Edges and Hedges
Edges and Hedges is a temporary, site specific art installation, part of the City of West Hollywood's Art on the Outside program. Edges and Hedges is staged on the newly beautified Santa Monica Boulevard. The work by seven artists is displayed for about six months, beginning with Saturday, April 27, 2002 through October 2002.
"Informed by nature and culture, the proposals selected for "Edges and Hedges" conflate notions of streetscape, garden, stage set, landscape design, and home decor, as well as...making sense of the sound environment we live in." (from Art on the Outside press release).
- Laura Haddad and Thomas Drugan, Starchief (Garden Car). Santa Monica median at Doheny. This project transforms an iconographic automobile of the Route 66 era, a 1959 Pontiac Star Chief, into a giant planter. The body of the car is painted silver. Planted along the inside edge of the car are flowering annuals (blooming in late spring/early summer)and pumpkin vines (fruiting in the fall). Planted in the center of the car are tall grasses and sunflowers (blooming in late summer).
- Keith Sklar, Dining Room. Santa Monica median at Doheny, east of Garden Car. This painterly sculpture of a dining room is made of real and artificial plants, paint and found objects. An oversized table and chairs piled high with plates, glasses, food, art, are an 8 foot tall tableau of colour and texture.
- Bruce Odland, Tonic (a sound installation), Santa Monica at San Vicente, south-east of the median. This project transforms the sounds of the traffic at this busy intersection. Sounds made by cars, buses, sirens and other urban noise makers are blended to harmonic sounds of musical elements. Parabolic reflector beams tune sound in real time, creating a psycho-acoustic effect and transforming the cacophony of urban sound into serenity and musicality.
- Michael Stutz, Coyote. Santa Monica median at Palm. This is a 14 foot long wild canine, sculpted from strips of woven, lacquered, cardboard. This is a familiar, if illusive, image of a scavenger that thrives within the urban environment by transgressing man made boundaries. Monumental in scale, "Coyote" places the viewer in a child-like relationship to the larger than life figure.
- Blue McRight, Lawn Chair. Santa Monica off Holloway, next to the Emser Tile Building. This work represents the familiar American lawn in an unexpected form and context. This chaise lounge is about 9 feet long by 5 feet high and 42 inches wide, upholstered with artificial grass. It evokes the shifting boundary between the urban and the natural environments. While sitting on it, one can observe the "theatre of change", the constant fluctuations of the street life on the Boulevard.
- Sheila Klein, Palm Ear. Santa Monica median at Croft. Palm tress are dressed with large earrings; one of the trees has a funky nose ring. None of the jewelry pierces the trees.
- Stephen Glassman, Nohara (bamboo site installation). Plummer Park, Santa Monica at Martel. This is a freeform structural bamboo installation. The medium allows the artist to work freely and intuitively on an architectural scale. Less like a sculpture, more of a drawing, this project is created with the help from the community using bamboo harvested at the Schindler House on King's Road. The bold exuberance, spontaneity, and monumentality of the pieces celebrates West Hollywood's free culture and creative spirit; while its gentle shade and intimate spaces reflect the community's commitment to compassion, humanity, and quality of life.
Information about the works has been gleaned from the Art on the Outside press release. Photographs by Ruth Wallach, taken on April 27 and 28, 2002.