled down a bit, 

I like to imagine this is what happened to it - that it became

lovely crystalline ornaments on flowers and grasses.

I was walking across the lawn at the IMA 100 Acres 

when I saw what looked like a dried brown leaf 

in the grass. I stopped to take a look because 

the leaf looked as though it had legs.

My suspicions aroused, I stopped to check 

and found the leaf to be this brown toad.

Poor guy, he was doing such a good job 

of being a leaf that I'd almost squashed him

into his next life.

Type A

Type A, a sculpture by Team Building (Align), 2010

This sculpture, comprised of two metal rings, is meant to cast 

one shadow on the day of the Summer Solstice.

This year, that will be June 20 at 23:09 GMT, 

which will be 7:09 p.m. DST, I think. 

I took these pictures at 1:26 p.m. and 1:27 p.m., 

respectively, and they look pretty well aligned to me.

What will be magically different just 

after 7 p.m. about seven weeks from now? 

Next year, the Solstice is to

be at 05:04 GMT on June 21.  Well, that translates 

to just after one o'clock in the morning here, 

so not much chance of the two rings casting 

an aligned shadow then, either.

Unless it's star or moon shadows.

Here, a man is walking his dog just outside

Aliens Plotting a Crop Circle.

If I were to lie in the circle naked at the appointed,

important time, will I find my self joyously

impregnated by Darryl the One-Eyed Monster

from the Planet Trojan? That's an event

that'd scare the magic out of all the 

woods faeries for miles around.

Makes their wings droop just thinking on it.

Another of the Bench Around the Lake
series by Jeppe Hein, 2010

These photos are among those I took last week 

during my visit to the Indianapolis Museum of Art 

and to the IMA's adjacent art park, 100 Acres.

Yellow Bench

Bench Around the Lake by Jeppe Hein
One of 15 undulating yellow-painted steel benches placed around
the park's lake. This one is located on the east side of the Lake,
with a view of  Indianapolis Igloo, by Andrea Zittel

A few years ago, I was visiting one of the contemporary galleries 

at the Indianapolis Museum of Art when I turned a corner

and started laughing. What had caught my eye was one of those

creations about which one might hear, "That ain't art.

Shit, my kid could do better than that." 

Yeh, well, say what you want but the damn thing worked.

It was (and remains) a length of red cord, anchored with a thumb tack

at a point on the floor of the gallery and stretched to a

point on the window at just about the horizon line of where the 

trees in the distance meet the sky. That damn red line

defines the space in which it exists and carries your eye outside,

to the trees beyond. It's a thing of dumbfounding beauty.

The other thing that amazed me was that the IMA had

somehow managed to maintain a view outside

the west side windows of the building,

one without the visual corruption of cheap-ass

housing developments, apartments and strip malls;

I knew what was on the other side of the trees and it 

was nothing like the idyll that the red cord

pointed towards.   

A couple enjoys a spring afternoon picnic lunch
on The Meadow near the lake. 

As it turned out, what I had seen was a 100-acre parcel of land 

consisting of woods, wetlands, a meadow and a 35-acre lake 

which was developed and opened in 2010 as 

100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park.

It is one of the largest museum art parks in the country and, so far,

the grounds contains ten site-specific works designed by

artists from around the world.

View of a portion of Stratum Pier by Kendall Buster,
2010. Steel and fiberglass viewing platform
overlooking the lake. The stacked layers
suggest a topographical map.

The Museum grounds consists of three distinct areas, 

all of them beautiful and lovingly tended by landscape designers 

and gardeners: the Museum grounds; Oldfields, the country mansion 

and estate that belonged to Josiah K. Lilly, Jr.;  and the 100 Acre Park. 

During the day, I explored some part of all three areas, 

concentrating my time in the Park. Of course,

I took an awful lot of pictures, so you can expect related

posts over the coming days. Unfortunately, however, 

it was not permitted to take pictures of the

red string that pointed me towards

my "hunnert acre wood" a few years back.

Humph.