[Kbikeva]

A popular park in Herndon that shares fields with Herndon Community Center.
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[Kbikeva]

Decisions, decisions. I know I only get credit for one #publicartfinder per day but I ran across both of these today so I’m sharing both of them here so you can enjoy them. I’ve not yet found a marker or description of the winged horses piece. It’s at the Northrop Grumman building on Warp Drive (no kidding) in Sterling. You can access it from the W&OD. Check a map to find the short path just east of the Rt. 28 bridge.

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[Kbikeva]

Decisions, decisions. I know I only get credit for one #publicartfinder per day but I ran across both of these today so I’m sharing both of them here so you can enjoy them. I’ve not yet found a marker or description of the winged horses piece. It’s at the Northrop Grumman building on Warp Drive (no kidding) in Sterling. You can access it from the W&OD. Check a map to find the short path just east of the Rt. 28 bridge.

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[Kbikeva]

#STEM

Behind the sign you catch a glimpse of my #publicartfinder submission as well!

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[Kbikeva]

@Sophie CW 205712 wrote:

#STEM – Came across this sign at the Lincoln Park Community Center in Rockville that explains a rain barrel. I’m not sure if there is one near the building. Does this qualify as science or engineering?
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The answer to your question is “yes”. LOL – When I think of finding photos of STEM I look around and think, ‘So what’s not STEM?” All of our built environment requires some level of STEM to exist. And our natural environment is the epitome of “Science”. So I think you’re safe to say that science and engineering peacefully co-exist and in a rain barrel, they happily co-mingle!

[Kbikeva]

1/19/21 Beetle

Well, to continue the theme (and because in cold weather actual insect beetles are hard to find), I found this one. At the very end of my ride as I circled through a neighborhood street to get a ’round number’ on mileage, there was a beautiful bright red one with a black convertible top. Oh well, this one’s paint is more interesting.

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[Kbikeva]

@Kbikeva 205741 wrote:

Great, here’s the plan! We’ll meet at Wiehle-Reston Metro Station in front of the Starbucks at 10. I doubt there will be any other bikes there at that time, but if so, I’m riding a black Surly with green bar tape. ~Kelley

Here’s the route. As you can see, it comes back through the start point. We can make a call then whether we’re “arted” out for the day!

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/33309426

[Kbikeva]

@Serdar 205706 wrote:

Hi. Thanks for organizing this ride. I would like to come and explore public art on both sides of the toll road. Hope for more participants!

Great, here’s the plan! We’ll meet at Wiehle-Reston Metro Station in front of the Starbucks at 10. I doubt there will be any other bikes there at that time, but if so, I’m riding a black Surly with green bar tape. ~Kelley

[Kbikeva]

@Boomer2U 205644 wrote:

[mention]Kbikeva [/mention] I am very keen on this ride, and learning more about Reston #publicartfinder & #FSwormhole anomalies in general, but am 50/50 for this particular day due to scheduling conflicts. Any possibility of you rescheduling this (or other such rides) for a weekend version some other time during the BAFS2021 season?

Sent from Boomer_Cycles via my iPhone using Tapatalk

I can definitely do it again on a weekend, was just trying to offer an alternative for people who have tomorrow off.

[Kbikeva]

@camiller 205707 wrote:

1/18/2021 BIPOC Public Art

“Wakan”, in Reston on Circle Park Drive, represents the Lakota Sioux Indians in North and South Dakota. The word “Wakan” is a Lakota Sioux word meaning “of the Great Spirit” and symbolizes the strength and tenacity of the Sioux people.

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I’m glad to see they finally put a marker up. It hasn’t had one for many years.

[Kbikeva]

Got my south and west stones today and visited the stones and or close addresses to the stones along the way (mostly until we just ran out of steam).

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South – Jones Point, Alexandria

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West – Andrew Elliot Park, Arlington

I also discovered that if you put your phone right on the glass, you can actually get a photo of the South stone!

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[Kbikeva]

In case you missed it on photo of the day, our quest was to find a piece of public art created by or subject containing a Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color. The searching on-line to find something I could/wanted to ride to was difficult and felt so wrong. I mean, googling “Black public art” or “Latino public art” or “Native American public art” plus the location I was searching made me a little squeamish. Is public art tagged by these terms? As far as I could tell, the answer to that was no. But should it be otherwise? I’d imagine an artist would want everyone who wants to see his or her art to do so, not just a particular audience. At the same time, an artist cannot help but put his or her life experience, including race or ethnicity in the pieces he/she creates. But does the artist want it searched with those terms? These are all challenging questions and I don’t know the answers. I just know I had never thought about them before today’s challenge, so thank you!

And here’s the piece I chose. It’s the mosaic fountain at Shirlington Library. It’s in pretty poor shape, but perhaps spring cleaning will make it shine eventually. The piece was designed and created by Martha Jarvis Jackson, an African-American woman whose studio is in Maryland. http://www.marthajarvisjackson.com It’s a large piece so here are a few views of various parts of it.
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[Kbikeva]

My riding partner and I decided to try to ride to each of the boundary stones on the Virginia side today, starting at East Falls Church and making a loop north, then down along the river to Jones Point, and then back to EFC via the stone locations. There were LOTS of parks, LOTS of hills, and LOTS of wind. So here’s today’s park, which holds the West stone (the most western boundary stone that marked the original District of Columbia before the part of DC in VA went back to VA).

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[Kbikeva]

1/18/21

I have to say this made me a bit squeamish (stay with me here). I started searching “public art” and terms like “African American”, “Hispanic”, “Latino”, trying to find some representative works that fit the description. Surprise – most public art isn’t tagged by these terms. Then I looked at a list of public art in Arlington (I wanted to ride outside my usual spaces). I was hoping that in the descriptions of the art there would be something that was a hint. I quickly realized that except for the Asian names, I was going to have to google each artist. Fortunately, I finally hit pay dirt and found an African American Woman artist whose work is in Arlington. I added the point to my route for the day.

It raises the question: If am new to a community and I’m looking for the public art work in my new community, who makes that list? How are the pieces described? Is there a better way to show BIPOC representation in subject as well as artist?

When I got to the location of my chosen piece, I was disappointed at the condition of the artwork. Granted, it’s winter and Covid and all that. And granted, mosaic work ages quickly and requires constant upkeep. But this just made me sad. So in the end, here’s her website: http://marthajacksonjarvis.com/ so you can see some of her not neglected work. And here’s the piece at the Arlington Public Library Shirlington Branch. (2004)

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[Kbikeva]

1/18/21

I have to say this made me a bit squeamish (stay with me here). I started searching “public art” and terms like “African American”, “Hispanic”, “Latino”, trying to find some representative works that fit the description. Surprise – most public art isn’t tagged by these terms. Then I looked at a list of public art in Arlington (I wanted to ride outside my usual spaces). I was hoping that in the descriptions of the art there would be something that was a hint. I quickly realized that except for the Asian names, I was going to have to google each artist. Fortunately, I finally hit pay dirt and found an African American Woman artist whose work is in Arlington. I added the point to my route for the day.

It raises the question: If am new to a community and I’m looking for the public art work in my new community, who makes that list? How are the pieces described? Is there a better way to show BIPOC representation in subject as well as artist?

When I got to the location of my chosen piece, I was disappointed at the condition of the artwork. Granted, it’s winter and Covid and all that. And granted, mosaic work ages quickly and requires constant upkeep. But this just made me sad. So in the end, here’s her website: http://marthajacksonjarvis.com/ so you can see some of her not neglected work. And here’s the piece at the Arlington Public Library Shirlington Branch. (2004)

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