Author Archives: Ann

Final Community Dinner of Spring Semester, May 10, 2017: Seafood paella, fire, music!

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It looked like rain, so we decided to hold the feast inside, including seafood paella, by podmate Logan’s visiting girlfriend Stefania, who hails from Spain.

Just prior to dinner, Mariella decided to do a little video, “for my friends,” she said, “who wonder why I talk about Green Acres Village.” Her project caught me, for one, by surprise. My distaste for the camera at that moment is obvious here. Not sure why I felt that way. And I’ve never seen myself feel that way — from the outside. WOW!

Anyway, here it is, our first village video, uploaded to youtube:

There were so many of us, and we were all restless and hot, wanting to be outside, and it didn’t seem like rain after all . . . Evan decided to make a fire in the fire pit. That got us going. Within minutes we were all, including four dogs, sitting on the patio.

Tim is obviously a dog magnet.

So is Evan. While Logan began the singing and thrumming — all original songs, by the way — my Shadow was about to hop onto Evan’s lap.

Yup! (See them both, slightly right of center.)

Meanwhile, Mariella’s son Juakim decided to play . . . what? Darth Vader?

 

Juakim is being mentored by Eva’s teenage son Andrew. Hmmmm. . .

Soon, darkness stole in.

 

And it was Bryn’s turn to sing and play — again, as with Logan, original songs, some hilarious, others wrenched from the painful journeys of truly human beings.

 

 

I can’t emphasize enough how wonderfully musical and authentic — even, at times, breathtaking! — I find the compositions and renditions of both of them. Hopefully, we’ll be soon videotaping their spontaneous performances, to put up here on the Green Acres Village website, under a new category: ART, which will also include poetry, drawings, painting, sculpture. You name it! We got it. Just like all people’s the world over, our creativity, once unleashed, is protean.

The music lasted into the night, wafting out of the darkness through my open bedroom windows, lulling me to sleep.

 

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Village News, mid-April: (Chinese!) Community Dinner, Tunnel Project news, weekend work party

By 2 commentsAssociation, Village

Big news in the Village this week. First of all, new housemate Evan, who works as an airline steward for United Airlines flying in and out of China, agreed to take the lead for Wednesday’s Community Dinner, and decided that the main dish would be “twice-cooked pork.” Here are some notes I found on the kitchen table, written partly in Chinese!

When the day came, he called in a Chinese friend and they made the delicious dish, which took quite a while and everybody loved it. “That’s good,” he confided afterwards. “Sometimes when I make it for Americans they don’t eat it!”

At the dinner, our first patio party of 2017, and during which I totally forgot to take pictures, we heard from two city employees:  Sean, of the Sustainability Department, and Beth, of the Planning and Transportation Department, about the city’s decision to create a mural for all 2800 feet (both sides) of the long tunnel under the bypass at the end of 7th Street (not much more than a stone’s throw from here). Here’s the official invitation sent out to artists.

 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :

April 7, 2017

For more information, please contact:

Sean Starowitz, Assistant Director of Economic & Sustainable Development for the Arts, starowis@bloomington.in.gov, 812-349-3534

Call to Artists: Mural Project on 7th Street Underpass

Bloomington, Ind. – The City of Bloomington Planning and Transportation Department, in collaboration with the City’s Economic & Sustainable Development Department, is issuing a call for artist qualifications for a mural to be located at the 7th Street underpass.

Mural Details:

  • The goal of the mural is to provide an innovative and strong work of public art to the residents of Bloomington, IN.

  • The mural is to be painted on concrete – see images

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  • The artist will be expected to engage neighborhood residents in the installation of the mural.

  • The mural space is approximately 2,300 sq.ft. Detailed measurements provided upon request.

  • There is no application fee.

  • Proposal deadline: 5:00 p.m. on Friday, May 5th, 2017.

Stipend:

Artist will receive $2,500. This amount includes all artist fees, material and equipment purchases to complete the mural. Payment will be upon completion.

Completion Date: All work must be completed prior to June 30th, 2017.

WHAT TO SEND:

The written proposal contact information:

  • Full name

  • Address

  • Telephone number

  • Email address

  • Illustrations of the proposed mural. Submissions must contain between 1 and 5 sketches or digital renderings of the proposed mural. These are not final renderings, as a public process will have to take place.

A description of the proposed work. Please include the following descriptions:

  • An artist statement describing mural experience and interest in the project.

  • A description of the concepts in the proposed mural.

Support materials/previous work:

  • Proposals should be accompanied by 5 to 10 images of previous work.

  • Resume – maximum 2 pages

  • Files should be submitted in a .pdf format and will be acknowledged upon receipt.

Selection:

The artist will be selected by a panel consisting of staff from the Planning and Transportation Department, a member from the Green Acres Neighborhood Association, members of the Bloomington Arts Commission, and City staff.

Submissions must be received by 5:00 p.m. on May 5th. Artists will be notified about the selection by Friday, May 12th. Send electronic submissions to starowis@bloomington.in.gov with subject line stating RFQ – 7th Street.

If you have any questions or concerns, contact Sean Starowitz at 812-349-3534.


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Green Acres Villager Mariella has agreed to be our neighborhood rep on the Tunnel Project committee. YES!

Mariella has been planning a move from one house into the house adjacent (it’s bigger) for some time. And I’ve been telling her to let us know, because there are plenty of people who would offer to help. So she did! Yesterday puppy Shadow and I walked over to her house (about a block and a half away) with housemate Dan, and met up with Mariella, her kids, Katarina and Brian. Eva and her kids were due to come as well. I moved all her plants, transfered coats from front closet of first house to second house, and unpacked her dishes.

Others did the “heavy lifting.”

Then we celebrated with beer, wine, and chips.

“This morning, son Colin brought over a pizza for lunch, and stayed for an hour of more heavy lifting. (He also fixed a basement window that somehow got stuck open.) Rebecca was also going to help at some point today. I forgot to take pictures this morning.

Oh and one more note: Mariella told me that Evan walked over with a blanket and leftovers for her from the Wednesday dinner late that same night, since she had just returned from a work trip,  exhausted, hungry, and with no blankets for her new bed.

What’s a village without sharing and caring?

 

 

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Good News for the “Healing Our Borders” initial project — and more

By Association, Urban Farm, Village

It’s so wonderful when local good news crowds out the craziness that infects our larger world.

Two years ago, we conceived the idea of a project to “Heal our Borders” after the widening of the Bypass at the eastern edge of our neighborhood took out perhaps 100 trees. The project was ambitious, consisting of five signs at various entrances of Green Acres, a tiny park in the area where the tunnel under the Bypass on 7th street connects our neighborhood to the one to the east of the Bypass, and a project to create murals on the tunnel itself.

The first part of the project, though strenuous, came off without a hitch — until one of the signs was stolen! And now returned. Which accounts for the “good news.”

Good News Finale for Green Acres Sign Saga

The City is now constructing the second part by first of all extending a path from 7th Street to the tunnel (to compliment the path from 8th to the tunnel). And the third part, painting a mural inside the tunnel is about to commence.

So yes, after two years the City has now decided to respond to our request to design and paint a mural inside the tunnel that connects the eastern edge of our neighborhood to the Park Ridge Neighborhood on the other side of the Bypass. Very exciting.

We will gather at our weekly Community Dinner here next Wednesday to meet with Seth and Beth from the City and discuss possible design ideas and artistic possibilities, plus various ways neighbors can get involved in the project.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos from this past Wednesday’s meal,

 

a few more from the Wednesday before that, taken by Brie’s mom Cindy,

 

 

 

and several more from yesterday evening, after Dan-de-lion Dan (on right) and new housemate Evan (and old friend of both Dan and Logan (on guitar above) collected dandelions for dandelion wine. (Brie has moved out for now, to live up north with her parents for awhile.)

 

 

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