3rd House Journal

Into September

[Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (The Children’s Chairs Project); East Boston; 9/5/15]

Back to school - that's what September has always been around here. In Boston, all the college students return, with their energy and verve, the vibrant music they play on the sidewalks around where D lives, and also their noise, crowding and indifference to older residents. For the much younger set, my work colleagues have been emailing around pictures of their children on their first days of school - the elementary school kids anxious or enthusiastic, the teenagers sullen or indulging their parents with a reluctant smile for the camera.

Despite the demarcation of the Labor Day weekend (the weekend that holds the first Monday of September), life is more fluid for me. I work full time in all seasons, and the summer is just hotter than the rest of the year. Our work isn't seasonal. But the longer days of light do give summer a sense of abundant time, the non-work hours more open for leisure and adventure. The same number of non-work hours in the fall and winter just don't translate to the same sense of plenty. But the fall has its own grace, the consolations of increasing quiet and inward-looking time - outside of work hours anyway.

[Marina, East Boston; 9/5/15]

The last weeks of summer are the busiest as we try to cram in everything we have not gotten around to doing but wanted to do before the summer is over. D and I went down to Providence for WaterFire the weekend before last. We'd gone a few years ago, D's first experience of WaterFire, always the most memorable (I'd been a dozen years earlier, and several times since, because I used to live closer by). We opted for the train this time, which took less than half an hour and dropped us off right at the RiverWalk area (even better, the train got us back without a sleepy~1 hour 15 minute drive home). And we got to see it in daylight before the lighting, which started while we were having a luscious dinner in one of the nearby restaurants.

[Gondolier, before lighting at WaterFire; 8/29/15]

[WaterFire Providence; 8/29/15]

This past weekend, Labor Day holiday weekend, we stayed closer to home, taking the T over to East Boston on the other side of the harbor with friends to see the Piers Point park and marina/shipyard area with its HarborArts installations. Piers Point is a lovely park with great views of the city and the harbor, so it's a great spot for wedding photos for the locals. We saw four or five different wedding parties having their pictures taken in the park at one point or another while we were in Eastie.

[Wedding party photos, Piers Point, East Boston; 9/5/15]

[Mural, Boston Harbor Shipyard & Marina, East Boston; 9/5/15]

[Piers Point, East Boston; 9/5/15]

On Sunday evening, we walked over to the river to watch the sun set over the Charles River.

[Sunset viewing from the docks in Boston; 9/6/15]

The sun sets noticeably earlier now. There is little time from when I come home from work until dusk falls, the light begins to slant lower in the afternoon, and in three months' time the sun will have set before I even leave the office. So we begin to savor the light and the relative warmth (well, today it was over 90°F [>32°C], so quite overly warm). The nights begin get crisp and cool. The crickets chirrup through my open windows. Even with plenty of warm days this time of year, the summer clothes get put away, out of place for the season. A new palette for both cloth and landscape.

More pics from WaterFire Providence.

More pics from Labor Day Weekend (still uploading more when I get a chance). 

Building boom

[Building in progress/lights at Lawn on D, South Boston; 8/22/15]

Buildings are going up all over the Seaport District in South Boston (all over metro Boston, actually). This area was a near wasteland for a long time. Friends and I used to go to the Institute of Contemporary Art on the waterfront and there was nothing out there, and seemingly the windswept frozen tundra in the winter. No more. Skyscrapers have dwarfed the ICA and though the wind still sweeps through it is channeled between buildings. Or parts of buildings as the spines of elevator shafts grow layers of skeleton floors around them and finally sprout skins of facades. 

One flat piece of land behind the convention center, the Lawn on D, has made an attempt to add some life to the industrial growth. It has showcased some public art (see the big bunnies from a few weeks ago) and there's a food and drink tent with a DJ to attract young urbanites to socialize in.

[Tent at the Lawn on D]

We old urbanites visited this weekend so D could try out the swings at the Lawn on D, but there wasn't much else going on. At least not at the hour we were there, early afternoon. There was a stage on the lawn for later live music, but nothing had started up. So we walked over to the waterfront to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant before heading back home.

Between the waterfront and the Lawn on D venue, you pass through the lovely Eastport Park, another nice addition to soften the industrial landscape. On this late August day, the lush green vegetation wound around the mostly nautical themed sculptures of various sea creatures and sails.

[Shrimp, by David Phillips, Eastport Park]

[David Phillips' Hermit Crab, Eastport Park]

[David Phillips' Hermit Crab, Eastport Park]

[Fish Bench, by Judy Kensley McKie, Eastport Park]

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I had a client meeting today across the river in Cambridge. The client, a pharmaceutical company, had built a beautiful "green building" (environmentally speaking) in 2003. I used to go there back when it first opened, for a freelance project back in my starvation days. Like the ICA on the South Boston waterfront, the building had been surrounded by mostly vast parking lots and a few small buildings. Now there are many other tall buildings, mostly life sciences companies, and cafes filled with young workers on their lunch breaks. 

Big

["Intrude" giant rabbit, at Lawn on D in Boston; 7/11/15]

[Big bunnies on the Lawn on D]

While D was away, I went frolicking with the girls out at the Seaport in Boston on Saturday afternoon. Amanda Parer's big bunny installation "Intrude" was up on the Lawn on D, an "experimental event landscape" behind the convention center. Intrude (so called for the invasive rabbits introduced in Parer's native Australia) is a temporary installation, just up for the weekend, but the "Swing Time" swings designed by a local architectural firm are a regular thing. They're solar charged and light up at night (the rabbits were also lit at night), but we were there under the full summer sun - along with a large number of mostly twenty-somethings, many of whom were partying at the bar under the large awning. And yes, I did try out the swings - surprisingly comfortable once you got in one.

["Swing Time" at Lawn on D"]

Besides the big bunnies, a very big sailing ship was docked over at a nearby wharf, the Portuguese tall ship, the NPR Sangres. It was open to the public, so we climbed aboard to check it out. Beautiful ship.

[NRP Sangres, docked at the Seaport in Boston]

[Aboard the NRP Sangres]

We topped off the afternoon with grande margaritas and Mexican food at a dockside restaurant. It was a pre-birthday celebration for C, who fortuitously for us has a July birthday, providing a yearly excuse for summer cocktail swilling. Given the hot sun, and the fact than none of us is twenty-something anymore, the cocktail swilling was kept to a minimum. But they were delicious.

[Margaritas at Temazcal]

[Harbor view, with margarita]

Aerial

[Aerial sculpture, Boston; 5/10/15]

We were over by the waterfront this weekend and saw the new aerial sculpture As If It Were Already Here by Janet Echelman recently installed above the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Over 100 miles of rope went into making the fiber art piece that's anchored to 3 buildings and floats in the breeze despite apparently weighing a ton. No worries about birds, according to the website:

No bird or creature has ever been harmed from an Echelman work. The studio consulted with a bio-engineering firm that explained how the physical qualities of the artwork do not meet the criteria that would endanger birds. The nets are made of thicker rope with wider net openings than those used to entrap flying birds or other creatures. The structures themselves are not unlike naturally occurring vines and thickets often found in local forests and birds are well adapted to avoid these areas.

It reflects off of the shiny Intercontinental hotel building to the east.

[Reflections in the Intercontinental Boston]

[Reflections, Intercontinental Boston]

It can also be spied from various vantage points away from the Greenway, between buildings.

[From the Fort Point Channel]

[View from the street - Atlantic Ave]

It will apparently be lit with LED lights at night. We're not generally far from our neighborhood at night, so it remains to be seen if we'll get over there to see that. I guess we have until early October, when it will be taken down.

My Flickr set of the installation is here.

Into the Woodwork

[Whirl (cherry), Brad Sells]

We took a drive up to Salem on Saturday to the Peabody Essex Museum to see a new exhibit, Audacious: The Fine Art of Wood. There were some really beautiful pieces, including the one above that emphasized the tree in wood, as well as ones that disguised wood so it appeared as painted ceramic in vases or, in one of my favorites, as hawk and owl feathers.

[Hawk & Owls (birch and acrylic paint), Frank Sudol and Cam Merkle]

There were intricate works made up of thousands of bits of various woods glued together and turned on a lathe to buff the surface to perfect smoothness, and there was a magnificent globe-shaped vase made from one hefty piece of ponderosa pine.  Several works turned the deformed growths of tree burls into graceful sculptures, highlighting the beauty of their peculiar defects.

[Grace (locust burl), Alain Mailland]

It was a lovely break from this winter's torments of snow and cold. The day was sunny and dry, with no immediate precipitation, though alas more snow was to come on Sunday night - a couple of inches more, just enough to coat the filthy snowbanks. After the exhibit, we had a bite to eat just down the walkway at Rockafella's, in what used to be an old bank, in a sunny if a bit chilly booth by the windows. I couldn't help thinking that the homemade potato chips they served us looked a bit like swirly wood sculptures themselves. Fortunately they were much tastier.

[At Rockafella's restaurant in Salem]

You can see more of my photos from the exhibit and the PEM here.

High Fiber

[Untitled Alan Shields fiber art (1970) at the ICA-Boston; 12/27/14]

On Saturday, I met friends for a somewhat delayed annual holiday get-together, this year in Boston's Seaport District (aka Innovation District). We met first at the aptly named Gather in District Hall (aka the epicenter of the Innovation District). The food was quite good as were our cocktails, the young staff friendly, and we savored the bright sunshine streaming in through the expansive windows - this after weeks of exceedingly dreary skies. Normally we do a pre-Christmas shopping/cocktail swilling event, but this being apres-Christmas we reverted to a longer ago tradition of contemporary art viewing together - rarely accomplished anymore as we're all so busy.

[Élément spatial, Elsi Giauque (1979)]

After lunch, we crossed the street to see the Fiber Sculpture exjhibit at the Institute of Contemporay Art (ICA), and I enjoyed the work very much. The only problem was that I wanted so much to touch everything. Here are a few photos I took at the exhibit.

The ICA was once just about the only building out on the South Boston waterfront when it opened in 2006. We had to cross the windswept tundra of near-empty parking lots and weedy asphalt to get to the museum, then cross again to the little dive seafood restaurant on the canal, if it was even open. It's just been the past couple of years that buildings have sprung up around the ICA, and now every visit to the area is discombobulating for the high-rise glass structures that shoot up and multiply like spores in the fertile former wasteland. At least the new alien lifeforms came bearing gifts of food and drink as there is now no shortage of dining establishments, innovative or otherwise.

[New buildings in the South Boston Seaport]

Cranes and construction sites abound as the area resembles an unfinished art project. Whether the mashup of old Boston brick and sleek glass highrise is woven together into a coherent and innovative whole cloth is yet to be seen, but it's an amazing transformation to watch.

Eastie

[One of the "Connected by Sea" murals, E. Bost0n marina; 8/10/14]

On Saturday, instead of one of our "same old" coastal wandering sites (Rockport, Portsmouth...), we decided to take the Blue Line out to Maverick Square in East Boston and find our way over to the  shipyard. We'd discovered the spectacular views from  Piers Park a couple of years ago on a chance visit to Eastie by car, but hadn't gotten around to go back. And we hadn't had time then to explore the shipyard and marina before.

[Construction site on the E. Boston waterfront]

Like many other places in Boston, there is construction in progress on the East Boston waterfront. In this case, there were "luxury" rental apartments being built, which I suppose is at least a change from the luxury condos shooting up in Boston proper. East Boston has long been home to successive waves of immigrants, and one can hope people don't get priced out of what is a very diverse (and presumably still affordable) neighborhood.

[Colorful stoops, East Boston]

In the shipyard and marina area, artists have added some spice to the salty landscape. Colorful murals and sculptures create an outdoor maritime gallery, through the HarborArts nonprofit arts community.

[Mural on an industrial building, East Boston shipyard]

[Above the E. Boston Navy fuel pier]

At the marina, the "Connected by Sea" tattoo murals project inks the sidewalk like a sailor's arm. (Or a hipster's or athlete's or  immigrant Latino's or young urban professional's arm.)

["Connected by Sea" tattoo mural, E. Boston marina]

Or perhaps a Maori's arm. The funky eaterie KO at the Shipyard serves up Aussie meat pies to die for. D and I both had the special jerk chicken KO pie and a New Zealand Moa pale ale, which we enjoyed outdoors on a picnic table under a tent. Delicious.

[KO meat pie and Moa pale ale, East Boston shipyard]

As ever, the views of the city from Piers Park were spectacular, but so were the views from the end of the pier at the marina.

[City view, gussied up with art, from the marina in East Boston]

For more shipyard art and views, see my East Boston Flickr set.

More scenes from a summer weekend in the city

[Brewer Fountain, Boston Common; 7/26/14]

Saturday was a lively day in Boston. On the Common, people strolled under the trees and read by the fountain, children played in the Frog Pond and got their faces painted at the playground.

[Frog Pond, Boston Common]

In the Public Garden, we sat for awhile in the shade listening to some violin music, watching the swan boats ferry tourists around the lagoon and a couple of cormorants fish among the floating mallards. 

[Lagoon in the Public Garden]

Next we walked out towards the seaport to check out a community arts project going on along the Rose Kennedy Greenway, but overall we weren't impressed. Probably more fun for the people putting on the exhibition than for observers. A couple of the installations did look like they might be better lit up at night. Anyway, since were were out there, we had late lunch of Mexican food and treated ourselves to a margarita before heading back on the T to meet friends in Copley Square around 6pm.

The 3rd annual Boston Summer Arts Weekend festival was underway in Copley, with free live music both days from some excellent local and national performers. We sat on the grass to watch a set by Jesse Cook, a "nouveau flamenco" artist from Canada who had gone to Boston's Berklee School of Music. The main stage is set up in front of the old Trinity Church (circa 1733), with a mylar backdrop reflecting the surrounding buildings. Around the outskirts were food venders and booths for various local arts cultural organizations.

[Jesse Cook at the Boston Summer Arts Weekend]

[Boston Summer Arts Weekend in Copley Square]

[Lobsters, a local specialty]

It was  a long day out in the sun and we were pretty exhausted by the end, but we kept marvelling at how much the city has to offer in the summer.

Love is in the (Open) Air

["Loving Stones" by Joseph Wheelwright, in Boston; 5/4/13]

We went to the Christian Science Center Plaza on Saturday to check out the Boston Sculptors Gallery open-air exhibit, Convergence, which had its official opening later that afternoon -- running through the end of October. It was a beautiful sunny day, if chilly with the winds blowing steadily across the plaza, and fun to see the new sculptures sprinkled across the expansive I.M. Pei-designed grounds -- a work of art in itself.

[Christian Science Center, Boston]

One of our favorites was George Sherwood's "Wave Cloud," which stands on the Mass. Ave. edge of the giant reflecting pool. Its turning circle of metal scales fluttered with the wind, sending cloud patterns rippling across its surface.

["Wave Cloud" at the Christian Science Center]

 We also loved the delightful "Impossible" by Andy Moerlein, which we caught sight of by chance while on our way back from the hardware store on Mass. Ave.

Wait, are there boulders in those trees?

["Impossible" - up in the trees near Mass. Ave.]

We ran into one of the artists doing some last-minute touches for the grand opening - Nancy Winship Millikin, whose "Lighthouse" featured a tall scaffolding draped with raw wool. She told us that the lights from the building shine through the her structure like a lighthouse at night. We'll have to go check it on some evening.

We also ended up chatting with one of the grounds security guys for a bit, who gave us some of the inside scoop on who was renting which office spaces, whether the proposed renovations on the reflecting pool would be going forward (no! which is great - breaking up the pool would have ruined it), the QR codes on the artist plaques (only for iPhone at this point), and the availability of public parking underneath the plaza. He also pointed us to the endearing "Loving Stones" shown in the top photo.

If you're in town anytime over the next 5 months, the sculptures are certainly worth checking out, and it's free! You can also go see the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library while you're there.

Meanwhile, I have some more photos of the exhibit here. Enjoy!

---

[Love on the riverbank; 5/5/13]

Spring in New England

[First crocus spotted, Boston; 3/10/13

Notice that the photo above is from 10 days ago. Today, the first day of spring, looked like the photo below in my neighborhood -- after some melting of the 8 to 10 inches of snow we had yesterday.

[Aptly named White Street; 3/20/13]

The receptionist at my allergist's office today noted that last year on this day she was at a local beach -- with record-setting temps in the 70s one year ago. It was in the 30s today, with wind chills much lower. Still, the sun came out at various points, and it stayed light until after 7pm. But snow showers are predicted for tomorrow...

My moods have been as volatile as the March weather. The weekdays have been the most challenging, alone in the apartment with an increasing supply of bits of work but lots of uncertainty and insecurity. I did get out on Monday night for a most enjoyable evening with former colleagues, all having left "the writing sweatshop" at one point or another over the last few years, meeting up at the intoxicating Burdick's chocolate shop & cafe in Harvard Square. On the recommendation of one of them, I had a small cup of Granadian hot chocolate ("Robust single source dark chocolate from the Island of Grenada exclusively for Burdick Chocolate. Hints of lychee fruit, nutmeg and banana.") and a piece of hazelnut orange cake. wow

I also had a nice time with D last weekend, seeing Side Effects on Saturday afternoon and going to the Museum of Fine Arts on Sunday. The MFA's current exhibit of blue and white ceramics was an unexpected delight. And I found Bruce Davidson's black and white photographs of one block in East Harlem in the 1960s deeply moving. We were about to leave, having drunk our fill of art for the afternoon (and we hadn't eaten so were getting lightheaded), when I saw the Loïs Mailou Jones exhibit near the stairs. We ducked in for a peek and were rewarded with a striking range of work from this (unknown to me) pioneering artist. D ended up buying a membership for two since it would have cost us half that much for one visit, so we'll be back.

After leaving the MFA, and passing lots of drunken green-clad young people headed for St. Patrick's Day celebrations at every Irish pub in the Back Bay, we went to Bukowski's for a pint and a bite to eat. I'd never been before, but I did like it, conjuring up my younger days and fondness for dive bars. The food and extensive beer menu belie the dive bar ambiance - both excellent, despite the cheeky daily menu (an homage to the bar's namesake).

[Daily menu at the Bukowski Tavern, Boston]