ChromaTweet

I took a girlfriend to Dumbo last weekend. It was her first time off Manhattan! There is always something interesting happening on the street over there. This installation was a remnant of the recent DUMBO Arts Festival. Alexsander Macasev has brought into the public sphere two years of his "chromatweets," swatches of color he picks at the end of each day to best represent his moods and feelings on that day then posted onto his nano blog. The title of each post is the hexadecimal code of each color. No words, no explanation, just a block of color. This daily visual representation compresses everything into one piece of information: color. You can see the blog here. 

The project is currently 400 feet long and hugs a beautiful historic building. It looks like a glorious pms swatch sheet, as you see each daily "entry" next to each other and follow how the artist's mood changes over the days and months. His only rules? No black (000000) or white (FFFFFF)!

Merry Go Round

You may remember my post here about Jane Walentas' beautiful restoration of an old carousel she recovered in Ohio. When I wrote that post, it was still waiting for a home. Well, now it has one. And probably with one of the best views of Manhattan. Located in a beautiful, simple glass "box" in Brooklyn Bridge Park, Famed architect Jean Nouvel has designed a pavilion that will amaze adults while the kids delight in finally riding the restored ponies.

images: (1) jane's carousel, (2-5) mine

Ride a Restored Pony

Last summer, I had the great pleasure of meeting David and Jane Walentas. David is a big property developer and the owner of the Bridgehampton Polo Club property called Two Trees, and Jane is an ex Clinique art director and restorer of a beautiful carousel, known simply as Jane's carousel.

Jane found the dilapidated carousel down in Ohio. Apparently it had been part of an amusement park there for 62 years before the park burned down. Jane purchased it in 1984, and for the past two decades has meticulously restored it to its former glory. The carousel comprises of 48 horses leafed in 24 karat gold and encrusted in jewels, with 2 chariots and 1200 lights.

The carousel currently resides in the gallery space of an old warehouse in DUMBO, that super cool, arty enclave just on the other side of the Manhattan Bridge. As an aside, David owns most of the property there and was actually one of the founders of DUMBO. He wanted to make it into an artistic haven close to Manhattan, so rents out prime warehouse space to struggling artists, thus fostering a thriving and affordable artistic community.

At the moment, the carousel is for viewing only, as the space is too small to ride it. However, Jane and David are donating the carousel to DUMBO and have commissioned French architect Jean Nouvel to design a glass pavilion in which to house the carousel.  There are no images yet for what this will look like, but it will be positioned close to the waterfront under the Brooklyn Bridge where "generations of children" who visit the park can enjoy a ride on a impeccably restored pony.

Images: Jane's carousel, brooklyn papers, janes carousel, flickr