As hopeful recipients of the Black Rock Arts Foundation Grants-to-Artists Program, Rebecca Anders, Yasmin Mawaz-Khan and Charles Gadeken are creating San Francisco Ocean Beach Fire Pits and here they are to tell you more about it:

The experience of building a fire at the ocean’s edge is as old as human time, and a much-beloved ritual on the San Francisco coastline. Ocean Beach Fire Pits are locally made sculptural fire pits made from cast concrete and designed to succeed in the harsh and extreme beach environment. Taking the form of Sea Stars and Fire Blooms these beautifully crafted, unique objects provide a valuable and accessible site of public interaction and connection. Already a success among the San Francisco community, the intentional welcoming aspect of the fire pits draw people together and encourage engagement between a diverse cross-section of beach visitors and the surrounding landscape.

So come and support them by attending this fundraiser so they can meet their goal and receive a matching grant from the Black Rock Arts Foundation.

In addition to telling you about our current Grant-to-Artist’s recipients, sometimes I will be introducing you to our prior recipients, and what they are doing now, and how they are growing as artists.

San Francisco Victory Garden

Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor, takes his turn with the trowel

After 10 days of incredible action—sod removal, bed and ground preparation, installation of irrigation lines and fencing, the building of a fantastic soap box—the lawn in front of San Francisco’s City Hall was transformed into the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden. It was a perfect planting day as 150 volunteers helped moved nearly 4,000 plants into their new homes. Teams divided into zones with their leaders and peacefully planted lettuce, tomatoes, beans, herbs, flowers and so much more. Good thoughts and prayers (including those from the next-door religious meeting) were had by all. Together, we built a “garden of communities,” as Victory Garden Manager John Bela calls it.
Written By Naomi Starkman

photos: Scott Chernis

I have been looking forward to giving you an update about how the Detroit Dream Project, Temple of the American Dream is benefitting the community. As you know, we have already had a dedication party, a wedding, a fashion shoot, and live music, and now:

The Detroit Hoopers are partnering with the Detroit Dream Project, Motor City Blight Busters and Society to Promote Art & Recreation in the Community (SPARC) to celebrate “World Hoop Day Detroit on August 8th, and host a hooping extravaganza at the Temple of the American Dream (in historic Old Redford). The event will include hooping lessons, prizes, a hoop jam and more.

IMG_9119, originally uploaded by taymar_burning_Man.

What could be more fun than hanging out with a bunch of Burners and watching a Burning Man movie together, seeing your favorite art piece again on the big screen or getting to whoop and holler when someone you know shows up bigger than life in front of you?

In the fall of 2005, along came the San Francisco Sneak Preview of Beyond Black Rock. I was the Wedding Coordinator for Burning Man at that time and one of “my” couples who had gotten married on the Playa the year before came to town from Texas, they were excited to be here and we were thrilled to see them in their Playaglam wear. The “Mighty” was packed and you could almost smell the playa dust in the room.

So, while you are gearing up for Burning Man this year, come have an off-playa taste of Burning Man. Come join us at the gorgeous, 1922 Castro Theatre where we will be viewing Voyage in Utopia. The website has clips of the movie, and commentary about the film, check it out.

This is what they’re saying about the film:

“Voyage in Utopia is a remarkable piece of story telling. It does what our event is said to do : it evokes the inexpressible, it invites imagination to inhabit the unknown”.
Larry Harvey, founder of Burning Man

“Lovely interpretation of who we are !”
Artist David Best, temple builder

“ I watched your film last night and was very moved. The cinematography is superb and the editing very intelligent. You really capture the feeling of being on the playa, the emotional drama, and what we’re really all about in terms of the community and our principles. Bravo! ”
Christine Kristen aka LadyBee, Art Curator of Burning Man

“One of the best films about Burning Man I’ve ever seen!”
Andie Grace aka Actiongrl, Communications Manager of Burning Man

“Forget John Ford or better yet Sergio Leone, Laurent Le Gall’s “Voyage in Utopia” captures le coeur of the real Wild West : The Good, The Bad and The Otherwordly in the Black Rock Desert. Giddy-up!”
Jane Sullivan Director, Santa Cruz Film Festival

French Filmmaker, Laurent le Gall, and artist and Temple Builder, David Best, will be introducing the film and will be available for Q and A after the screening.

“Burning Man: Voyage in Utopia”

Castro Theatre in San Francisco (429 Castro Street)

Friday, July 18, at 8:00pm

There are three ticket options:

Regular Admission
Film Premiere Screening and Discussion, 8pm – $10

VIP Reception:
with Film Maker Laurent le Gall & Artist David Best, 6-7:30pm in the theater mezzanine
Includes hosted bar, appetizers and reserved seating. Benefits the Black Rock Arts Foundation. – $75*

Host VIP Reception:
Includes all of the above plus premiere seating, Director & Artist-signed DVD, name ID at the venue) – $150*

*$50 of each VIP ticket sold benefits the Black Rock Arts Foundation and is tax deductible.

Tickets

To see a review of the film:
http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/pixel_vision/2008/07/new_film_celebrates_burning_ma.html

After party at the Cafe Flore www.cafeflore.com/index.html

photo: Scott London

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, check out the BRAF Grants-to-Artists recipient, Primal Source by Usman Haque at the Santa Monica Glow Festival, which is free to the public.

and then again on:

Figment Festival 2008, originally uploaded by heatherwhitephoto.

City of Dreams Mini-Golf is a project of Figment, an annual celebration of participatory arts that takes place on Governors Island. FIGMENT is a free, non-profit, volunteer-planned public participatory art event.

Figment Festival 2008, originally uploaded by heatherwhitephoto.

Another recipient of our Grants to Artists program is City of Dreams Mini-Golf. The nine-hole mini golf course is located on Governors Island – FREE and open to the public Fridays through Sunday until October 5, 2008.

Nine different artists (or groups of artists) each designed and built one hole of the City of Dreams Mini-Golf. The project is an example of artists working separately, yet together creating a collaborative work of playable, interactive public art.

http://www.figmentnyc.org/2008/projects/minigolf.html

We want you to introduce you to our grant recipients, so this is the first in our series “Meet Our Grantees”. Some of our posts will be about our 2008 grant recipients, and some posts will be about some of our earlier grant recipients and the work they are doing now. So hang on, there is a lots of fabulous public, interactive and temporary art out there, and we are excited to share it with you.

So the first grantee we are going to tell you about is Emergence …a summer exhibition of experimental and participatory art involving more than 30 artists/collectives, with a strong emphasis on audience and artist interaction. The exhibition opened on May 31st coinciding with the grand opening of Governors Island to visitors for the season and runs through July 26, 2008. Bex, our friend and blogger over at the Burning Blog, the Burning Man blog, visited Emergence and loved the experience of visiting the old Victorian House chock full of temporary interactive art, with over 30 individual installations and over 40 artists that have come together to create a temporary interactive art house for 9 weeks.

Check out this video, one of several on the Emergence website to hear more about the exhibition:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v14243056X39tY9aZ

And here are photos of a couple of photos from the exhibition just to give you a taste of the variety of artists and installations.
The Friendly Falcons and Their Friend the Snake (Jeff Kurosaki & Tara Pelletier), a game show

Peripheral Media Projects (Garrison Buxton & Ray Cross), the participants can arrange the various hexagons 98° (Sarah Nicole Phillips), when participants touch the print, their body heat can make the image disappear

Saviour Scraps, partipants are invited to bring scraps of material to weave a fantastical environment

-affinity

photos: Emergence
video: Hsuan-Yu Pan

On a cold and foggy day in San Francisco it was time to pull out the grills, fill up the ice chest and welcome Burning Man participants, new and old.

Josie and Jewel got out their fabric and embroidery hoops and invited one and all to participate in making flags for Scrap Eden on the Playa. Here’s Josie, deep in crafting mode.

Learn more about the Scrap Eden on the Playa 2008 project.

I promised you a wedding and other community events from the Dedication in Detroit. First, check out this video: http://tinyurl.com/6rufpl

And, then direct from Fuzzytek, a Detroit City Photographer and Doxie one of the team members of the Detroit Dream Project, here you go…

The celebration of completing the build for the Detroit Dream Project took many forms. For Greg and Angela it was their wedding day, surrounded by friends. The rain came in the afternoon and most went home, but not for long. Gina came over after doing makeup for the performers at the Redford Theater. She brought a couple models to shoot Identity Fashions at the temple as sunset fell. At night performers spun a glow of flame near the structure as it was lit with colored LEDs.
– Fuzzytek

It was a lovely first day of summer though rains clouds danced above our heads. Despite that we started the days events with everyone doing a Tip Toe Parade led by Warrior Girl around the block that weaved everyone through the Temple to ring a Tibetan bell to start the wedding of Gregg and Angela from Detroit Evolution Lab. The wedding was a beautiful ceremony bearing witness to their amazing partnership and love. It was an honor to behold. The rains held off until just after the ceremony. The crowds cleared for a few hours to return at dusk to start the evenings events! As Blight Busters 20th anniversary events surrounded the Temple we entertained passers by and the curious with glowing poi and fires show of hoops and staff and Strings of Fire performed soulful violin and dancing fire! It was a heart warming to see all the friendships built between the members of the Brightmoor and Michigan Burning Man communities over the last two years gather and celebrate on that beautiful and warm midsummer solstice evening!
~doxie
(danielle kaltz)

And for more news:

http://www.readthespirit.com/explore/2008/06/194-we-just-hav.html

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080619/LIFESTYLE/806190395

photos: Fuzzytek Photography LLC – All Rights Reserved

-affinity