All posts tagged: Mary Lacy

The Audubon Birds Of Broadway

The Audubon Birds Of Broadway

Birds flyin’ high, you know how I feel
Sun in the sky, you know how I feel
Breeze driftin’ on by, you know how I feel
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me.

~ Nina Simone

ATM. Williamson’s Sapsucker for The Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

192 species of birds are seen in Central Park regularly, says the NYC Audubon Society, thanks to “New York City’s position along the Atlantic ‘flyway,’ a major avian migration route, and its variety of habitat types, the metropolitan area is rich in bird diversity,” says the Museum of Natural History.

ATM. Red-face Warbler for The Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Since 2014 the streets of New York have also become home to many painted birds as well. In the Upper West Side neighborhood in Manhattan where founder and artist John James Audubon lived in the 1840s after publishing his major work, a color-plate book entitled The Birds of America (1827–1839), there is a growing series of paintings on roll down gates by Street Artists, graffiti artists, studio artists, and muralists depicting bird species that are in danger thanks climate change and to us humans.

ATM. Townsend’s Warbler for The Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Audubon Mural Project combines the efforts of art gallerist Avi Gitler of Gitler &_____ Gallery and The Audubon Society and 50+ artists over the last 2 years or so and gradually this area is becoming a bird sanctuary. The birds are painted mostly along Broadway but many more painted birds can be found from 135th Street to 165th Street on the Upper West Side. Many of the birds are painted on gates so when the shops are open, the gates are up and bird sighting is off…so go early in the morning or when the shops close.

Mary Lacy. Pinyon Jay for The Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hitnes. Fish Crow for The Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LNY. Swallow-tailed Kite (and others) for The Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

James Alicea. American Redstart for The Audubon Mural Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

To learn more about The Audubon Mural Project click HERE

 

Here is a recent story from PBS about the project. Unfortunately, many artists names are not mentioned in the story, a typical unfortunate oversight by the press for artists whose work is on the streets and not inside galleries or museums. Nonetheless, the story gives valuable  information and context.

The artist ATM in profile for his new installations just completed this autumn.

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BSA Film Friday 12.12.14

BSA Film Friday 12.12.14

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Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :

1. Mary Lacy: Life at Moran
2. Dhear: Similia Similibus Currentur
3. Sofles Black Book
4. Helpful Tips for Riding the Subway with Johnny T

BSA Special Feature: Mary Lacy: Life at Moran

The ever widening spectrum of culture that embraces graffiti-street art-muralism, gentrification, and commercialism blurs one more line in this promotional video for the development of an old factory on Lake Champlain. While well executed, it borrows completely from the urban explorers and graffiti artists who have been hitting up the walls of decrepit and abandoned places with paint for decades, while giving no credit for it.

Take note that the camera work neatly relegates those renegades work to the margins and incidental backgrounds while celebrating the “fine art” being blue taped into existence center stage. While not a straight up deal breaker, the sound track is principally a viola played with classical contemplation, making the whole rustic scene very palatable to investors and denotes a certain income level and educational background and well, class distinction.

That said, Mary Lacy chooses nature and flora to gently entice you to come in; her folk technique evoking stained glass or porcelain collage work, and she selects well placed vignettes that remind you of Cuba.

Makes you hanker for cup of rich fair trade hand pressed café mocha and a butternut elderberry quinoa bear claw glazed with raw sugar, doesn’t it? Fire up the Kindle and read insightful prose describing how factory jobs like the ones once here in this building were moved offshore, never to return.

 

Dhear: Similia Similibus Currentur

Done in conjunction with MUJAM, Dhear creates this enormous mural on the side of a homeopathic hospital that recalls Mexico’s 20th century mural tradition and inspires the people visiting and working there.

 

Sofles Black Book

Dude kills black books too, which is probably no surprise to anyone who has seen his previous videos here where he slaughters entire factories. Never imagined such a hard driving crunchy soundtrack would accompany art markers, did you?

Helpful Tips for Riding the Subway with Johnny T

Hey, whatsa matta wit you? Don’t do that! Jeez!

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