Thursday, June 29, 2006

search and construct

Today there came three new interns named Ona, Em and Ming. Graciously welcomed into the Hester street community, they were taken on a walking tour provided and narrated by Mr. Alex Gilliam. The area surrounding the Hester Street Collaborative is home to many different types of conveniant stores such as, paint stores, lumber yards, temples, noodle houses and even brothels. who knew. A visit to the P.S. 134 gardens revealed beautiful ripe cherry, apple and peach trees as well as an abundance of garbage all to be taken into consideration when the future renovation is in action.
Upon returning back top the base, they nourished themselves with treats that can only be found at such prices in our beloved Chinatown, NYC. The red bean buns were exquisit.
The rest of the day was spent trying to find free potting soil, lumber and bricks online. It might be neccesary that a bake sale take place. A table is now in the process of being made. This is more complicated than it seems because the table is actually made from two tables and they are on wheels and they also serve as shelves. we'll see how it turns out.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Allen Street and the Garden


My name is Claire, and I'm one of the summer interns now at HSC. I live in India but I'm here until July. For the last few weeks I've been the only intern around since I don't have school, so I got to do a lot in a short amount of time. I came during the last stages of the Ave. of the Immigrants project, so sometimes I had to paint names on the sidewalk for the day. Before we got started, we had a lot of issues with how to paint on the uneven concrete. To find a solution, I vandalized a small portion of another street by painting a whole bunch of "F"'s everywhere to experiment with different brushes, etc. I also had to fill the holes in a lot of databases which was pretty rough and I'd rather not do that again. I sat by the computer and the phone and had to find the mailing addresses for different contacts, which turned out to be difficult sometimes because some people had died and I had to explain to their relatives why I was trying to mail them stuff. After the opening of the project, which involved more chair moving than expected but was still great, we're now focusing on the garden, how to promote and take care of it. I experimented with different ways to do signs, which helped translate into different ways to do shirts. Alex and I designed a shirt with a tomato, around which is written "EAT ME! at the PS 134 Community Garden". It looks really cool but it was a pain to cut the tiny letters out of tape - so we're going to silkscreen the pattern. I also experimented with different ways we could tattoo the kids. We went low budget and cut out a carrot and a tomato, which I traced onto Alex with a marker. It was fun but pretty weird - I wasnt expecting to draw with markers on my supervison, but hey, whatever. I also went back to school a couple times in the last two days (once with Yanely) to give the kids seeds so that they can bring them back to the garden in July. Some of the classes were really cute and calm, and some of them were rowdy. But we got tons of vegetable seeds planted - probably only a fraction will come back.... We did a couple more things but this blog is really long and I'm hungry, so I'll write a better one later. But so far I'm having a great time at HSC!

Monday, June 05, 2006

My Visit to the ICFF

Hey Guys, my name is Toni-Lee McDonald and I am an Intern at Hester Street Collaborative. A couple of days ago I attended the ICFF exhibit with Alex and Yanely at the Javits Center. I really enjoyed myself and it was a great experience. On display were new furniture ideas and everyday common household tools. One exhibit that I enjoyed but wasn't really impressed with their furniture designs was by Swarovski. What made the exhibit attractive to the viewers were the crystals that were placed everywhere, on the furniture and in the floor. It seemed like I entered a fantasy world. One of my favorite exhibits were wall compositions done by Jennifer Prichard. She takes interesting items, such as half a sphere or styrofoam attached to the tip of pins and attach them to walls to create a dazzling design. www.jpricharddesign.com
I was so impressed and intrigued by her work that I would like to draw up some designs of my own to create a composition on my bedroom wall. I will never forget this experience. There were many, many other designers, but only some of their exhibits and ideas were up to par, or at least what I think I would enjoy having in my home. Neverthless, I definately recommend, even if you're not really into design, a visit to the displays next year, it is really worth the while. You will definately enjoy it.