August 13th 2020:

"I am connecting a few crucial points in my relationship with the Hyde Park Art Center.  In 2007 I had the opportunity to complete a Cool Globe.  However it needed to be completed in a single week-end.  I hired a group of my more dedicated High School Art Students. I needed to locate a studio space with a doorway wide enough for this 6ft diameter globe to be worked on. 

 My space, with its narrow doorways, was not the answer.  I asked an art center where I had been part of a group exhibition.  They never got back to me.   Then I asked Allison, The HPAC Director of Exhibition & Residencies, if the HPAC had space I could use as a temporary studio to create the Globe..  She surprised me by saying the HPAC had a globe already.  She suggested we paint that one then have my coming Cool Globe delivered there when the completed one was picked up.  That gave me about a four day weekend production window.

 DEAL!  Of course I said yes.  She explained we would be working in an area of the building that was to be a coffee shop, but was under the very beginning of construction.  It was a raw studio-like space.  Perfect....with the globe already there.  ( Now that space is a coffee shop.)

 Her calm casual trust and delight in our project was so rare in my practice....so refreshing.

We easily met our deadline.  This was a proud moment for me and my students. I had each one to sign the Globe in proven celebration of their artistic participation, We expressed People of the World holding hands united in the fight to overcome the challenges of Global Warming.   I enhanced areas on the Globe with a host of air-brush bases accents.  We did a great job for an important cause..

The entire fleet of Cool Globes were late stationed in Chicago at Museum Park.  Each Globe was designed to express a variety of ways to reduce global warming.  Later the globes toured the World.....with its amazing public art message of sustainability, green tech and reducing global warming.

 

Our globe is called "Itz A Rhythmistic World". It addresses the excess fumes and exhausts emitted by school buses and idling cars. It was featured in the New York Times and other media outlets as the tour evolved.  I was honored. inspired and impressed that our globe got that type of attention.  This helped to take my Rhythmistic experiment through a collective and sequential process and then later featured on a World Stage."

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NOTE:  Cool Globe Link

Other globes come from artists all over the globe. They’ve been featured in previous Cool Globes exhibitions from Chicago to Copenhagen and from Washington, D.C. to Rio de Janeiro. Charlotte is the 23rd city to play host.