Tag Archives: upcycled

Arts and Culture

Sui Park’s Summer Vibe Installation in Riverside Park

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sui park summer vibe photo by gail worley
All Photos By Gail

If you’re looking for a fun way to get in your daily steps, while enjoying nature and discovering a bit of contemporary art, then head on over to Riverside Park and check out RE:GROWTH, A Celebration of Art, Riverside Park, and the New York Spirit, a summer-long public art exhibit which includes site-specific works by 24 artists and covers 100 blocks of the westside park and waterfront.

sui park summer vibe photo by gail worley

Among my favorites of these works is an entirely charming fantasy garden installation by New York-based Korean artist Sui Park entitled Summer Vibe.  While not entirely accessible — it’s located behind a locked gate — Summer Vibe is easily spotted along Riverside Drive at 78th Street as long as you know what you’re looking for.

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Design and Innovation

String Lights Made From Recycled Plastic Bottles!

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Recycled Bottle Lights
All Photos By Gail

In the first week of December, I was invited to a fantastically fun Tree Trimming Party at The Norwood House, a private Arts and Culture club located in a multi-story townhouse on West 14th Street in Manhattan. The club is filled with beautiful contemporary artworks, rare collectibles and antiques, and eye-catching oddities throughout its many rooms. While I was exploring, I spotted this string of large, irregularly-shaped colored lights, which were  draped around a bust nestled on a stairway landing, and they grabbed my attention right away. Because, colored lights.
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Design and Innovation

Eye On Design: Upcycled Side Chair and Table By Xtreme Upcycle

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Upcycled Lounge Chair and Side Table By MH Couture
Photos By Gail

Creating cool, modern furniture from upcycled car parts is not an entirely new idea, but in this case there is a unique motivation behind the design. This fun and funky Side Chair and Cocktail Table — which incorporate discarded car tires and refinished bike wheels — is by Xtreme Upcycle, a small business whose proprietors have a deep social conscience behind everything they produce.
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Arts and Culture

Tangled Up In Blue By Kathleen Bennett Bastis

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Tangled Up In Blue
Photo By Gail

We walked into an exhibit by Kathleen Bennett Bastis in the middle of last week’s art crawl, and what stood out for me most was this piece, Tangled Up In Blue which instantly reminded me of the work of John Chamberlain, although on a much smaller scale.

The sculpture, made of found and repurposed metal, plastic and paper is part of Tossed and Found, Bastis’ second solo at Chelsea’s First Street Gallery, in which she continues to explore and celebrate the inherent beauty of found objects that are cast off, washed up, worn out and walked over.

The artist explains: “I curate the streets, riverbanks and scrapyards collecting detached bits and fragments; allowing them to start the conversation that guides the direction of a piece. I try to forge a relationship between these elements’ unique visual ‘dialects’ and construct a common language by translating their past narrative into present tense.”

You can see the rest of Tossed and Found on Exhibit Through May 20th, 2017 at First Street Gallery, Located at 526 West 26th Street, Suite 209, in the Chelsea Gallery District.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: John Chamberlain, Dorkdorf

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John Chamberlain Dorkdorf
All Photos By Gail

I didn’t get turned on to the unique sculptural style of John Chamberlain until his Spring 2012 Retrospective at The Guggenheim, at which point Chamberlain had only recently passed away. Chamberlain was best known for his dynamic sculptures created with scrap metal from salvaged cars, which are held in many public collections.
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