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Tad Lauritzen Wright is speaking for the trees! As a part of the Urban Art Commission's 10th Anniversary, he has wrapped 300 trees along the parkways and the Mississippi River with his signature single line drawings (printed on blue vinyl) in order to create a conceptual city square.
Elizabeth called to tell me about the installation and made a point to say, "It isn't hurting the trees!" I think it is very cool, and as you may remember, I'm a big fan of Tad's.
Click here to read about all ten of the temporary public art displays celebrating the UAC.
More info over at artbutcher.
8 comments:
YEA! I knew you would tell us what this was. It's been driving me nuts. I drive along the parkway thinking "what can I google? blue tree bands? parkway blue bands?"
I'm so thrilled with all this UAC activity.
Thank you for solving the mystery! I usually love weird public art displays, but this?
This just reminds me (horribly and inescapably) of the survey tape that shows up on subdivision sites about a week before the trees all get whacked.
In other words, I totally hate it and want to rip it all off the trees.
But I probably won't.
well think about it like this naomi--what if it was survey tape??
this installation makes me appreciate the fact that the 300 trees are still there making our parkways extraordinary.
hopefully the zoo won't try and cut them down too...you know for billboards or something. :)
Someone did rip down a bunch of them on North Parkway by Rhodes (and the zoo) on Monday.
Thanks for posting about our temporary public art project. I’m surprised by the responses we’ve gotten to the project – including people thinking that harm is coming to the trees, or that it is vandalism (though it would certainly by the tidiest vandalism I’ve ever seen), plus people being reassured when they see the childlike drawings of people and houses on the blue vinyl. My friend’s 6-year-old and my nieces and nephews are very curious about it.
I have been letting people know that the vinyl doesn’t hurt the trees, that it is only supposed to be up through May 30, and that if any do fall off they will be picked up and not allowed to litter the parkway or the streets.
Some people have already taken it upon themselves to remove the bands. It’s too bad, really, because when you drive the whole line and see the magnitude of work that Tad and his volunteers did, it’s quite impressive. I was lucky to get a chance to see it on Sunday after it was installed, and I was blown away at the impact that one person’s art and a dozen volunteers can have on 6 miles of road.
Ack, I was just joking about ripping them down!
Maybe some press coverage would have helped with the negative reactions. I kept checking the paper for anything about blue bands, but I figured out they were okay when I saw the awesome people and houses printed on them.
Are they really vinyl? That reminds me of the awesome film "Blue Vinyl" in which the horrors of the vinyl industry are laid bare.
See that? I'm slamming on the art again. Why do I hate ART so much?
Because I know things about subdivision development and vinyl manufacturing that make my hair curl. At least there's a bright side!
Those things have been perplexing me! I emailed Naomi today to find out if she knew what they were!
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