What's With The Art On Arlington's Minuteman Bikeway?

ARLINGTON, MA — If you’ve biked or walked or scooted down the Minuteman Bikeway at all this fall you likely came across some sites that made you stop in your tracks, or at least given you pause. A tree wrapped in colorful yarn? A plastic butterfly on a bridge? A fox under a bridge? A pair of words stenciled into the pathway? And most recently a unique crop circle-esque weaving of roots and tree branches from the path down to Spy Pond.

No, elves and fairies have not taken over the section between Capitol Square and Arlington Centre. Folks from the arts community have.

((Have you signed up for the daily free Arlington Patch newsletter yet? You should probably get on that. ))

This is all part of an initiative that started in the summer, called Pathways, to commission works of temporary public art for the minuteman bikeway, hosted by Arlington Public Art and the Arlington Commission on Art and Culture as Arlington pushed to become designated a cultural district, a designation it was recently awarded. It also helps highlight the 25th anniversary of said bikeway.

“We were all having discussions about how to make the the application for the Cultural district stronger and address this gap [between the town’s two main cultural centers]. The idea of the designation is that it should be a walkable district with arts and culture throughout the route. So I suggested we put art on the bikeway,” said Cecily Miller of the Arlington Public Art activist volunteer group. She was commissioned by the town to work on the project.
The problem that Arlington was looking at finding a solution to - address the physical art and cultural gap between the two centres of town, was very much in line with the mission of Arlington Public Art to get interesting art into public places where lots of people will experience it, she said.
Adding art to the bike path was a way to connect the two areas of town known for their cultural aspects.
It was practical, in that it was cheaper than adding public art along Mass Ave., but, she said, it also had these green spaces and natural areas that could be highlighted by the project, she said.

The projects

So it began. Several projects involving many artists started showing up on the bike path.

The first three projects were pairs of words, opposites, stenciled on the bike path. Then there were the Plexiglas butterflies, then an artist from London mailed a wheat pasted fox to hang out on the underpath. Over the later part of the summer, Adria Arch led 57 volunteers in creating the yarn bombed trees near Kickstand Cafe. And the last piece has been artist Frank Vasello called "Currents" where he takes sticks and weaved a natural sculpture that evokes the movement of water.

What's the point? Miller said she hopes it's prompted people to reflect on how they connect with others and the environment.

"Our environment becomes very familiar to us and we often stop looking at it, so I hope that people have gotten inspired to be more aware of the qualities and character of the environment of the bike path and of Arlington and the neighborhood and the town in general," said Miller.

Vasello also worked with students from Ottoson Middle School on a sculpture in the woods behind their school.

Yarn trees?

Miller called in Adria Arch, a painter and the chair of Arlington Public Art for the yarn project in part for her color sensibility and in part for her involvement in the arts community in Arlington. It was a perfect fit. Though Arch doesn't knit much herself, she was excited to tackle the project.

"Yarn bombing it's all over the place it just had't happened in Arlington yet," said Arch.

She started planning in April. She found a group of trees and then posted a call out to see if folks might be interested in donating their knitting skills. Some 70 people responded. In the end, 57 folks contributed 2 to 4 foot patches of material they knitted.

"We knew we wanted it to be eye catching and impressive. It couldn't just be a little thing it had to be massive," said Arch. And in the end it was.

Arch said one of her favorite parts is watching people see it for the first time. Many can't help but turn to whatever stranger is walking nearby and talk to them about it.

The biggest challenge to the project was getting the feet and feet of yarn up and around the trees some 20 feet in the air.

They hired arborists to climb up into the trees and piece the knitted materials together using zip ties and in ways that created a seamless looking effect.

"They got really into it. They were up there in the trees flying around sideways," she said, of their efforts to get the art just right.

The question for her now, is how long will it last. She's hoping the installation will make it through the winter.

"The title of this project is Ripple. It's really close to Spy Pond so it refers to rippling of the water. But creativity ripples outward and I think when people see something unexpected like that it makes them think outside the box and outside themselves. It brings people together and brings out the best in people," she said.

The series of projects were made possible by the support from both the Arlington Cultural Council which gave the project its first start up grant, and then the Mass Cultural Council, which just awarded $2,500.

Arlington To Get Designated Cultural District

http://www.arlingtonpublicart.org/fall-installations...

((Have you signed up for the daily free Arlington Patch newsletter yet? You should probably get on that. ))

Photos courtesy of Cecily Miller and Jean Hangarter (the photo of the knitting brigade)