All good things must come to an end and unfortunately, that includes summer. We will be de-installing our SUMMER IS. . . public art installation on September 8th. However, you still have time to make summer last! The platforms, stools, and t-shirts from the installation are all for sale! Delivery to your home is free as long as you are in Boulder County or the Denver Metro Area. Please contact me directly at emily@workshop8.us before September 5th if you are interested in owning a 12ft x 12ft hand-crafted, beetle-kill platform and branch fire.
We will be speaking about the installation on August 29th at 7pm at “Roost”, a part of DAM’s “Untitled” series. In celebration of summer ending, we are also organizing a flash-mob style event on Saturday, September 6th at 5:08:08 PM at the Martin Plaza next to the Denver Art Museum ! (Shhhh, don’t tell the museum staff). There’s FREE admission to the museum that day, so come on down with your friends and family to enjoy the Pop Art exhibit and powwow dance show! Stash a picnic cooler in your car and meet us on the plaza for a Summer Camp style party. Order your Summer Camp T-shirt now so you’ll look super cool for camp!
The “SUMMER IS…” installation has been a blast, but it also gave us some headaches and caused more than just a little concern:
Would anyone fill out a tag or use the seating?
Would people know where the tags were located?
Would mischievous late-nighters actually burn the carefully crafted branch campfires?
Would people try to steal the installation?
Would people throw the rocks from inside the campfires at the museum?
Would someone climb the ropes and fall, break their arm, and sue us?
In the end, the project proved to be a great success! People DID fill out tags and DID use the seating. No one actually lit the campfires on fire, nor stole anything or used the rocks as weapons. I suspect kids walked on the ropes, but no injuries were incurred. We did receive some graffiti on the yellow tag boxes, which I find to be another artful addition to the community’s response to the piece. Overall, the community seemed to love it!
I ventured over to the museum a couple of weeks ago and was floored to see how many tags had been written and were tied onto the ropes. Just as kids at camp etch their names into trees, or scribble “James wuz here” on their bunk post, over 3,000 passersby and visitors of DAM left their mark at “SUMMER IS…”; from genuine and thoughtful, to funny and sarcastic responses. These messages from the community are the final piece to the “SUMMER IS…” installation, and we can’t be more happy with how it turned out.
The community has spoken! From pool days to camp fires, SUMMER IS… pretty great. Here are some of my favorite tags:
“A great way to have fun with my family”
“Awesome!”
“Winter in another hemisphere”
“Freedom from school”
“Love”
“The best time of the year!”
“Naps”
“Life, fresh air & sun”
“Beautiful”
“Weird”
“Time to be outdoors”
“Happening!!”
“S’mores”
“In between Spring and Fall”
“Sunshine, reading, and iced coffee”
“Living Free”
“BBQ”
“The blood of my soul!”
As is with any piece of art, it is in the eyes of the beholder; and so I’ve included some photos that show some of the unexpected beauty that I found in “SUMMER IS…”
