Paul Angiolillo

www.paul.angiolillo.net
paulangi@comcast.net

RUN, DON'T WALK!

I make sculptures out of wood, stone, metal, and other natural and manufactured objects. Often I gravitate toward "found" objects--pieces of hardwood scavenged from prunings, limestone blocks salvaged from renovations, thrown-out household objects, and on. My aim is to make sculptures and objects that have a feeling of both universality and uniqueness, emotion yet tranquility, and sometimes a political sensibility or a bit of humor.

I wanted to bring attention to the pedestrian-unfriendly landscape around the McGrath Highway—which is to say, human-unfriendly. Taking the familiar “Walk” sign figure and making it into an adult-sized, free-standing, running image seemed like a way to make that point with a touch of humor.

Patricia Brennecke

pbrennec@mit.edu

LIA'S QUILT

Currently I am making quilts out of remnants, old clothes, and fabric people give me. I like to salvage material that might otherwise go unused or be thrown out and turn it into something useful and beautiful. I‘ve spent a lot of time in Mexico and admire how Mexicans incorporate intense color into whatever they build. In that same spirit, I hope the design I am putting onto the concrete stanchion, taken from one of my quilts, will bring some brightness to the area under the McGrath Highway.

The Cave Collective -
Ellen Young, Kuma Lisa, Andy Siegel

THE CAVE

This past summer, SUM auspiciously launched it's Artists-in-Residence program by sponsoring a group of distinguished Magdalenian artists from Europe. Their breath-taking paintings have been on exhibit in some of the most famous caves of southern France and northern Spain for the past 15,000 years. We are honored to have them share their fresh, down-to-earth perceptions of our physical environment here in Union Square.

This project was made possible by the generosity of the artists themselves and their astounding resourcefulness in living off the land. We are thrilled to celebrate the fact that artistic creativity has always been central, and essential, to the successful survival of our species.

The Cave Collective is joined by Ted Read, Ipek Kotan,
Robyn Janz, Ronny Preciado, John Connolly, Katya Popova, Rick Parelis, Alex Trofimov, John of Somerville,
Andre of Somerville, Sarah Pearlstein, Emily Miller,
Dorian Rose

Phyllis Ewen

www.phyllisewen.com
Studio: 617-666-8315

GREEN THOUGHTS: SUM PLANTINGS

Green Thoughts is a series of playful interventions into the natural environment, placed in varied outdoor locations. Collectively entitled Green Thoughts, these installations are made of indoor/outdoor carpet - the poor man's Astroturf. The series has included: Five Oases, False Ferns, Stone Circles, Salt Marsh Pillows, The Quaking Bog Project, and Indoor/Outdoor Gardens.

I am drawn to this inexpensive artificial grass as a material for sculpture because it resonates in many ways. While it evokes an expanse of well-maintained lawn and refers to wealth and luxury; its availability makes the dream democratic. It allows me to play with ideas about the construction of landscape, about social class culture and aesthetics, about nature and artifice. Over time the pieces reflect and comment on the environment in which they are placed. They remain blatantly green as the vegetation around them withers and dies and the snow falls; they become home to caterpillars and collect the detritus of nature.

I place them in environments where imagination can interact with the natural in unpredictable ways - as the natural world is always in contact with human intervention.

Jen Fries

FIGURE OF GEORGE #2: BUS STOP (The Marcelovitch Project)

Who is George Marcelovitch? You tell me.

George Marcelovitch is a concept born from the interactions between art, artists, and viewers of art. He appears around the edges of extraordinary happenings in ordinary places, raising more questions than he answers. What he learns, he keeps and uses, incorporating memory into a contextual idea of self. As one observer described it, George constructs himself every day out of the things he has seen.

The Marcelovitch Project was launched in 2006 in "An Afternoon with George at the Dog Park," a two-part installation by me and Riki Moss. Viewers of the installation answered questions about George, where he was, and what he was seeing. Their answers to the first part expanded George's identity and his reality, leading to the second part. Viewer responses to the second part widened George's world again, opening new roads for him to follow. And thus he finds himself today, standing at a busy
urban crossroads, and our story continues...

My goal for the Marcelovitch Project is a group of figures that evoke George's experiences over time, mapping the emergence of personality through interaction with the world.

Visit here to find George's webpage, where his story unfolds. www.jenfries.com

Amy Beth Harrison

amybethharrison@hotmail.com

I feel an inexplicable pull to be outside in lush green. This longing has brought me to cut soft green fabric into the shapes I want constantly around me. Yet my work never really grows. I try to understand the natural versus the unnatural, banality, beauty but all I get left with are a few sublime moments.

McGrath Highway was just the location I was seeking for my work. The inserted work lies against the stark ugliness. Ugliness switches to hard and soft, delicate and strong, and green and grey. Natural and unnatural flip back and forth as the leaves echo the dichotomy of the Somerville parks they come from.

The underpass makes the work interior, protected a bit. Leaves reach out and soft fencing embraces, both parts protecting and binding, veiling and unveiling, revealing and hiding. The fabric is eaten up, walks the line, lies vulnerably open.

rhonda divine ratray

THE TROLL

ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY FOR MODERN TIMES  

Trap your demons and be reborn!!!

There are NO TRICKS!…

NO DEAD ENDS!
            ONE WAY IN, ONE WAY OUT.

Troll your soul for the meaning of life!!

A.E. Ryan

www.aeryan.com

OF LIGHT, CONCRETE, AND YOU

I am introducing an old and weathered metal display stand into this peculiar and forbidding space under the highway. Hanging from each of its tiers and on all four sides are variable rectangular pieces of mirrored Plexiglas. With a push of the hand, the piece can rotate on its axis rod. The images that are reflected in the mirrors give a new, weird, and kaleidoscopic definition to the site and its surrounding area.

The viewers will also see themselves fragmented in the 16 mirrors. The sun hitting sections of the work over the course of the day adds a whole new element to its reflective properties. Car lights at night will probably multiply. Climatic changes will be recorded by the piece and become part of its memory.

I like contrasting and complimenting the weathered steel with shiny mirrored plexi and copper wire. For the most part, I am usually drawn to more ephemeral materials- reeds especially. This, then, is an interesting departure for me, and one that I would like to pursue for a while. I especially like giving a new life to this rusty old found display stand.

Janos Stone

BATTLESHIP

My sculptures question how a false feeling of self-worth is perpetuated through ownership of consumer goods and superficial appearance and how this has led to an exaggerated sense of entitlement.  Further, the work attempts to show how this can lead to a loss of values, compassion and security. To reflect these ideas I sculpt figures with the supposed ideal anatomy of fashion models and action figures.

The thick surface of enamel paint suggests the plastic artificiality of this culture of appearances. The material exposes the negative ways we are attracted to and controlled by consumerism and how this is effecting our relations with each other and to ourselves.

William Turville

FISHCAR
“There are far more cars in our rivers, lakes, quarries and harbors than there are fish on the streets.”

How can we protect our fish and our water in the face of encroaching development and technological change? I hope that the FishCar helps us to consider creative ways to preserve the environment while technological growth continues. There continues to be an imbalance favoring “progress” which takes us farther from our relationship with the natural world. Healthy sleek shiny fish and “green” sleek shiny cars can coexist.

FishCar is made of recycled metal and wood and a recycled 1990 Dodge Omni saved from the crusher where not only most of the parts of the car would be wasted but most of the energy, materials and time spent producing it would be discarded and added to the ever growing waste from our industrialized world. Nearly everything we own and use daily can have a second life. From my studio, I throw out only what is finally reduced to sawdust and bits of used tape and paint chips. I try to use everything for something…twice.

William Turville (second work)

ARTISTS CROSSING

a dozen life-sized painted plywood figures

by Reclamation Artists and William Turville

Artists Crossing: silhouettes of artists in this intersection, living their creative lives, reminding us that these unused and underused spaces under the McGrath Highway can be useful to and used by people and not just be leftover barren spaces dedicated to traffic, traffic islands and a confusing tangle of roadways. In SUM, artists are HERE, other people can be here, we are all here, visible and active, as evidenced by the sculpture and installations of SUM and by these plywood artists working and hanging out under McGrath.

With a second glance around, as you look at these plywood artists, these human-size figures also give a sense of the scale of this space, a sense of how large and capacious this space is relative to human activities. Think of all the mundane and fantastic possible uses for this great space.