Jarvis Rockwell’s “Maya III,” which resembles a large stepped pyramid was inspired by the ancient Hindu temples of India. In Sanskrit Maya means illusion. It certainly speaks to pop-culture and media overload/worship that we all experience in American culture. It was completed for the opening of DownStreet Art, and I never get tired of visiting it.

All the thousands of actions figures, even with museum wax attached to their feet, do not like to stay in place! On a daily basis Jarvis is placing them back on the pyramid – I blame all the heat and humidity we have been having lately.

In addition to the pyramid, Jarvis is completing a drawing-in-residence. Here he is just starting.

One of my favorite peices at The Clark is Degas’s bronze sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Here is Erin, Halli and myself posing next to it and hoping to make the next pamphlet for the B-HIP program.

Notes about the sculpture from The Clark’s website:
Like all of Degas’s bronzes, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen was cast only after the artist’s death. The original figure, shown at the Impressionist exhibition of 1881, was modeled in wax, to which Degas added a hair wig and fabric tutu. Reaction to the work was mixed, with many critics finding the mundane subject matter and strange combination of materials unsuitable for a work of high art.

Another great piece from the museum’s collection:

Domenico Ghirlandaio (Domenico di Tomaso Bigordi)
Italian, 1449-1494
Portrait of a Lady
c. 1490
Tempera and oil on panel
56.1 x 37.7 cm
Acquired by Sterling Clark, 1913
1955.938

Last night was the opening for Lumens. Everything went amazingly! Both spaces looked beautiful and the internet site (http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/newadams/lumens/) launched successfully. Lots of people came out in support – my family even made out here. As the sun went down the lamps really looked spectacular. The show will running through October 31st.

A crowd favorite was the creepy baby doll lamp.

Marianne showing the Lumens website to the owner of T&A Tools located right down the street from Greylock Arts in Adams. He donated one of his handmade lamps made from race car tires.

Matthew talking to Marianne, another Adams resident who also donated a lamp to us.

All of my fellow B-HIP interns showed up to support the show and to listen to Marianne and Matthew talk a little bit about what goes into developing and creating a project of this scale.

Erin and I posing for pictures in front of all the lamps. It was really gratifying to see this exhibition have a successful and beautiful opening. Kudos to all the artists involved (Mathew Belanger, Sean Riley, and Ven Voisey) and thanks to all who donated their time and lamps!

The past week(s) leading up to the opening have been pretty intense. Everyone has been putting in lots of time to get the Greylock Arts space, the North Adams space and the internet space ready for the opening.

This is a great example of what it is like trying to prep all the lamps to light up and work together. Can you spot Matthew?

Once again, here is Larry Alice helping Matthew with the programming (which can be a tedious process in tight spaces) of all the boxes. Here he is in one of the front windows of Greylock Arts.

A couple of my favorite lamps at Greylock Arts. This project may turn me into a ‘crazy lamp’ collecting lady.

This past Tuesday Marianne and I joined fellow interns Jo and Erin to run an ‘Illuminated Art’ class at Kidspace at MassMoca. We used ‘throwies’ which are basically LED lights, batteries, tape and magnets. There were over 17 kids in the class and they all made interesting art pieces with their LED lights. Marianne gave a short introduction on how electricity completes a circuit and how light not only acts as function in our lives but that artists also use light.

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Jo, a MassMoca intern has been teaching art to kids for years and was really great with helping the kids with their ideas.

A.J. made a rocket.

Marianne and Erin working with the kids. Erin was on glue gun duty.

A thoughtful older brother even made a little LED toy for his baby brother!

A lot of work has been put into the Lumens space that is located at 65 Main Street in North Adams. It was at one point an old sports store and new walls and floors had to built in order to accommodate the show. At the moment we are really close to our goal of having 180 lamps in the exhibition – and to getting them to all respond to people as they walk by! The gray box in the picture holds a microcontroller (that were all hand built), a fan, and a power source for a cluster of six lamps that are plugged into the bottom. There will then be a motion sensor placed on the lamps to respond to people as they move through the space. In addition, there is a web component that allows people to also turn the lamps on as they interact witht the web page.

Here is a closer look at all the boxes that were built to accommodate a power source, a fan and microcontroller.

Most of these were hand wired by Marianne!

Here is a picture of the fans and the general craziness that has been happening in the space.

Our friend Larry Alice, who is also an electrical engineer, has been an incredible help on this project. He has been in several days helping Matthew trouble shoot all the technical issues and has even helped with the tedious task of stripping wires. I believe that here he is soddering a breadboard. Thanks Larry!

Another time consuming part of this project has been photographing all the lamps that are then photoshoped and uploaded to the website. Sean Riley, one of the Lumens artists photographed most of the crazy lamps that we have received.

Down Street Art will be opening soon on the 26th of June and running through October. Today I helped with one of the four galleries that will be opening. I along with fellow B-Hipper Caroline Collins spent most of the day walking along a 9 ft pyramid placing all kinds of toys/ action figures with wax upon its upper level. Jarvis Rockwell, the artist of the piece was lots of fun to work with. He gave us freedom to do what we wanted but he also gave us suggestions about where to place items. It will look pretty amazing by the 26th.

The exhibit is located at 73 Main St., North Adams and Jarvis will also be doing a wall drawing in residence. Greylock Arts, Turbulance and MCLA Gallery 51 will be exhibiting the North Adams portion of ‘Lumens, Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses’ down the street at 61 Main Street.

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There so many different types of action figures and toys that Jarvis has collected – it was so much fun to go through them and to pick and choose!

Maria spent time unpacking and sorting through all the toys – notice all the boxes in the background. There are tables filled with crazy action figures. One of the most time consuming parts of this project (aside from the building of the pyramid) is taking all the toys out of their child-proof packaging.

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I asked Jarvis to pose for me in front of the pyramid and he happily obliged, and grabbed a wooly figure to accomany him in the picture.

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So, far the smoking baby and smoking cupcakes are my favorite toys. The variety of objects is really astounding.

Saturday night The Summer Street Association of Merchants held Adams’s first street fair of the season. There was everything from fried dough (which everyone ate), to a band, a Velcro wall, raffles and and a bungee run.

Greylock Arts set up a table to demonstrate the upcoming exhibit ‘Lumens’. We got lots of people in the gallery and had fun explaining the technology and ideas behind the project for all the crazy lamps that we have been collecting.
Here Ven Voisey, one of the artists working on “Lumens’, is explaining the upcoming exhibit to a couple of Adams residents.

And here I am demoing how the lamps work to the nuns of Saint Stanislaus Church.

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One of the best moments of the fair was when Hallie and Ven did the ‘Bungee Run’.

Matt Belanger, co-director of Greylock Arts and Dan Rose, an artist currently showing at Greylock Arts got into the fun with a couple of LED headbands.

This past Saturday Greylock Arts turned it’s gallery space into a classroom and had Tom Igoe (ITP Professor, author of Making Things Talk, and member of the Arduino Development Team), run an Arduino workshop. This is the technology that will be allowing all the lamps for the upcoming Lumens exhibit to respond to a person’s presence across towns and the internet.

Basically I built a microcontroller (with the Arduino kit) and did some basic processing that allowed it to talk and interact with my computer.

Tom was pretty great at explaining everything from basic electronics to programming code. I was way out of my comfort zone with writing code but it was very interesting and cool. Tom was, in a sense, condensing a graduate course that he teaches into a four hour workshop. To be honest, some of the information discussed went way over my head (okay, most of it went way over my head). But I was pretty excited when I was able to make my LED light blink on and off!

Marianne (co-director of Greylock Arts) paying attention and getting ready to do some wiring.