CENTS

CENTS at SOMArts

2010-02-02T23:47:00.000-08:00

Here's some photos of Home Away from Home at SOMArts. It was up December 11 2009 through January 23, 2010.

It was great to exhibit it inside after Wonderland, as it gave us the opportunity to exhibit the drawings that we used to design and build the sculpture. These drawings were made from kids at the Boys and Girls Club Tenderloin Clubhouse and the Tenderloin After School Program during several workshops we hosted in 2009.

2nd Saturday (10/24)

2009-10-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Pictures from yesterday. Another beautiful Saturday!! It seems that many people like to define the face of the baby house as "pink-platypus" .

2009-10-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

Home Away Home project had great opening day! Thank you so much for all the people who came to see the project. We had great feedback from everyone. Please support our project as it will continue for a month. We are pushing the baby house onto the street of Tenderloin every Saturday.

Fwd: [practicing objectivity] Wonderland on the News!!!

2009-10-16T21:57:00.001-07:00

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=7069365

Fwd: Duck house

2009-10-16T21:56:00.001-07:00

JKM
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Almost there!!

2009-10-11T21:55:00.001-07:00

As Wonderland opening (10/17) approaches, CENTS members have been working days and nights for the house...

Weber Paper Cuts

2009-10-09T00:45:00.000-07:00

Kay Weber, who's work is pictured above, is also the Art Director at Boys & Girls Tenderloin Clubhouse whom CENTS has worked with for over a year. Not only is Wonderland opening this month, but it is also the Open Studio season for San Francisco. Kay Weber is an artist who will be participating in the Tenderloin Open Studios. Please mark your calendars for the weekend of October 24 & 25th, 11Am to 6PM. Kay's art studio has been on 111 Jones Street # 1 @ Golden Gate for 12 years now. You can view his website at : kayweberartstudio.com

I also found a pretty cool interview here online: http://bigcrow.com/anna/journal/oct04.html#100804

thanks.

Workshop

2009-09-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

CENTS held another workshop with children at Boys and Girls clubs in Tenderloin yesterday. Kids ages varied from 7 to 14. It was a bit slow day as Kay Weber, the art director at the club explained us and we got to exchange more conversations with kids. 21 kids created amazing drawings of 'A House that Moves'.

FW: CENTS Production

2009-09-15T02:23:00.001-07:00

The house that moves begins to take form, albeit just an armature in Barry’s backyard for right now!

A good weekend's worth of work what with running around and gathering
materials and getting a solid start on the armature.

JKM

http://www.johnkmelvin.com/
http://johnkmelvin.blogspot.com/

House that Moves!!!

2009-09-08T02:11:00.001-07:00

we are beginning to build!!

House that Moves!!!

2009-08-26T16:01:00.001-07:00

Here are some initial designs for our structure that we will be moving around the Tenderloin come October for the Wonderland Show!! We hope to have a final version by next week!

CENTS in action

2009-07-12T01:19:00.000-07:00

2009-07-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

previous documentation of CENTS project in the Tenderloin.

1st Workshop at Boys & Girls Club

2009-07-12T00:57:00.000-07:00

some examples of the children's drawings produced during our workshop at Tenderloin Clubhouse at 115 Jones Street

site research

2009-07-12T00:40:00.001-07:00

Project Description

2009-07-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

Home Away From Home
a CENTS collaboration
Barry Beach, Colby Claycomb, John K Melvin, Kit Rosenberg, & Izumi Yokoyama

The transient population living on the streets in the Tenderloin was the initial starting point for our project. Our group lives in San Francisco, so we are familiar with the neighborhood. Homelessness and panhandling are common impressions. The basic need of shelter is quite visibly not met for this population. Creating a structure to represent home was our first idea in project development. As the Tenderloin’s transient population makes wherever they are home, we initially proposed installing a home-like structure in Boeddeker Park. However, access to the park was not possible, as the park’s hours were restricted for budget constraints as well as transient populations using the park as living quarters.

Conversations with people living and working in the Tenderloin changed our focus. We were surprised to learn there is a substantial residential population largely removed from its turbulent streets. Families, especially children, are the heart of this population. Children comprise 40% of the neighborhood’s population, yet they are one of the least visible groups. Most children are completely protected from the outdoors by their families, living, attending school and recreating inside.

Our emphasis switched from building a project to serving the community of children. Our project combines three primary parts of the Tenderloin community: the need for home, the substantial population of child residents and the transient nature of its street life. It begins by collecting drawings from children rendering their ideas of the phrase “a house that moves.”
Children have eagerly shared their creative energies toward this. Through drawing and collages, they have brainstormed some of the most fun and atypical types of houses imaginable. We plan to archive these drawings by creating a book as an associated project.

Next, we will construct a composite house-like structure using a compilation of the children’s drawings. This three-dimensional form is in essence an attempt at building the impossible, making the imagination of children tangible. The largest challenge may prove to be creating this form both physically able to permit entry and portable so we can complete the participatory part of the project. Finally, this fabricated house-like structure will be used as a mobile meeting point for our group to interact with the Tenderloin community. On regular intervals throughout the exhibition, our group will move this “house” to various unoccupied parking spots in the neighborhood to create dialogue with passers-by. Postcards with images of the children’s drawings on front will be exchanged in this dialogue. We will ask people who receive a card to
write a message on their notions of home on the card and mail it to someone they know.
In this way, postcards will be vehicles of communication to hopefully facilitate a greater sense of global community.

Postcards can simultaneously embody the past, present and future. The house drawings on the front represent the past, an idea or a specific time and place. The act of writing messages represents the present, whatever writers deem worth recording in the moment. Mailing the postcard represents the future, as sending a postcard implies someone will read and hopefully enjoy it at a later date. Through postcards, we hope to involve writers (postcard recipients), designers (children) and facilitators (artists) in conversations about time and place. The projects legacy will be when we are notified of postal or personal interactions as a result of our participation with the community.