Flux Night 2013

Micah + Whitney Stansell: An Inversion (with sky and land) - my favorite installation of the night. Photo by me, October 2013

I

had been eagerly awaiting Flux Night this year, maybe too much, and so when it came time I invited a friend along and we met up at seven that evening in Castleberry Hill.

 

He was a novice to Flux Night and I had described the event to him as a fantastic night. As it turned out, we were both let down and I felt I had oversold Flux Night to him. It was not bad, but it was not as good as the previous year. It was supposed be a night of the arts and I kept asking myself where was the art was. It was not that we could not find it for the most part (though the SCAD projection installation was poorly marked and we would have totally missed it if someone at the door had not invited us in) as I had a guide and the iPhone app - it was a case of too few installations and performances for the number of streets on which it was taking place.

Photo by me, October 2013

Flux Night had its moments, but they were too few and far between and the crowd of 30,000 grew to a drunken sloppy street party by the time it ended at midnight. I was left to walk alone to the Garnett Street Marta Station and was hassled by a man wanting money to buy a '40.' The man who complained of bad knees that was not much older than I am was one final street performance in a night lacking those. I would have hated to have seen the streets of Castleberry Hill the next morning as they were probably covered in a snowfall of trash. A highlight for me is just being in Castleberry Hill because I love that neighborhood of old brick warehouses converted to galleries, residences, restaurants, bars and other businesses. Walking around and looking at the buildings, going in them and even finding a rooftop view satisfies a part of me so I tried to keep my expectations in check regarding the art. I would not want Flux Night to leave Castleberry Hill, without that neighborhood it would lose some of the appeal for me. So thank you to the residents of that neighborhood that host Flux Night.

Rhoda Weppler + Tevor Mahovsky: Late Night Convenience installation - Highly popular that night. Photo by me, October 2013

This was the high demand exhibit of the night. A long line queued to enter. As we walked past a woman in her early twenties in line demanded of me to know what I was doing. I said walking by, not cutting the line as if she owned the street. People these days are strange and possessive of things that do not belong to them.  I thought the precious person was going scream murder over some perceived infraction.

 

I noticed more digital art this year in the form of projections and video displays. At times I felt as though I was in a nightclub more so than out in the streets. Digital art is not that interesting to me and difficult to engage. The wall projections did make for some interesting juxtapositions with the crowds ignoring them.

 

Wandering and wondering crowds. Where's the art? Damned if I knew either.

This captures the night the best. The crowd seemed more raucous this year, less interested or wowed by the art offerings and more into partying, socializing and lining up for the increased presence of the latest fashion in foods - the food truck. Perhaps they were like me and wondering why the lack of art this year and filled their time as best they could?

 

It seemed that Flux Night was bordering on becoming just another street festival with beer and food trucks. I hope next year there is more emphasis on art again. Though I liked that Flux Night encompassed more of the neighborhood with additional streets so it felt like there was more to explore there needed to be more installations and performances. At times, there were long stretches of nothing but crowds and blank walls. Hopefully a new curator will look at the negatives from this year (and there were many critics of this year's Flux Night) and put more art out there in 2014. I await next year and will hope for better.

Then it was a carnival or like a night at the North Georgia Fair without the rides and corn-dogs. There was a horse drawn piano accompanied by a man on a guitar and the horse had its own bouncer.

The sad clown Puddles came by and I grabbed him for blurry photos.

This quilted mountain rang a bell and shouted at the crowd. It was the right amount of absurdity and I enjoyed that.

Whatever you are thinking is probably correct.

I did not find this art installation listed in my guide.

Other scenes of the art, performers and people.

I thought it was the most visually potent installation of the night. For something as simple as what appear to be sheets of paper strung along cables between two buildings it captured my imagination and the crowd's attention.

 

 

Eventually I plonked down at Bradberry and Haynes Streets with a final beer. The impromptu art scavenger hunt neared an end and as my friend took a photo of me, a passing woman greeted me. The night was a success in terms of my friend and I having a great time, but that was due to our conversations, a few beers and our willingness to hunt down the art or having tried to do that.

Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival 2013

Photo by me, October 2013.

On Saturday, October the 19th, I hopped off the subway in the rain at the Arts Center Station for a worthwhile detour - a photography exhibition. The My Atlanta Exhibition, a part of the Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival, was being held at the community center inside the 14th Street gate at Piedmont Park.

Photo by me, October 2013.

I arrived late, having read some incorrect information in the local alternative weekly, and only one other person was present. The park staff sighed and grumbled under their breath that I did not have much time to absorb all the wonderful photos mounting the walls before I was going to be kicked out. My experience was not off to a great start. I wanted to linger, admire the photos and not feel rushed.

Photo by me, October 2013.

Many of the photos lining the walls were from twenty schools around the city. I was impressed with the quality and technique some of the students had displayed. It was a pleasant mix of landscape, street, casual, family and portrait photography. I enjoyed some of the intimate moments on display, being the voyeur spying into the private lives of other people. There were a few street photos, especially those shot in the rain, that I was jealous that I had not taken, but it also inspired me more in my own photography.

Photo by me, October 2013.

Photo by me, October 2013.

On October 26th the photos will come down between 10AM and 1PM, but you might still be able to get in and see them during that day as well.

Evening Sun

October 2013. Photo by me.

I had exited out of the Five Points station onto Forsyth Street headed north. I was on way up to Marietta Street to cross over to CNN when I noticed the sun. With no buildings in the Gulch to block the evening sun around 7 PM it came through to illuminate this building.

Playing To The Crowd

Photo by me, October 2013.

 
Walking Saturday evening to Flux Night in Castleberry Hill I enjoyed seeing the sidewalks filled with pedestrians as I came down Marietta Street in the direction of CNN Center. It was a nice early Fall evening and the people were out at the various events taking in the city.

As I crossed Centennial Olympic Park Drive at CNN and turned south I passed by a group of musicians playing to the passing crowds. Many had gathered to listen to what was a lively jazz tune. I would have stayed longer, but a friend was waiting and I was running a few minutes late to join him.

Reality Triumphs Over Facebook

Photo by me, May 2013.

 

The birds are tweeting, the sun is just turning the sky from black to blue, I've got my jazz going, a truck rumbles past - it is six in the morning. I've been up long enough to be sipping my second cup of coffee and consume my ritual bowl of Greek yogurt and freshly chopped apples. I was reading reviews of a biography of Chet Baker, I plan on borrowing it from the library and making it the first book I read on my summer break from Facebook.  The Amazon reviews are like those on Yelp; a testament to the fact that everyone has an opinion, but only a few are worth considering.

Yesterday I reached a decision on something I'd been considering from some time and that was to take a much needed break from Facebook. I'd already pulled back in what I shared there, often posting something and deleting it a few minutes later. I'd gotten to the point of when I wanted to post a status update or a photo asking myself whether it was really necessary to share. 

 

I've never been one to post the daily trivia like I have a headache or I'm bored or the juvenile passive aggressive sympathy posts. I really detest those posts of people fishing for sympathy. Anyway, I'm going to try to live a month without logging in and then try to go the entire Summer without ever checking that narcissistic place. I expect that I'll be okay with it even if I do feel slightly disconnected from my circle but I'd rather see them in person than on Facebook. I hope to regain time that I used to waste waiting for the Facebook phone app to open on my phone and then check in to a place, think of a somewhat amusing line, or get whatever photo I wanted to post uploaded with just the right filter effect. All of that effort adds up and it takes away from the moment that I wanted to experience and enjoy. 

 

I can't remember how many times I would be walking down the street with someone and tell them to wait while I composed the right angle on my iPhone for a photo or how I would sit down in a restaurant and pull out my phone to check in. It's silly and in some ways I think Facebook is becoming a form of performance art with each of us trying to out do each other in how fabulous or interesting we think our lives are, when in reality most are just ordinary.

 So.... this Summer I get to try and remember what life was like before I was inundated with the advent of social networking. I hope to get to spend more focused and truly genuine time with friends, embrace the slower and more natural rhythms of life and occasionally get to enjoy the quiet. I'm looking forward to reading books, continuing on with my photography projects, spending time at the lake house and not needing to share it right away on Facebook, taking trips, walking city streets, hiking in nature, sipping my coffee, thinking about what I want to learn to cook, having a few beers at my hangouts - doing everything that I normally do and even add more to it. The difference being that I will be totally in the moment and not staring at my phone so that I can share it right then, right now like a junkie needing his fix.  I plan to write more and I will post here on my blog, but it will come at more natural times and without the junkie mentality of immediacy.

Sounds good right? With luck and a little determination I can do this and I'll be forever grateful. 

Leu Gardens

S

trolling through a garden and admiring natural beauty is one pleasure I cannot do enough and I had the chance to indulge myself on a recent visit to Leu Gardens. 

 

I had visited Orlando too many times to count in the last ten years and it was becoming a challenge to find something new and appealing. I had visited Disney World, many of the other tourist traps and the outlet shopping more times than I cared to remember. In a city where so much was built on plasticized fantasy, was choked with horrendous traffic; it was easy to forget that it was a real place, people called it home and there had to be some natural beauty that was not a fairy tale.

On the northeast side of downtown, outside of the tourist strip I found the Leu Gardens. The gardens consisted of fifty acres of land and a 19th century home that were donated to the city in 1961 by Harry P. Leu and his wife. They shared an interest in gardens inspired by their world travels and decided to have their own on their estate. The city has carried on with the gardens and opened the property to the public for touring.

Knowing how hot and humid Orlando can be even in early April I arrived early in the morning just after opening to avoid the worst part of the day. Thankfully the property which was originally settled by the Mizell family in 1858 had plenty of tree canopy with large oaks draped in Spanish moss.

I enjoyed the layout of the gardens, there were many corners to explore with a variety of ferns and other plants. It was a place to linger and go along at a leisurely pace without feeling that you needed to walk them in a particular order.

This is central Florida so of course there are citrus trees in the gardens. The property was a working farm in the 1800s; producing cotton, sugar cane and corn. I thought the rotting fruit was kind of beautiful hanging from the tree.

Bamboo grows well in much of the American South so I would expect to see it in a garden in Florida. Bamboo grows too well in the south and it is generally considered invasive.

The rose garden unfortunately did not have many blooms during the time I visited. It was a large rose garden and at the correct time of year I would imagine it is beautiful and fragrant.

This spiky tree looked like a medieval weapon and had eyes.

There were an abundance of other blooming plants and flowers along the pathways.

Here I found a garden of raised beds with plants and flowers from arid climates. A lizard had climbed a cactus to absorb the morning sunshine.

Further along I found another lizard soaking up the sun.

This is perhaps the most creative use of clay flower pots I have encountered. A flower pot person rested in a shady spot behind the monkey grass to rest.

This large flower clock on the side of an embankment was unfortunate. It might have been a neat idea in theory, but the execution ended up being tacky in that touristy Orlando type of way. There was an abundance of concrete surrounding this area which took away from the natural landscape and the numbers on the clock were askew. It reminded me of something I would expect at a hotel or shopping center.

Winding my way back towards the visitor center I came to this pond with water lilies. Strolling around for a couple of peaceful hours in the gardens I found this reminder that I was still in the middle of sprawling Orlando.

In a city that has traded much of its natural beauty for asphalt and artificial attractions chasing tourist dollars, the Leu Gardens offered a pleasant contrast.

Mural At Howell and Irwin Streets

Photo by me, February 2013

One of my photography projects is to photograph the myriad of murals scattered around the city. We seem to have an awful lot of them and so it is a project I hope to accomplish as this year goes by. I doubt I could tackle this project in one day but my goal is to photograph them while I am out shooting other subjects. As February ends I have managed to capture a couple.

The mural in this post is located at the corner of Howell and Irwin streets in the Old Fourth Ward. The building it is located on is Banna Grocery. Sadly, the owner of Banna was murdered during a robbery at the grocery in February of 2012.

When possible I will list the artist that painted the mural in this case it was done by olive47.

Flux Night 2012

Perhaps one of the best events I attended in 2012 was Flux Night on October 6th in Castleberry Hill. Flux Night is modeled after Nuit Blanche in Toronto. It had live performance art and sound and visual installations in the street and in a couple of the galleries in the neighborhood.

The weather was perfect as a cold front plowed through just as the event was getting underway and it became blustery and chilly. It was the first wave of Fall weather we had had up until that point. I was still recovering from surgery, but was strong enough to get out and walk but I did get tired at times and was a little paranoid about getting bumped in the stomach. I ended up taking breaks leaning against walls and sitting on a sidewalk behind a food vendor eating a hot dog. It was just great to be out among people, on the street, in the chilly weather and taking in the art.

Castleberry Hill is one of my favorite Atlanta neighborhoods, it is a place I came to like back in the late
1990s when living there was certainly more an attempt at urban pioneering than chic living. The neighborhood is a gem with the old warehouses converted into authentic loft spaces. It is located directly south of the Georgia Dome and Philips Arena.

In some ways the night was more of a night time street fair than an arts event. I hadn't expected the large number of food trucks selling a little bit of everything, I was expecting more art installations and open galleries. Given the huge attendance I suppose it was good there were so many food and beer vendors but I was beginning to think as I left that by the end of the night with all of the college students and the beer that it might become more of a drunken beer festival frat party crowd.

Ceiling of Blackbirds, this was my favorite installation. The two live performers are cutting out black and white paper birds.

Crowd estimates were in the 12,000 to 13,000 range. I thought it was great that many people came out to celebrate the arts and walk the streets of Castleberry Hill that night. Yet, some in the arts community thought that maybe this wasn't the best Flux Night and were unhappy with some of the changes and still others thought it was the best one ever. It was my first time attending and I had a great time. Sure if there had been more installations or performances or more galleries open that night it would have been even better. I came away happy that night and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, crowds and all, which means I look forward to Flux Night 2013.

Planning is already underway for Flux Night 2013 as submissions from artists are already being accepted as of earlier this month.

More IPhone photos from the night that you can click to enlarge:

It had been less than a month since I was released from the hospital after nearly dying and I sat to rest on a curb to watch the crowd. It did not take me long to realize where I was and my personal history across the street. How Castleberry Hill had changed since 1999 when I was dating a designer with a loft before me. So many nights spent sleeping there, doing odd things, listening to Portishead and Massive Attack, enlightening conversations and the concerns I had about parking my car on the street overnight. I learned and found much of myself there.

gloATL dancers performing.

This installation was designed to light up and place musical notes as people interacted with it however it wasn't working mostly.

Provocative. Seeing "queer" projected to the mixed crowd before I walked off into the dimly night bothered me. I did not know the origin or the intent of whoever was using queer and what that might spark in someone that might find someone gay like me an easy target walking down a dark street. It put me on edge as someone that had been attacked for being gay before. It seemed careless  by whomever was behind it.

I have seen this referred to as The Troll. It would flash provocative messages at the crowds.

The Abbey At Westview Cemetery

You drive past the graves and monuments for awhile and then you see this. Photo by me, November 2012.

Just to the west of Downtown off Martin Luther King Drive is Atlanta's largest cemetery, Westview. It is also the largest in the Southeast. Westview might not be as well known as Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery on the southeast side of the city but it is just as historic and as interesting. Westview which has among its 100,000 inhabitants just as many famous Atlanta names as Oakland does but perhaps the location on the southwest side of the city keeps it from being so widely visited. Here you find the graves of Henry W. Grady, Robert Woodruff, Asa Candler, Ivan Allen Jr., Joel Chandler Harris, Robert Shaw and William B. Harstfield (certainly that name rings a bell) to name a few. Even the location of the cemetery is historic as a portion of the Battle of Ezra Church during the American Civil War was fought here. The cemetery was established in 1884.