Archive: Open Day Sun March 19, 2017
Sunday March 19, Spring Equinox Open Day!! 2-8pm
Come discover Yellow Bird Art Farm – The ever-developing environmental art and sculpture park in Woodbury TN. Feel free to come any time after 2pm, wander around and be inspired! Lots will be happening!
* 2pm on. Refreshments served in Shambhala Meditation Space (a round cob building).
* A group of ten sculptures – Passing TransFigures, created by David Wood and constructed by Leopard Zeppard – will be unveiled.
* 3-4:30pm. The heliotrope earthart installation “Awakening” will be collectively reassembled at the Peace Circle after extensive repair. Your help appreciated!
* Tour of YellowBird’s sculptures and visions 4:30pm with David. Including the just completed Inverted Bird Blind by Silvan Laan.
* 5-7pm Live Music! Leopard and Tom Foolery will play music among the artworks as they light up at dusk. And Robyn Taylor will delight us with her original songs.
* 6pm Bonfire, marshmallows and tunes into the evening. Drumming circle?
Come and enjoy this latest happening event in Cannon County. Check out all that has been created and the possibilities for more! GPS 260 Palmer Lane, Woodbury, TN 37190
ART OPENING? It includes:
NEW/RESTORED ART
1. Passing TransFigures (David Wood)
10 sculptures, mostly in a group, beside the path leading from the barn to Shambhala. Illuminated at night. Fabricated by Leopard Zeppard.
2. Inverted Bird Blind (Silvan Laan)
Images of 72 species of birds spotted at Yellow Bird. Visible though slots in a narrow wooden shelter. On the left (East) of the lake, nestled in the trees. Illuminated at night. Curated DCW.
3. Awakening (David Wood)
Should be called ReAwakening! A major repair and reinstallation of the Peace Circle heliotrope. Cedar, laser discs, solar lights. Illuminated at night.
4. Seven Picnic Postcards (David Wood)
Scattered around the property, seven brightly painted picnic tables, ‘stamped’ and ready for chalking postcard messages to friends. Chalk supplied at each table.
5. FireFlash (David Wood)
Ten red hanging wooden ribbons. Corner of the dirt road up the hill on the left.
6. Stone Spiral (David Wood)
In the field below ‘The Stables’ cottage, above the greenhouse. White painted stone.
7. Pagoda (David Wood)
Cedar tea-house, set in ‘Japan’. Constructed by Daniel Maissan and Martje Grond.
OTHER INSTALLATIONS/CONSTRUCTIONS
A. Cob Sauna. Near the lake. Below the barn. Built by Barefoot Builders (Christina Ott) et al. Designed David Wood.
B. Shambhala. Cob meditation hut. Built by Barefoot Builders (Christina Ott) et al.. Designed David Wood.
C. Landscape Forms (x2). Bent, welded and painted steel rod. By Lily Erb. Above the barn entrance and in the trees by the sauna. Also Five Orbs, above the Writers Cabin.
D. Playhouse. By Avery Rose. Quilts & painted stones in a wooden shed by the lake.
E. The Bridge to Nowhere. Red painted wood. On the right of the dirt road near the top of the hill. Claimed to be the original site of the Three Billy Goats Gruff story.
F. Wordscape. 200+ words supplied by friends, carved into cedar boards, and planted around the property in unexpected places. This project is ongoing.
** Avery Rose, Silvan Laan & Lily Erb have been artists-in-residence at Yellow Bird.
rough map – see over →
SOFT TIME: Heliotrope III
David WOOD, Soft Time: Heliotrope III (2011), Cannon County Arts Center, Woodbury. Wood (cedar & pine), steel, aluminum, laser discs, 16 solar lights. 32 x 16’ sections, 40’ diameter.
This piece is one of a series that began on the University of Richmond campus in Spring 2010 – first on dry land, where it left a scorched yellow imprint on the grass, then floating in Westhampton Lake. It was later relaunched on Lake Watauga, next to the Parthenon in Centennial Park, Nashville. And for Spring 2011, it has taken on the shape of one of Salvador Dali’s floppy watches, draped over the grassy bank. In this new incarnation, it has acquired a fringe of solar lights, seated on laser discs, centered on islands of cedar.
Soft Time: Heliotrope III is all about ‘connection’. It reminds us of the dependence of all terrestrial life on the sun. It echoes its previous incarnations, and its sister installation, Awakening, on the Vanderbilt campus. Its aluminum discs reflect sunlight and its solar lights store the sun’s energy and come on at night. It bears witness to a new solar dispensation, one in which we live on the daily offerings of the sun rather than plundering finite fossil fuels. By chance its installation coincides with the appearance of a mass of solar panels on the CCAC roof. Change is in the air. We want nature to do our bidding, but sometimes it is best to let it show us what is possible, and adapt. A flat 40’ site by the road was not available here. Folding this piece over the edge of the bank turned a limitation into an opportunity, echoing Dali’s painting The Persistence of Memory, creatively conforming to nature rather than forcing it to do our bidding. Hey – we could have got a bulldozer and flattened the site!
For help in transporting, cleaning, setting-up and in other ways facilitating the installation of this piece, thanks goes to Christina Ott, Joe Prince, MariJo Martinez, Peaches, Rae Ann Schroder, Chip Overstreet, Roy Haney, and the folks at the Cannon County Arts Center – Donald Fann and Evan Hatch.
David Wood is a British artist, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Art at Vanderbilt where he teaches continental & environmental philosophy. He runs the Yellow Bird Sculpture Park in Woodbury
