The Many Faces of Delicate Arch, Part 9

Utah::Arches National Park, originally uploaded by mike_s_etc.

Technically, this isn't a great photograph, but I like the different point of view. I don't know if the spot where this picture was taken was meant to be a place to view the arch; I prefer to think of it as the photographer simply hiking or driving down the road, looking over and saying, "Hey; there's Delicate Arch."

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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Juried In Again!

Kimball Mill, Collage

For what it's worth, I'm 2 for 2 in juried art competitions. This show is called "Line," and is again at the Visual Art Exchange. It was juried by Linda Johnson Daugherty, Curator of Contemporary Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art (and wife of nest-builder extraordinaire Patrick Daugherty).

The image above isn't of the actual piece: it's a mock-up I did beforehand. The colors are pretty close, but the papers I used have a variety of textures.

New Urbanism's Bad Rep

I picked up the Fall 2006/Winter 2007 issue of Harvard Design Magazine the other day. The issue is entirely dedicated to the subject of urban design, and I was disappointed to see that New Urbanism came out looking bad.

The magazine opens with an essay by urban design educator and architecture critic Michael Sorkin, who appears to have nothing but contempt for the New Urbanism movement, complaining of the "dreary and uniform translation of principles to practice, the weirdly religious insistence on 'traditional' architectural form, the dubious bedfellows [?], and, most especially, the weakness of most new urbanist product, almost invariably car-focused, class-uniform, exclusively residential, and without environmental innovation."

Further on, in a round-table discussion between urban design professionals, the attitude is still negative: mentioning Sorkin's essay, Paul Goldberger, also an educator and architecture critic, praises his "deft comparisons between New Urbanism and religious fundamentalism." And according to urban design professor Rodolfo Machado, "The form produced by New Urbanism is highly limited. It's usually houses for white people in the South."

Now, I know these perceptions are wrong. (And when I have more time I'll rebut them point by point.) But they persist. How do we overcome the bad rep New Urbanism has in some circles?

Comic Strip Synchronicity, Part 2

Two comics in the Sunday paper had someone whooshing either up or down the stairs, or both.

Zits:

and Blondie:

The Many Faces of Delicate Arch, Part 8

USA-West Delicate Arch by Night, originally uploaded by Thomas Reichart.

This is, I think, the only photo of the arch of its kind posted on Flickr. It's spooky and mysterious. The photograph was created by making a 15-second exposure while shining a flashlight on the arch--I assume sweeping the light back and forth across its face while the shutter was open.

(In the comments for this photo, commenter Ken Lund said that someone once doofusly built a bonfire to light the arch. A clever idea, I guess--I'd like to see how it turned out--but extremely against the rules.)

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Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7