Cornerstone future site

PROMISE IN THE PARK: 
CORNERSTONE: OPEN STUDIO
Winchester Square Park Pebble Mosaic Project

JOIN OUR Creative Community: This 2-week studio intensive is open everyone. Join one or all open studio workshops for this legacy project and be part of bringing new public art to Winchester Square Park.  Drop by anytime during our open hours. The pebble mosaic will be installed and unveiled in October, followed by a community celebration. Launch and unveiling date to be announced.

September 15th to 30th: 
Diane Frankling Co-op, Community Room 85 Bleecker Street

Tuesday September 15, 5pm to 9pm
Wednesday September 16, 5pm to 9pm
Thursday September 17, 5pm to 9pm
Saturday September 19, 1pm to 5pm

Tuesday September 22, 5pm to 9pm
Wednesday September 23, 5pm to 9pm
Thursday September 24, 5pm to 9pm
Saturday September 26, 1pm to 5pm

What is Cornerstone?
Cornerstone is an 8' diameter pebble mosaic that will be made in a welcoming open studio, and then installed in Winchester Square Park. Corner Stone is one component of a larger community-based art project that has engaged 600+ community members since January 2014.
 


Future site of Cornerstone pebble mosaic

History and Future of Promise in the Park and Cornerstone
Born from this large-scale, multiyear, community engaged art project:
 
Year 1:ARTS-BASED research and CONSULTATION with 200+ adults, children, seniors, and youth in the Wellesley/ Carlton/ Sherbourne area to develop overall concept and themes and motif for project.
Year 2: PUBLIC ART: with 400+ community members, making and unveiling of Hatch (Winchester Public School 14’ x 8’ mosaic pubic artwork) and Birds of a Feather (Ernescliffe Housing Co-op mosaic public artwork multi-component installation) in May 2015, and upcoming in September and October 2015, and Corner Stone
Year 3: WORKSHOPS: song, movement, creative writing, visual art, and fabric and hand-stitching art
Year 4: COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE: utilising the prior three years of programming and community building Promise in the Park culminates in a public community performance work! 

Creating Legacy: Designing for Past, Present, and Future

We've now had several community meetings with Bleecker Coop members, directors, and staff, and many  ideas have been generated through creative explorations of motif, movement, positive and negative space, colour, texture, and abstract and representational elements. 


What had been initially been conceived as a two-dimensional mosaic mural, has grown into an environmental site-specific installation that will include a large-scale mosaic mural, and modular sculptural weight-bearing works. The progression of not only the concept but also the expansion of form and disciplinary modalities are attributable to the creative and aesthetic capacities of the Bleecker Coop community. 


Legacy often refers to the tangible or material evidence or "product" of a project or combined effort. We've been thinking for several months now about the other stuff -- that which can't be measured; the residual or "soft" stuff in community engaged creative endeavours -- and how to understand and more deeply cultivate this. 


At Bleecker Coop, we have the tremendous opportunity and honour to directly experience the fruits of our labour over time. We worked with community members on two previous large-scale mosaic projects (in 2006 and 2007), and it is this history of creating together that engenders confidence and openness in contributors to bring a wealth of ideas to the table, and explore those ideas through various mediums. On this project, we've heard folks say i/we can and i/we will more often than we've heard i/we can't. The creative capacity of the community here is a great part of its legacy, and for this, we acknowledge and remember Bleecker Coop founding manager Diane Frankling who stewarded and nurtured this cooperative and its communities in ways both large and small; tangible and residual. 


We look forward to continuing in the New Year with ceramics workshops lead by Enrique Campos (where we'll fabricate some of our tiles), and to the design unveiling and vetting meeting on January 12, 2012. 


In the meantime, I've posted a few images that invite you into my process of stewarding the progression of a design that emerges from our arts-based research with community members. 


We've often been asked: How do you steward the progression of a design working with ideas, motif, and art experiments that community members bring to the table?  The short answer is this: if you scroll down (or search blog entries tagged Bleecker Coop Memorial Project) you'll see a direct relationship between the design and its path. You'll see abstract and representational elements of Dorian's trees, Ali's bear, Liliana's woven collage, Kate and Heidi's orbs, Tristan's constellation,  Enrique's lines flowing from a bear, Irene and Minda's vertical columns, Gary's ambers and golds, David's forest, Joe's waters, and Emily's gingham pattern.

Experiment 1, Anna Camilleri, paper mounted on birch bark, 14" x 8"

detail

I've chosen to experiment and think about relief elements in mosaic by weaving and layering paper.