Combining Her Passions For Pedaling And Painting

Perhaps it's because I've lived in New York most of my life: For me, bicycling and public art have become more and more intertwined.

These days, however, one doesn't have to go to biketopias like Portland or Amsterdam or art havens like Paris or New York to experience murals, large sculptures or installations during a ride.  It seems that smaller 'burgs are getting in on the idea of combining the two.  I think it has to do with increasing numbers of artists living and working outside of the traditional creative capitals for any number of reasons (not the least of which is the cost of studio space, supplies, or simply feeding and housing one's self) and cycling becoming a transportation option and recreation choice for many more people.

Among the communities that are bringing cycling and art together are the city of Kalamazoo and its eponymous Michigan county.  To that end, Bike Friendly Kalamazoo commissioned a mural that is going up along Lovers Lane, a popular cycling route in the city of Portage.

Photo by Dan Nichols for WWMT

The very colorful 17-by-58 foot image is being painted by local artists and is slated to be finished by the 15th of this month.  On that day, a public engagement will be held for the families that helped to paint it.

For the creator of the mural, Ellen VanderMyde, working on this project combines her passions for pedaling and painting.  She grew up in Portage and "grew up cycling this path" and hopes that people will ride to the mural to see it in person.

"We wanted to express the joys of cycling," explained Bicycle Friendly Kalamazoo President Paul Selden.  He hopes that "everybody who sees it would maybe want to get on a bicycle and if not maybe give those who are on bicycles a little more space on the road."

He also hopes to have another mural completed this year and that it, along with the work in progress, will be the beginning of more such installations. 

As far as I am concerned, public works of art readily visible to cyclists--whether or not those works are bicycle-themed--are  part of a city's cycling infrastructure.  If nothing else, I'd rather see a mural or a sculpture while I'm riding than risk my bike or my self on a poorly-conceived, -built or -maintained bike lane.

  

Why Did The Collage Cross The Road?

When I delivered newspapers in New Jersey (more years ago than I’ll admit!), I had to watch for dogs In thar suburban milieu, people let their canines roam in their Un-fenced yards.  Sometimes those pampered pooches didn’t realize—or care—that they were supposed to stay on their human families’ patches of lawn.

Since then, I’ve had to contend with other animals crossing my path—though, thankfully, not attacking me: cats, chipmunks, squirrels, deer, raccoons, snakes, armadillos, macaques and, yea, an elephant.

But never before have I or my bike been stopped by creatures like these:

In Place

Yesterday I was torn between taking a familiar or a new ride.  So I did a bit of both:  I pedaled through areas of Westchester County I hadn’t seen in a while, on roads I’d never ridden.

While riding, I couldn’t help but to think about how two affluent towns, so close, could feel so different. Scarsdale, New York, like Greenwich, Connecticut, is one of the most affluent towns in the United States.  Both have quaint downtowns full of shops that offer goods and services you don’t find in big-box stores.  But while some Greenwich establishments have the intimacy of places where generations of people have congregated, others are like the ones in Scarsdale and other wealthy parts of Westchester County:  more self-conscious—you can see it in the names, some of which show merely that whoever came up with the name took French or Italian—and more trendy while trying not to seem trendy.  

Also, the mansions of Greenwich are set further from the roadway than those in Scarsdale.  I suspect that has to do with the differences between the towns’ zoning codes—which has to do with the philosophies of the people who made them.  Also, part of Greenwich includes farms where horses are bred and herbs are grown.

In other words, they reflect the difference between New England and suburban New York wealth (though Greenwich is certainly part of the New York Metro area). 

While both towns have public art and sculpture, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this in Greenwich:

Simone Kestelman, the creator of “Pearls of Wisdom,” says she was inspired by what pearls mean: something to wear for special occasions, purity, spiritual transformation, dignity, charity honesty, integrity—and, of course, wisdom acquired over time.

One might expect to see something like this in Greenwich:

Indeed, the town has public horlogues like that one,  But I encountered it in the Bronx, across the street from Montefiore Hospital!

Remnants And Aspirations

Yesterday I played chicken with rain that never came.  The skies were laden with rainclouds (or what looked like rainclouds) that, according to forecasts, would unload on us.

On my way back from the Canarsie Pier, I passed through a still-rundown area of Brownsville, Brooklyn, where a riot of color burst through the sea of gray.

This building houses the East Brooklyn Community High School.  Its stated goals include helping students "get back on track" toward their high school diplomas and GEDs.  To that end, it offers not only the kind of academic attention and counseling such students need, but also access to services.

I would argue that the murals on the building are also vital.  I mean, what does someone who's spent his or her life in a neighborhood rife with poverty and other ills need more than hope?  And what can offer hope--or at least a welcoming environment--better than an expression of creative aspiration?

It's good to see a reflection of the vitality to be found even in what has long been one of Brooklyn's--and New York's--poorest communities, especially where one can see so many remnants of what was.

I don't know how long ago the Chinese restaurant went out of business, or moved away. I wonder whether the name is meant to evoke Americans' ideas of what is Chinese, or perhaps cuisine from the Wuhan region was served there. In either event, if that restaurant were still in that building, it might've wanted to change its name, given Wuhan's connotation with the origins of COVID-19.  

Dragons, Rescues And Purple Tulips

An early spring weekend of riding turned out to be a slalom:  I wove my way between bouts of rain and threats of rain, and among momentoes to death and loss and life's renewal.

First, to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the home of the Unisphere.  If you haven't been there, you saw it in "Men In Black."  I rode a route that took me through the park because I wanted to see the cherry blossoms.  The ceremony the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens holds was canceled this year, as it was last year.  It's still a great place to see the blooms because of the walks and paths lined with the trees, and the variety of cherry blossoms grown at the Gardens.  But those of us in the know will tell you that if you want to walk through a pink canopy without the throngs of selfie-takers, there's no better place in this city than FM-CP.

I think I might've been a bit early--or the trees might be blooming a bit later than they did last year:  The buds, lovely as they are, do not burst with color in the same way.  Like all buds, however, they are a visual reminder of hope and the future.  So, I can look forward to going back in a few days--I hope.

I did, however, see "Leo."

During the past few years, an inordinately high number of trees have toppled in this city's parks and on its streets.  Part of the reason is that once-in-a-century storms are striking every ten, five or even fewer years.  Another, as a park ranger told me, is that many trees are old and have been decaying from within for years.  

So, contrary to a rumor I may have just started, there isn't a dragon named Leo who knocks the trees down.  Maybe he's kept at bay by coolers of--Gatorade?  beer?--left for him!

My riding took me into Manhattan, the whole length of the island and beyond.  At its base, Battery Park--where you get the ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island--there's a memorial to members of the Merchant Marine who were wounded or killed in World War II.

According to the inscription, the sculptor was inspired by a photo.  I don't doubt it, but if said sculptor could also have claimed inspiration from something else:

I mean, can you imagine what the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would look like had someone besides Pope Julius commissioned--or Michelangelo (one of my artistic heroes) painted it.  

(Fun fact: Michelangelo didn't want to do the ceiling.  He was at work on other projects and insisted he was primarily a sculptor rather than a painter.  During the course of working on it, he wrote poems, tinged with sarcasm, about his displeasure at working on the fresco.)

Another irreverent thought occurs to me:  Both Michelangelo's fresco and the sea sculpture can be seen as Rorsach tests of a sort:  When you see one hand reaching out to another, do you think the stronger one should grasp the other and pull the other up?  Or do you think the person being to whom the hand is being extended should learn to fend for himself?  Will the guy in the water start to swim and, if he doesn't, does he deserve help?  

At one time such a test would have classified me one way, and now it would reveal me in a different way.  All I'll say is that my days of writing editorials for libertarian publications are long past!

Anyway, near the monument is a cafe for tourists.  I must say that I was impressed with the garden around it:

With a setting like that, the cafe could serve sludge from the water and people would enjoy it!  Me, I enjoyed my weekend of riding, even if it wasn't high-mileage.

Riding And Working

Whenever I ride along the Brooklyn waterfront--especially in Red Hook or near Bush Terminal--I can shed a tear or two as I'm opening my wings.   At least, that's how it feels sometimes.  It's the joy of victory twinged with a little bit of sadness and guilt.

The views along those stretches of New York Harbor are always awe-inspiring, and not only because of the Statue of Liberty or the lower Manhattan skyline.  No matter how many towers are built along the shorelines, they are exactly that:  shorelines, which means that they can never fit into a grid pattern; they can only disrupt or stop it.  And whoever or whatever comes or goes, lives go on.  

For that is what those waterfronts have always represented to me:  lives.  Sure, the promenades and picnic fields built over the old piers are pleasant places to walk one's dog or hang out with friends and loved ones--or to bicycle.  But nearly anyone who goes to the waterfront now has never worked on the docks, on the piers.  Those who work in the concession stands or clean the paths or fields don't work on the waterfront; they work for companies in faraway places that contract with the city's Parks Department.  

That is not to say they don't work hard (for low pay).  But their work enables the leisure of others, nearly none of whom will they ever get to know.  Those who worked on the docks and in the nearby factories were working for and with other people who worked:  the people they saw all day, and sometimes at the end of the day.  They ate, drank, played ball and attended each other's (and their families') important life events.  It's hard to imagine the person making lattes in the snack bar going to the bachelorette party of someone who power-walks or takes an outdoor yoga class along the promenade.

It's still a little strange for me to be one of those people who goes to the waterfront for recreation or fitness--in my case, to ride a bicycle--after it was a place of work, and more work, for various members of my family, most of them gone now.  For that matter, the jobs or even the very work they did no longer exist:  the plant where one of my uncles made cement, the shoe factory where my mother and grandmother stitched and the old docks where two of my uncles were longshoremen--a job rendered obsolete by cranes, container ships and interstate highways.

To be sure, their work was difficult, draining and sometimes dangerous.  The pay was decent--at least for my uncles--but, really, it did not justify the risks to themselves they were expected to take.  Nobody should have to work under those conditions, or those my mother and grandmother endured.  But, at the same time, those jobs allowed people who couldn't, for whatever reasons, spend lots of time in school to make lives for themselves and, in time, to support families.  I don't think the man grilling hot dogs in the concessionaire can do that on his pay.

He, and his co-workers are probably working other jobs. And they don't have much time, or energy, for the sorts of things we do now when we visit the pier.  If he has a bike, he's probably riding it to the job and back, but not along this pier.  I'll bet he, and the woman making lattes, didn't get to see the "rainbow cloud" to the right of the Statue.

At the end of the day, they probably want to flop into a couch or bed.  I am more privileged: In the middle of a ride after work, I can enjoy the whimsy of something like this:

I imagine that the artist who created it was one of the people who, like me, cycled (or strolled or ran) along the promenade, or some path like it in his home town.  So we might say the waterfront is a place of recreation for him.  Then again, he created a public sculpture that is exhibited on the pier.  He is an artist; that is his his work.  Or is it play--recreation--for him?

I hope it's everything.  Then I will feel nothing but pleasure about it, and about having the time to ride by and see it.

A Door To A Season

Perhaps it's strange to talk about a "typical March day" in this part of the world, as this month's weather is the least predictable of all.  On any of the 31 days between February and April, we can have (and have had) everything from summer-like heat waves to the most intense blizzards.  

But somehow today seems like it could only be of this month: chilly winds are blowing under clear skies streaked by the faintest wisps of cumulus clouds.

It feels, to me, like the door to a new season.  I can see what's inside even if I can't enter yet.

Somehow this photo seems apt:

From Pinterest

 

A Ride Becomes A Gallery Tour

To me, one of the great things about cycling in an urban area is the opportunity to see public art.  That was one of the highlights of living in Paris:  Few, if any, cities have as many artifacts--particularly sculptures exhibited en plein aire as the City of Light offers.

New York is not without its offerings.  The wonderful thing about The Big Apple is that sometimes treasures, or at least things that are interesting or amusing, appear when you weren't looking for or expecting them.


I saw this in the former Coast Guard station across the road from the deactivated Fort Tilden:

To me, it looks like one of those creatures in a cartoon that could either eat or play a really wicked joke on one of the characters.  

The gargoyle stands next to the pier from which tour boats depart during the season (which ends in September).  Was it supposed to welcome, or scare off, anyone who wants to take a cruise?

On my way down to my meeting with The Rockaway Orca (my working title for him/her/it), I chanced upon this mural near the Greenway in Williamsburg (where else?):

Sometimes my bike rides seem like surreal gallery or museum tours!