Art Bench Celebration:The Finale

This past Saturday,November 1st, 2008, was the very last step of this wonderful project. The Honorable Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. and Honorable Senator Carl Levin, along with Southwest Detroiters, attended this celebration.

Music from the speakers filled everyones ears, while the friendly mimes interacted with children and anyone nearby. There were various performances by a couple of young girls, dancing the traditional mexican dances. The inviting aroma of hot dogs and popcorn drew in the people to the food tables, where volunteers from City Year served the treats. Since November 1st is the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico, the children were able to decorate their own traditional skull paper masks.

There were introductions made, then everyone gathered to the benches to cut the ribbon, officially opening the benches to the public. The spectators were able to sit down and relax on these miraculous pieces of artwork.

The day was just incredible. I was able to conversate with the Honorable Mayor Cockrel, Honorable Senator Levin, and witha couple of attendees and they were just spectacular.

On behalf of Mary Laredo,Christine Bossler, and my brother Alhan Vazquez, I would like to thank our funders the Skillman Foundation, the Kresge Foundation and Chase Bank, and College for Creative Studies for management.We would also want to thank the following organizations and businusses for hosting this celebration:Community of Latino Artists, Visionaries and Educators (CLAVE), Southwest Detroit Business Association (SDBA), Café Con Leche, and the SW Detroit Art in Public Places Committee.

Even though I am sad that this project is finished, I know that this is only the beginning. If the public want more benches like these, it could be possible. The more demand for art, the better!I will miss the days breaking those tiles, in order to complete the puzzle of the benches. Or mixing the mortar powder and water to then spread it onto the bench mesh. This was an amazing and memorable experience, and I would personally like to thank Mary and Christine for opening the doors not only as art partners, but friends.

-Anahli Vazquez

Installation Postponed

Hello everyone!
There has been a change of dates to the intallation for the benches. Because of a few problems at the location, this will be postponed until Monday, October 13th, 2008. I will keep you updated if anything changed.

-Anahli

Yes!Mosaic Benches Are Done!

Mary on the Day & Night Guitar bench

I am very proud to announce that THE MOSAIC BENCHES ARE COMPLETED! It's been a long process and tiring days, but no matter what came across, we were able to finish this wonderful project! We checked our dates and noticed that we finish all three benches in a time period of 4 and a half months.We couldn't believe it ourselves! Preparation for the project, collecting materials, design layouts, meetings, and steel framework waiting was 3 and a half moths, while working on the benches in their entirety was a month. The images below are the completed benches: Mother Earth Day & Night Guitar
Three Leaves

And there they are! All we need to do is clean the tiles/pieces and glaze them, and they would be ready to go! The benches would be installed on Thursday, October 9th at the SDBA location on Vernor St. We are 2 days ahead of our deadline, and couldn't be happier.

We attended a meeting at Cafe Con Leche and when it was over, some of our fellow artists and supporters from CCS, the Skillman Foundation, and fellow SW Detroit residents followed us back to Mary's garage to take a peek at the finished benches. They were in awe and congratulated us! They touched the benches' tiles, admired their beauty, and gave them a test ride. Were the seating comfortable? Yes. And what about the backs? Definitely.But the job isn't over 'til it's over. This project will be finished once the beautiful mosaic benches are installed on the ground.

The next and final update will be the instillation of the benches! If you would like to witness their"grand installment", stop by to the SDBA location on Vernor St.

See you there...

-Anahli

Closer and Closer To The Finish Line!

Hello everyone!

This is Anahli back on track! So I am VERY excited to announce that our benches are just one step away to being completed!!! All the mosaic tiles and pieces have been placed in their appropriate bench (the seating and the back). All we need to do is grout them, let it dry and set in, clean the tiles, and BAM! They're ready to go! (well, technically, those are four steps, but you get the idea).

The image below are Mary and Christine carefully placing the pieces on one of the leaves of the Leaves bench.

So here is a current image of the Leaves bench.When it comes to the Mother Earth bench, the seating is finished with the pieces and grouting.We have been cleaning the mosaic pieces one by one and removing any unwanted grout particles. The fruit piece of the bench is grouted, but we have to finish the rest.
This is all for now. We will resume to the last tasks in hand and the benches will be ready for installment. The finished product will be in the next update.Stay tune!

-anahli :D

Moving Right Along

It's me, Mary, posting for Anahli. We've been busy, working on all three benches simultaneously. Here's a picture of my team. That's me in the back; Christine next to me in the orange shirt; Anahli with her unmistakable gorgeous bangs (green this week); and Alhan sporting a dusk mask. If I look tired it's because I am. There hasn't been any down time in quite awhile, but I'm not complaining because we've been thoroughly enjoying this process. We're posing next to the Day and Night Guitar, which at this point is close to being completely assembled.



Here it is finally assembled and set in mortar. The grouting process comes next. Most of these are Pewabic tiles, as well as donations by community residents. The ceramic leaves were donated by CCS (College for Creative Studies). The reason the benches are so tall is because they're going to be installed one foot into the ground. The legs will actually be only 17 inches high once installed. (Here, they're 29 inches).


This is the Earth Mother bench. The seat here is assembled but not yet set in mortar. We've completed that task since this picture was taken.


Here I am setting the fruit mural onto the bench back. Assembling the fruit took quite a bit of time but was like meditation for me. You can see more of the leaves from CCS here, above the fruit.


Here I am putting a skin of mortar onto the Three Leaves bench back. The botanical theme is the thread that unites the benches. We expect to be ready for installation by our mid October deadline, if not sooner. There's still quite a bit of work to do, but we're on a roll now. Check back for more updates soon!

It's Official!

("Mother Earth" bench outline) ("Day & Night Guitar" bench outline)

Hello everyone.I am very excited to share the great updates with you.Where shall we begin?...

Mary sketched out the FINAL bench designs, and I am very proud of them! I already mentioned the "Leaves" bench on the first blog, and that one is set. Below you will see the last two final designs.

"Mother Earth"

"Day & Night Guitar"

As a team, we decided that the "Mother Earth" bench will be placed between the "Leaves" bench and "Day & Night Guitar" bench because it is the only bench with armrests and it brings in the project together. I believe that the benches together will be outstanding and be appreciated more as a piece of artwork.

During the last week, we have been working on samples and gathering material because donations have been low. We attended the Annual Summer Sale at Pewabic Pottery last Saturday. Mary, Christine, Alhan, and I scattered throughout the large tent in search for the right tile. The sounds of tiles and ceramics clanking added even more of a rush as everyone who entered was on the same mission to collect their perfect pieces. Fortunately, we were able to gather a couple of boxes with a large variety of tiles, ranging from indescents to plain, and in a variety of blues, reds, yellows, and so on. Once we arrived back to Mary's garage, we sorted the tiles out by color and glaze.

Alhan and I came into the garage this morning to find the seating for the "Leaves" bench completed.Well, the mosaic part at least. Mary had been working on it the night before,and it came out wonderful. The seating design is on the left below. It is a wavy line that goes through the seat but with various tiles, differing in shape and in color hue. A line? Simple, but beautifully done. Christine, Alhan, and I began piecing together the seating for the "Mother Earth" bench. This design is on the right below. The seating has a leaf vine running throught the seat with a couple of leaves sticking out in the center sections.

Now that the designs have been established, Mr. Tony Martinez, from Disenos Ornamental Ironwork, will begin working on the metal framework. He informed us that they will be ready by the end of this week, so we are very excited to begin placing our pieces together.

If I'm not mistaking, that is all for now. Stay tune for the next update.

-Anahli

Decisions, Decisions

(Christine and Alhan finishing up the sample)

Hello once again!Over this past week in a half, we have made progress with the project...

After researching and traveling around the Vernor area, Mary selected a location for the three benches, at the Southwest Detroit Business Association(SDBA) property.However, after today's meeting,the three benches have a possibility in being installed together.The idea in installing the benches together did not appeal to everyone in the meeting.Some want to dispers the benches throughout the Vernor neighborhood,while others supported Mary's decision to keep them together.One member suggested that two of the benches could be installed at the SDBA property while the other will be at a different "ideal" location.Voting took place and ultimately, Mary will decide where the benches will be installed.

Now, on a better note, we are excited that we finally began working on some kind of mosaic.Over the last two days, we began working on a sample piece for the "Leaves" bench.Mary sketched out a leaf on a paper, and we began putting it together with the few pieces the have been donated.The pictures on the bottom are from day one.The sample was not planned beforehand, it was somewhat spontaneous.

(Day one of the mosaic sample)

Christine and Alhan finished the sample while I was updating this blog.Here is the finished sample.

We have received an update from Tony Martinez, who is the owner of Disenos Ornamental Artwork, of the "Leaves" framework. It will be ready by the end of next week, and then we can begin getting our hands to the real work!Mr. Martinez is still waiting for the other two bench sketches, which Mary will be handing in.

We are also happy to receive more material for the mosaic work,donated by Janet Locher, a resident from Southwest Detroit(thank you!).Feel free to donate any material you believe will serve us in our project.You can reach me here or Mary at marylaredo@gmail.com.

Until next time...

-Anahli

On the Drawing Board

(This is the the basic leaf pattern for our first bench)
Hello!This is the beginning of the project and what we have so far...

Mary has a couple of sketches for the mosaic benches we will be working on. The first bench has a shape of three leaves coming together as one.We are waiting for the metal framework to come in about a week or so.Mary and I talked about the designs for the other two benches.One of them is about the "Tree of Life", while the other involves a cactus and a desert scene.We have very rough sketches on the last two,so they are not very concrete designs,but we will be working on them as the project proceeds.


Also, we have a list of potential display locations.We are still working on talking to the owners of the private property locations, while anything else,we have to email the city.

We are low in mosaic materials, so the word is out!We would like our community to be part of this project as well, by donating any pieces of ceramic, colored glass, and even broken china to us.Any donated materials will be used on the benches as needed.

This is all for now.If you would like to donate any materials for the project, you can contact me at
anahli.vazquez@gmail.com
Thank you!

-Anahli Vazquez