Making “land art” in Ypsilanti this Saturday with the Ypsi Free Skool

Our friend Jeff Clark will be leading what sounds like an incredible Ypsi Free Skool session this Saturday on the subject of land art. Folks, as I understand it, will be gathering near the intersection of Michigan Avenue and River Street, just behind the Water Street Commons, at 2:00 PM, to learn about the creations of artists like Robert Smithson and Andy Goldsworthy, whose work involves the movement and reordering of natural materials, and then they’ll set out to collect rocks and rubble from across the Water Street site, and collaborate on a piece of their own. Here’s Jeff talking briefly about what he has planned.

[Video of Jeff’s last public, arts-related workshop, which centered around the graffiti produced by the Situationists during the May 1968 student uprising in France, can be found here.]

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11 Comments

  1. Edward
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 6:24 am | Permalink

    Any idea what will be constructed? A pyramid? A spiral? A wall? A tower? Or will it be determined by the group? I’ve been inspired to build something since having seen “Rivers and Tides”. I’ve just never followed through.

  2. anonymous
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 6:41 am | Permalink

    Searching “land art” yields some interesting results.

    http://m24digital.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Dario-Gambarin.jpg

  3. Elliott
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 9:08 am | Permalink

    I’m a huge Smithson fan. Very cool stuff.

    Here’s a link for those of you who aren’t familiar with it.

    http://www.robertsmithson.com/earthworks/ew.htm

  4. 000
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 9:29 am | Permalink

    There’s room on Water Street for a Nancy Holt piece.

    http://www.strataproject.org/uploads/1/3/6/2/13625291/281146_orig.jpg

  5. Barbara Gladstone
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 11:13 am | Permalink

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn

  6. double anonymous
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 12:28 pm | Permalink

    Im sure that interesting little things are happening in little towns across America, but I sometimes have the sense that a disproportionate number of these things take place here from Bike Ypsi rides to things like this. In spite of the economy we are lucky to be here.

  7. 734
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 3:46 pm | Permalink

    On Gilligan’s Island they made a giant “SOS”.

  8. 734
    Posted June 5, 2013 at 3:48 pm | Permalink

    Jesus, look what I found when I just searched Google for “Gilligan’s Island + SOS”.

    http://hilobrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Read-Ayn-Rand-006.jpg

  9. Posted June 7, 2013 at 9:36 pm | Permalink

    Jeff Clark sent the following suggestions for background reading, should anyone be interested:

    Casual readings in advance of working with stone tomorrow

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn

    http://www.richardlong.org/Sculptures/2011sculpupgrades/japanline.html
    (And all of richardlong.org)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGFOLChNOak

    http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty
    (Consider comment about “entropy” in the Preservation section)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound

  10. Jean Henry
    Posted June 8, 2013 at 7:44 am | Permalink

    This is really great! Over-scheduled today but will try to make it with family around 2:30 for a while. I once, in Greece, cleared a field of rocks and made a pyramid with them. It was hugely satisfying. Afterwards we sat on segments of old columns and ate octopus.

  11. Elliott
    Posted August 6, 2013 at 8:09 am | Permalink

    There’s another land art event taking place this Friday at 3:00 PM.

    http://imgur.com/7kKNHcY

One Trackback

  1. By Land art on Water Street on June 12, 2013 at 6:20 am

    […] still work to be done, but the other day’s land art event on Water Street went really well, and I think the dozen or so of us who showed up were able to […]

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