Harold Lloyd knew how to stop time...For Downtown's summer art project this year, it's all about time. Clock-watchers will be all wound up. (Ouch.)
Having run through most of the more attractive mammals (dogs, cats and bears) and other critters (fish, otters and birds) and ...um, stuff (lighthouses, spheres and Adirondack chairs) in the past eight years since the public art project began in 2002, the Downtown Racine Corporation has turned to clocks for this year's public art project.
Big, round clocks. Analog, doncha know.
Participating artists will start with hour and minute hands centered in a large concave disk -- 28 inches in diameter -- and, if history is any guide, turn them into fantastically original artworks. That tell time. The clocks will be made by Fiber-Tech, a Franksville manufacturer who fabricates custom molded composite components. They produced the spheres for Sphere Madness, the 2008 art project.
As usual, artists will submit their suggested designs to DRC; those selected will be made and then displayed around Downtown from June 1 through August before being auctioned off. Artist design packets can be picked up at the DRC, 425 Main St., or downloaded here. The deadline for submissions is March 5. Artists will be given $100 to cover some of their costs. Cash prizes will be awarded at the end of the season to the best-of-show clocks as determined by a panel of judges. The first place winner will receive $2,000; second place, $1,000; and third place, $500.
It will be interesting to see whether the practicality of this year's project -- everyone can use another clock, right? -- will reverse the declining numbers of participants in recent years. The first three years of public art in Racine each drew around 150 artistic representations of the theme (dogs, cats and bears), but that gradually declined (99 fish and otters; 75 birds and birdbaths) and by 2009 we were down to 54 Adirondack chairs.
Of course, artists aren't all the DRC must corral; it also needs donors to pay the $350 cost of each entry. Sponsorship packets can be downloaded here.
In addition to the clocks themselves, there will be a contest seeking a clever name for the public art project -- like last year's Sunny and Chair Summer '09 Tour. Entries are due at DRC's office by March 5; the winner will receive a $50 Downtown Racine gift certificate.
Hurry up; the clock is ticking! (Not really: our clocks will be battery-operated.)
Public art projects like Racine's have their origin in Zurich, Switzerland, where decorated lions, the city symbol, were displayed around the city in 1986. This was followed there by "CowParade: in 1998... an idea quickly copied internationally as a fundraiser by other cities, notably Chicago in 1999. One of Chicago's cows made it to Racine, standing in front of Sam and Gene's Grotto on Main Street.
Frankly I think this theme has become annoying. These clocks look like big woks with two noodles. Give this a rest DRC and find a new gimmic.
ReplyDeleteThe worst economic crisis since the Great Depression isn't the time for a community art project. Unlike the WPA--which provided artists with a livelihood--this event at best will benefit only a handful of prize winners.
ReplyDeleteI think they should put a giant chair up in West Racine to celebrate the home furnishings district.
ReplyDeleteIt's a fun event - if the artists want to participate and there are sponsors that want to donate - what's it to you. This event does bring crowds of potential shoppers downtown. If you don't like it; shut up and don't come down.
ReplyDeleteWill Wheaton be donating a clock to keep track of how long you have to wait in the emergency room?
ReplyDeleteEven in bad economic times things like this build community. For the negative bloggers, if you don't like it don't spend time looking at them. This is a big thing for many people.
ReplyDeleteRelax this is part of what makes a community. If this doesn't float your boat, create a community event that you do like. That is called leadership.
Unfortunately, such "leadership" requires two things which ordinary citizens lack--power and money. During the present depression, common sense and compassion should deter the elite from promoting follies bound to annoy the suffering majority.
ReplyDeleteIf the Mink Coat Mega-Moolah Matriarch, her sister-in-law ("Uncarin' Waxtrash Boidcage") and "Yellin' Waxtrash Leap-And-Grab-Hold" want this stuff, they should keep it out at "Whitebread."
ReplyDeleteAs for enticing shoppers to visit our downtown, don't make me laugh. With Porter's gone and other businesses going, soon there'll be nothing there but Waxtrash property and the Waxclan's arty tax shelter. Unless someone's a Waxie or a modern art maven, going downtown will be a journey to nowhere.
ReplyDeleteWhat time is it? Time for the oligarchy and its six-figure-income lackeys to wake up and see that Racine is dying. The last one to leave won't have to turn out the lights. Alas, they are already extinguished and have been so for decades.
ReplyDeleteThe 2 Mr. Angry's never let us down with their depressing commentary - but losers, why did it take you so long?
ReplyDeleteNegative comments with the smell of sour grapes are worse than useless. Have you done anything but criticize? Why not try to get into the spirit and have some fun? Downtown does not have to die if we all support it. Predicting doom from a seat in front of a computer screen is NOT 'getting involved.'
ReplyDeleteWhat I have done is what thousands of capitalism's victims have sought to do--just barely survive in this hellish system. To expect financially-challenged people to do anything else is Sadistic folly.The last thing this moribund community requires is art projects, which shall provoke the rage of the downtrodden majority. Although I would never vandalize them, far poorer and angrier people may do just that. (Alas, there is a precedent. Remember the smashed fiber glass dogs?)
ReplyDeleteThe French have a word (bienseance) to express the fitness or appropriateness of objects and actions. Sad to say, arty doodads and deeds don't belong in a Rustbelt burg. Only the callousness of an aesthetically-obsessed oligarchic clan inflicts this violation of bienseance on the hapless populace.
ReplyDelete1:29 - when will you begin to understand we don't care about whining downtrodden like you - we just care about those that are attempting to improve their live styles. Not losers like you.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm not Nostradamus, I can't tell you exactly when and why this evil little town will explode. But one thing I can state with certainty: when the urbanologists and historians write Racine's autopsy report, too much art plus not enough heart will appear at the head of the page.
ReplyDeleteThe future will decide the identities of winners and losers,Sir! To taunt God's poor--who can scarcely make it from paycheck to paycheck--is criminal.
ReplyDeleteJust continue to abuse the less-fortunate, Sir, and they may rebel. A new government whose leaders don't worship at your supply side shrine may divest you and your cash-cadging kin of everything. (If capitalist greed continues to gut the middle class at the present rate, major changes could arrive in less than a decade. None of this is a threat--rather, it's just a friendly warning from a watchman who's studied revolutions for over half a century.)
ReplyDeleteI think I may go out and by a new Audi today - what do think losers?
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your new Audi while you may. Unfortunately, your class exists on borrowed time and money loaned by the Chinese to keep this sorry land's oligarchy afloat. When the crash comes, it will make Black Friday look like the sack race at the Cub Scout picnic.
ReplyDeleteSomeday you and your peers will use your bundles of century notes as insulation. (Something similar happened during the Weimar Republic as well as the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.)
ReplyDeleteHa, ha, ha - ain't life great. We have all you under our thumb - what's that sound I hear - "SQUASH".
ReplyDeleteDream on, Sir! When the American hammer and sickle finally swing into action, oligarchic thumbs may be cut or crushed.
ReplyDeleteMr. Angry - I'm glad to see you know your place in referring to me as Sir, but I believe you mean when the socialist hammer and sickle finally swing into action - not American. But we all know that this will never happen - Mr. Angry you are dismissed, I'm done with you.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the people, Sir, are NOT done with you. My advice would be for you to accept taxes to finance social programs as if you were paying premiums on a social stability insurance policy. In the long run, it's far cheaper than goading the people to rise up against you. When they do, the people may take everything which you have and are.
ReplyDeleteCh-ngue su madre, Senor Orgulloso!
ReplyDeleteThe above message is brought to Mr. Arrogant by The Wicked Good Militia and the Waxbashers.
ReplyDeleteA gentleman whom Mr. Arrogant addresses as "Mr. Angry" disavows any connection with the Spanish message. In addition to being obscene, it may not be good vernacular or street Spanish. According to a Yucatecan friend, the most popular form of the insult uses something which grammarians call the second person familiar imperative. That means the message should read "ch-nga tu madre."
ReplyDeleteApropos of grammar, if you want to tell Mr. Arrogant to "ch-ngar" his grandma, you'd have to say "ch-nga tu abuela/ abuelita."
ReplyDeleteFinally, if you'd like to request that Mr. Arrogant, who is a real "ch-ngon," pay special attention to his daughter, you'd say "ch-nga tu hija."
ReplyDeleteYou forgot his auntie. If you like him to do the nasty with her, you'd say "chinga tu tia."
ReplyDeleteHaving conducted a little neighborhood survey, I've discovered that ten out of elevan participants who answered my questions are ticked off by the tick-tock-dough art project. If "Yellin'" and her unkind kind truly want this nonsense, they should confine it to their fund-abomination's headquarters, aka "Whitebread."
ReplyDelete3:38 - can't wait to see them - and bid on them at the auction. To bad most of you don't have the money and class to participate - you can only wish.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your clocks,Sir. Pretty soon, your class' high times will be over.
ReplyDeleteHmmm...Trickery Dickert-y Shlock?
ReplyDeleteMr. Angry - as usual you are dismissed - I'm done with you.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I--who am NOT "Mr. Angry"--am not done with my anti-capitalist and counter-corporate endeavors. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE AND THE PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT!
ReplyDelete