It revolves, but I wouldn’t refer to it as revolutionary.

Florence based architect David Fisher’s novel idea for a skyscraper leaves me scratching my scalp. The structure will be constructed by factories in Italy, already gearing up for the project, as pods which will be transported to Dubai. Authorities in Dubai haven’t yet signed off on the deal according to The Independent, nor has financing been firmed up. Says the architect:

Today’s life is dynamic, so the space we are living in should be dynamic as well. Buildings will follow rhythms of nature. They will change direction and shape from spring to summer, from sunrise to sunset, and adjust themselves to the weather. In other words, buildings will be alive.

I admire the man’s desire to think outside of the box, but this project isn’t anything more than gimmicky in my opinion. I like it as sculpture, but as a building it seems to placate an impatient, technology saturated culture. Actually living in the thing — it’s being built as condos — seems impractical.

For instance, what happens if I want to watch the sunset from my 40th floor home? Will I have to walk along the outside wall as my floor turns in order to see the clouds change colors? What if there are interior walls that go clear to the exterior wall and I can’t stroll along like I want to? Can I turn the revolving feature off?

One idea I like in this project is the plan to put wind driven turbines in between each floor to generate energy. I’m worried about possible noise from such a feature, but a self-sufficient building is a good design to pursue on this scale. Solar panels will also be used on the “roof,” although I can’t tell where the roof is on the morphing tower.

I suppose, however, I’m not the target market for this kind of dwelling anyway. I’m confident it will be way out of my budget, and moving to the desert isn’t something I plan to do on purpose either.

Last evening ABC World News reported on more sour real estate statistics. Prices are down almost 27% in Miami and Vegas, and a number other places have also seen 20-plus percent drops in value — although sales were higher in April than they have been recently. They really made it sound just terrible, as though the entire nation were in the grips of an armageddon.

While visiting little Kearney, Nebraska, in May for my sister’s graduation, the local newspaper featured a story titled Housing Slump? Not in Kearney. The front page article then proceeded to report that sales are up in this university town of 25,000 people. Not only that, prices are up, about $10,000 (~8%) on the average home over the last year.

Houses in Kearney are selling more quickly as well, in an average of 83 days in 2008 compared to 113 days last year. Local realtor board president Steve Coram was indignant, making it clear that there’s no such thing as a national real estate market. “Local economies drive real estate, so our market should not be judged based on what’s happening somewhere else” he said.

I’m prone to spout generalizations as much as the next person, but why must the national media insist on making such broad and inaccurate, or at the least incomplete, statements? This kind of reporting feeds an unwanted hysteria that births self-fulfilling prophecies. ABC World News, in my experience, isn’t averse to reporting on positive and less sensational items. Why then don’t they, along with other national media outlets (NPR, as I recall, is just as guilty on this particular issue), talk about this real estate mess on balanced terms? If this one somewhat innocuous midwestern housing market is bucking the mortgage mess in the larger markets, surely there are other such communities as well.

And isn’t it more interesting news to talk about the fish that swim upstream anyway?

I understand that evening news programs on television have very limited airtime, but they can do better than this. They need to do better than this.

This post elaborates on the link I posted two days ago to a CNN.com story titled Is America’s suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? I’m going to look in particular at how the article relates to little Siloam Springs.

Change is knocking down the door and it’s for the best. According to Brookings Institution fellow Christopher Leinberger, “35% of the nation’s wealth has been invested in constructing this drivable suburban landscape.” I’d like to know how and where he gets this information (I’m always very skeptical about statistics), but it’s easy for me to believe.

The article goes on to cite “recent market research” that indicates 40% of households in metropolitan areas want to live in walkable places. Real estate in such areas is 40-200% higher than traditional suburban neighborhoods.

In my mind these trends come back to — whether this is collectively conscious or subconscious — two things. One relates to the unsustainability of the suburban landscape in its present form, the other to lack of community between the two environments.

Suburbia was created around the idea of the personal automobile. As I’ve said already this year, cars aren’t in and of themselves a bad thing; over-reliance on them is. Building cities to accommodate cars instead of people is a bad thing. Our car-culture contributes to laziness and health problems that previous generations weren’t familiar with. An auto-slash-petroleum based suburbia just isn’t sustainable.

Nor is it desirable. It’s just too easy to pull into your attached garage after a long, mostly sedentary day at the bureaucracy, pick up the battery operated hand and finger exercise machine (aka “remote”) and hunker down like a recluse. And even if we do go outside, we hide behind our privacy fences. I know this is an oversimplification, but it’s partly true. This isolation is a bad thing.

Siloam Springs isn’t exactly the stereotypical vision of American suburbia. There are some newer subdivisions on the outskirts of the community that look like typical suburban neighborhoods, but most of the 14,000 people live near enough to the center of town, to historical areas, that it’s hard to think of it in such terms.

The problem is that the center of town doesn’t function like the center of town anymore. I live in a very central location, but basic services are just a little outside of walking distance. To the south. The center is east of my house. The post office and two grocers (to the south) are just beyond a ten minute stroll, but they themselves are another ten minutes apart. They should be next to each other. And for anyone who lives farther north in Siloam Springs than I do — which is a lot of people — walking to any grocery store or the post office could end up taking a quarter of a day. Most of the city’s services are located, in typical suburban fashion, along the highway which runs through town.

I’m not certain of how many years Siloam has officially employed a city planner. Right now they have two. I’m guessing the city planning commission is an older institution in the community, which is made up of interested citizens, none of whom (as far as I know) possess any education in how to guide a city in its growth (or shrinkage). Regardless, the past officeholders would have done best to plan into the future, setting aside certain spaces for commercial and retail use to be surrounded by residential areas — and parks. For a ville like Siloam Springs, of 14,000 people at current density levels, I’m guessing three such nodes would suffice.

That’s if the planning commission had wooed development into a well-structured pattern. It’s much more difficult and expensive to change a city’s landscape after it’s been built, but what would it look like if Siloam Springs wanted to redesign itself, turn itself into a walkable, less car-dependent and more beautiful, therefore, community?

Making Siloam’s residential population more compact is probably not a realistic option at this point. An easier idea, it seems to me, would be moving existing businesses into newly designed nodes. Under present circumstances, four or five such commercial/retail spaces should suffice, each located in a different sector of town. Each such district should include a number of basic services. Were I to, off-hand, follow this line of thinking, I might center three nodes around existing grocers: Wal-Mart on the east side, IGA in the middle and Price Cutter on the west side. This still leaves a large part of the population on the north side unserviced, however. A decent place for a new hub on this side of town might be at Hico and Cheri Whitlock.

All of this wrangling over nodes and hubs is useless, though, if there aren’t sidewalks and trails leading to them. Siloam Springs has dropped the ball in the sidewalk department. I have friends within three blocks of the IGA who are scared to walk over there with their young children in tow because there are no sidewalks, and the roads are narrow besides. What an insane waste to drive three blocks when you don’t have to!

Even if ideas like the one I’ve just proposed are easier than complete upheaval in a community (i.e. residential rearrangement), they are still complicated, drawn out and expensive. People in town become very defensive when these kinds of proposals start flying around. I’m convinced, though, that changes like the ones I’ve brainstormed here will only improve the community.

Siloam Springs just released their 2030 plan in March. I haven’t looked over it yet, and even though I have faith in our long-term planner, Ben Rhodes, I’m not sure I’ll like what I see in the plan. A lot of planning is taking into account what those pesky residents suggest, or deter. Ben and I might want something very different from a lot of people in town. And a lot of the more powerful people in town are more likely to be “established,” and “established” citizens are stereotypically against change of most any kind.

And then there are the politics of such things.

The dream of white picket fences is turning into a suburban nightmare as a result of the sub-prime mortgage scandal. McMansions may soon morph into apartment buildings. The face of suburbia is changing, as is the American dream. Younger generations, this CNN story reminds us, are opting for New Urbanism. I’ll elaborate on this in a later post. Via the Wolfeden.

Green Inventions Central explores the idea of meals and liturgy. She looks at two books in her post, Margaret Peterson’s Keeping House and Mark Galli’s Beyond Smells and Bells: The wonder and power of Christian liturgy. From Peterson’s book:

In the modern American culture, in which ‘busyness’ can seem simultaneously like the badge of a good life and like a curse that is impossible to escape, finding time to eat or to feed others can become a challenge. People eat on the run; they feed their children in the car; they skip breakfast, eat lunch at their desks, and panic when it is dinnertime.

She contrasts this with Galli’s classification of Sunday morning services — “gathering, word, sacrament, dismissal” — and seeks to apply Sunday liturgy to the evening dinner table.

Bob Barker is at odds with Iraqi culture. Neutering dogs is a foreign idea to people in Baghdad, where veterinarians are more like matchmakers than caretakers.

Carfree Tokyo linked back to me and reminded me of this James Kunstler podcast, The Tragedy of Suburbia, which I mentioned in March. I re-watched it today and thought this quote was worth sharing:

This [slide] happens to be the asteroid belt of architectural garbage two miles north of my town, and remember, to create a place of character and quality, you have to be able to define space. So how is that being accomplished here? If you stand on the apron of the Wal-Mart over here, and try to look at the Target store over here, you can’t see it because of the curvature of the Earth. That’s nature’s way of telling you that you’re doing a poor job of defining space.

Emphasis mine. I laughed out loud at the asteroid and Earth curvature commentary. Kunstler lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.

A disclaimer, this post is not intended to be an affront to Catholics. Please keep this in mind while reading the following entry which does discuss the denomination, as evidenced by the title above, and feel free to correct me on any points where I may have misrepresented any related doctrine or theology espoused by the Catholic Church.

A story via ArtsJournal reports the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue is at it again. I mentioned him last year when he raised Cain over Cosimo Cavallaro’s Sweet Jesus.

Donahue and the League are upset about a series of paintings by one Felipe Baeza, a student at the private Cooper Union. Baeza’s offending works combine erotic images with traditionally Catholic symbols such as rosary beads and a Crucifix. I haven’t seen the paintings in question, and by their description have no desire to see them, but I don’t agree with the Catholic League’s approach to these exhibits. Donahue also lead other recent protests against questionable art, such as Brooklyn Museum’s Sensation exhibit and Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ.

By no means do I condone the way the assumed subject matter in works such as Baeza’s — based on description alone, mind you — is presented. I did a Google search for some images of the paintings but, thankfully, didn’t come up with anything. I did find his Facebook profile, and the following painting which seems to be by the same man:

[Per a comment from a friend of Baeza's on another site — which I've added to this post — I removed the image after receiving clarification that it was not done by this particular Felipe Baeza.]

I’m not a fan of censorship, but there is a balance to be struck between an artist’s exploration in subject and media, and resulting useful (read in part, “tactful”) artwork. It’s not too difficult to think of the messages Baeza might be trying to get across when reading slightly more elaborate descriptions of these paintings than I’ve posted here, but I can’t help but think he could have approached his canvases in a more deft manner. I’m not suggesting here that an artist change their intent, merely that they rework their presentation. Difficult (but still valid) subjects aren’t easy or fun to look at either way; works that come across as overtly sensational probably won’t garner enough respect to communicate to the generally hoped-for broad audience.

Regardless, I don’t think people in the Church, Catholic or otherwise, have much right to complain about works of art that don’t exactly put the best face on this fallible institution. The manner in which such artistic commentary is crafted might be worth noting, but not necessarily making public statements about — which I’ll get into shortly.

Referring back to Donahue’s criticisms, perhaps he believes his own denomination to be Divine and therefore infallible. I’ve known of Catholics with this attitude, although I don’t sense it’s a prevailing conviction. If I may be so bold, this would in fact be a naive belief, and I don’t understand how anyone could presently think so highly of the Catholic Church in light of the recent scandals that — unfortunately — plagued this enduring institution. No part of the Body of Christ can say with a straight face that they or their particular congregation has not made certain gross missteps along the way. I’ve grown up in, and still attend, non-denominational churches where scandals also mar the image of the Body. All such circumstances do harm to the name of our Holy God, which goes without saying. We are all guilty. We are all human.

However, this naive understanding is the only way I can validate The Catholic League’s public criticisms of such “ugly” paintings. Making formal statements against these exhibits only heightens awareness of them. This creates more publicity for the artist, which aids his or her career — unless they only intend to market themselves to a very narrow group of people — likely encouraging them to create additional similar pieces. With few exceptions, all publicity is good publicity. It seems to me that Donahue and the League are inadvertently doing themselves and their cause a disservice. Were they to keep quiet about the artworks, or keep their discussion and disgust internal, it’s much more likely such shows will go unnoticed. I’d never heard of Cooper Union before today, and were it not for the fuss raised by Donahue I would probably still be ignorant.

Art has historically addressed social and political ideas. It will likely continue to do so within its cycles. The Church’s past and recent Faux pas will remain potential targets, so to speak, for paintings and sculptures, just like war, politics and other cultural ills. Artists have every right to broach these subjects. The ones that do so in a respectable way will likely be the ones named in history books.

The price of gas seems to have become reasonable filler for news reports. The following are a few observations from these reports.

* Ridership on public transit is going up, up, up.
* Sales of scooters are on the rise.
* A California man decided to bike 42 miles one way to work for a month — partly because he’d always wanted to, but in the process he’s saving about $400.
* One investigative story found that the price of fuel is artificially high. Yes, there is more demand than ever worldwide, but what Americans are paying now is more a function of other bureaucratic and speculative nuances than simple supply and demand.
* GM is closing four manufacturing facilities, all ones that produce large vehicles. And, heaven forbid, they may also discontinue the conspicuous Hummer.

In April I asked “Will the financial strain actually change the way we live?” So it seems the painful price of petrol is forcing people to make adjustments, positive adjustments. My next question is, then, will this change be long-lasting? If the price of gas returns to the low *cough* neighborhood of $2.00/gallon, will Americans stick with the changes they made when costs were high? Will those who moved closer to work move back to the burbs? Will trains and buses have empty seats again? Will General Motors bring back the big cars?

The prices don’t effect my wife and I quite as much as some. I already bike to work whenever I can — because I like to — and the drive from home to office is barely a mile as it is. This whole ordeal interests me, instead, because of its relationship to how we live and design/build our communities in the United States. I would love to see a cultural shift take place. If the cost of gas is the impetus for this change, great. I’m convinced that a pedestrian/transit oriented culture is better for community and also better for the visual environment. I don’t expect cars to go away; they are a useful technology. But they are also overused in our culture, so much so that they have, in essence, taken over.

A few past posts on petrol pain from The Aesthetic Elevator:

Will costs really force a change?
Gas prices cause Dallasite to move
Ethanol a Symptom: Get to the root cause

Some older news items, but still worth noting.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” Two of the top dogs in Al-Qaida disagree on the use of jihad. One of them, an architect of the terrorist group’s present incarnation, recently changed his stance on the use of force.

I don’t know much about her, but Rachel Ray is not a terrorist. And Dunkn’ Donuts should be ashamed of themselves for pulling this ad based on such tangential circumstances. Heard this first on ABC World News, saw it again today on Iconia.

London rejects donation of $2.5 million sculpture. Apparently they “felt there were no suitable sites currently available for such a large and dominating sculpture.” I would generally encourage creation of suitable sites for respectable, donated artworks. Couldn’t the Westminster Council have found a generous land-owner to donate a parcel for a park to place the behemoth upon? I’m not personally that fond of the angular steel piece, but it seems to be worth considering.

This post has to be the winner for “Longest Title” among all of the entries I’ve made to this blog so far. From Bloomberg, this is an interesting article about American collectors being called on to purchase Muslim art. Most of the writing focuses on the business aspect of a venture by the al-Shroogi family, who owns the Cuadro Fine Art Gallery in Dubai.

More interesting, however, than the article’s discussion about marketing Islamic art to Westerners — and the fact that there are indeed modern Muslim artists — is some very brief commentary about art and culture:

“Imagine, Muslim artwork hanging in Naples [Florida],” al-Shroogi says through a radio headset. “We need to do more of this,” the Bahraini banker adds as the aircraft laden with modern and contemporary Islamic art makes its final approach on a family expedition to convince Americans that the Middle East is more than a terrorist hatchery . . .

It’s an undertaking born from the al-Shroogi clan’s passion for art, the patronage of Bahrain’s royal family and the conviction that the Islamic nation a few miles off the Saudi Arabian coast has the muscle to build a genuine cultural bridge between the U.S. and the Muslim world.

Can art actually bridge cultures, and what exactly does that mean? Will Westerners think differently about the Middle East if they look at a few paintings by Muslim artists? The possibility exists for this; remember my February post regarding a Jewish atheist deeply moved by a 600 year old altarpiece.

Painting by John Torreano exhibited at the Cuadro gallery in Dubai.

The tactile arts are important to culture and communication, despite the anaemic attitude towards serious artistic endeavors in the American Church, generally speaking. Significant new paintings and sculptures created by artists of faith intently pursuing careers as artists, engaging the culture and furthering their craft, are needed in the Church as an intentional witness to culture here and abroad.

I remember hearing a story at conference in Portland a few years ago about a couple who went into the desert of Africa as missionaries. The wife served as a doctor, and the husband worked as an artist. He set up a studio in a shipping crate and made art for a year or so. At the end of the year he held a show for the community. I don’t know how many pieces there were, what the media was or what they looked like. My impression, if I recall correctly, was that they weren’t simple Sunday School drawings. They were more likely contemporary works. Regardless, the media reportedly conveyed the Gospel to that community in an effective way.

Take note, pastors. Take note, Church leadership and parishioners. What can you do to help make the name of God better through the arts? First off, make certain your own attitude is positive toward the arts. Educate yourself as to the importance of art in culture and Christianity. You don’t need a degree to appreciate art. Understand that it is OK if a person wants to create abstract paintings that aren’t about Bible verses; understand that it’s OK if someone wants to be a full-time artist. This is not a cop-out, it’s not laziness. Yes, it’s hard to make a living at times, but if society changes how it thinks about art and artists this won’t so often be the case.

Further, encourage aspiring or practicing artists in your congregation, and make sure they know there are others like them. Organize exhibits of paintings and sculptures; organize small groups so creative people can encourage one another. Allow the artists you know freedom to push your own boundaries. Yes, there are appropriate limits, but creativity begs new ideas and reminds us of how we are created in the Creator’s likeness. Don’t poo-poo something just because it makes you uncomfortable or isn’t your own taste, and feel free to engage in significant and witty critique in order to better understand such works.

I have to laugh every time I glance in the youth room at our church, where a mixed media work I donated hangs. When I first saw it there — instead of in a more public space such as a hallway or foyer — I wasn’t in the least surprised, but I was disappointed. It’s well crafted and blatantly Scriptural. My hope was that it would be hung in a place visible to anyone in the church at any time as something to meditate on.

Moth Mend, 2006. Moth-eaten sweaters, new red silk, paint.

I can laugh at the typographical triptych’s placement within my own church because I expected it, sadly, but I hold no grudge and hope that the kids who see it on a weekly basis are encouraged by it. I also hope, however, that the American Church soon comes to realize that segregating the palpable world from the spiritual world is just bad theology. It is OK to be “in” the world, even if we aren’t supposed to be “of” it. It is OK to be a part of culture in a non-pious context — in fact, it’s good to be involved in this way. How else are we going to show the love of God to the skeptics, to the people averse to church or Christianity?

I originally saw the Bloomberg article on Iconia.

Americans generally like to spout their opinions. We’re not shy about the teams we cheer for, the brands we love or the states we hail from. I’m reminded off-hand of San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, haughtily exclaiming “As California goes, so goes the nation,” last week.

Speaking about the arts is different than touting your favorite football team though. With a variety of styles and innumerable personal aesthetics in the visual world, artistic critique is more complex (it seems to me) than being high on your home state, something that probably owes more to our roots.

Over Easter dinner we talked briefly with new friends about visually inclined people’s tendency to critique the things and environments around them. The question was, in essence, How do we as artists, designers, architects offer constructive criticism without coming across in an oppressive or negative manner?

As an art and architecture student I learned to take criticism. Architecture projects were judged by local and visiting professors. Art studios were usually classroom affairs, where all of the students were expected to contribute to the discussion. There are a few keys to gracefully receiving other people’s opinions about your own work, or your own home decor, or fashion sense, et cetera. Two are most important. First of all, don’t take things personally (as much as this is possible, which varies for different personalities). Secondly, try and learn to discern when people are giving constructive criticism and when they are speaking out of their own aesthetic. In other words, as an artist we need to be able to take the best advice with us and know what to leave behind.

As an artist and person interested in all things visual, I’m also practiced in giving criticism. Often this happens unintentionally, and some of the time it’s solicited. Being so innately involved with the visual environment I — and others like me — are predisposed to making observations other people are less likely to make. A lot of these observations I keep to myself, but not all of them. This is where tact comes in. If I’m with friends or among other artistic types I will be less reserved, naturally. If I’m with people I don’t know or people I know who might misunderstand my noble intentions, I’m more likely to keep my trap shut. Hopefully my non-verbal language is tactful as well. I’m no good at all with putting on airs. Even if I’m not saying anything, I fear my body language or countenance give away my lack of interest or distaste. Although I don’t recall anyone ever actually telling me this.

Then how do we speak tactfully about the arts? The following is a list I devised of my own experiences on how to be a good critiquer:

* Be aware of when you’re reacting to an artwork through the lens of your own personal aesthetic. This is most if not all of the time. There is nothing wrong with this, but it can cause you to say things that don’t benefit the broader discussion.

* Focus on formal elements such as line, color, and composition, but don’t ignore conceptual elements. Ask questions about the artist’s concept, their inspiration. This can shed an entirely new light on a painting or sculpture. Some of Frida Khalo’s work comes across as more than a little macabre if you don’t know about her background, as an example.

* Comment on both successful and problematic areas of a piece. Look for the successes first.

* Think of “constructive” criticism as much as possible. Give suggestions based on proven principles. Don’t just say “I don’t like this color.” Say instead, “That color would be more appealing or dynamic if . . . “

These principles, I think, will help a person avoid becoming critical about most things most of the time almost always in a negative way. I’ve known a few people like this, and I just can’t imagine life is enjoyable for them on the whole — and certainly not for the people around them. Please feel free to add to my list or shuffle it around in the comments if I’ve left something out. I probably have.