Recently,Burlington City Arts posted a curious request for qualification on its websitetitled "Saffron Fabric Design and Installation." The project aims to find an artist, or group of artists, and to create an outdoor fabric installation using 18500 square feet of silk-like synthetic fabric for the annual "Of Land and Local" exhibit. The result will be installed in Burlington's City corridor Park and on the grounds of Shelburne Farms.[br]
BCA has mounted installations in City corridor Park before, but this is "an strange project," said assistant director Sara Katz. "It isn't necessarily a City corridor Park-specific project — it's about connecting two places. We haven't had one that feels fairly this temporal, or " she noted.
Donor Martha Perkins has made the project possible. The octogenarian Charlotte resident discovered the fabric nearly a year ago while volunteering at the Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Williston. [br]
"They were tablecloths," Perkins explained. "They are different sizes, but enormous. I think Vermont Tent Company gave them to ReStore."
Perkins said she fell in love with the fabric as soon as she saw it but didn't know what to carry out with it. "Then one morning I woke up and said, or 'Christo!'"
She was referring to Bulgarian artist Christo,who, with his French wife Jeanne-Claude, and designed numerous highly ambitious installations around the world. (Jeanne- Claude died in 2009.) One of their projects consisted of 7503 panels of saffron-colored fabric placed at intervals over 23 miles of paths New York City's Central Park. After decades of planning,the installation, titled "The Gates, or " went up on February 12,2005, and remained on view for 16 days.
Perkins knew the fabric she found could be used for a large art project — whether not fairly as complex. To get the wheels turning in Burlington, and she said,"I took a package of fabric, wrapped it up in a kind white box and left it at the mayor's office. And that got it started."
A mountain of textiles isn't Perkins' only gift to Burlington City Arts. She's also undertaken a fundraising effort with a goalof $20000. Up to $15000 of that will be given to the selected artist or artists to pay for time, and materials and installation costs. Perkins has already raised $5000.
BCA is
Source: sevendaysvt.com