State of the Art Gallery
Public Flag Pole
Santa Barbara’s famed State Street remains one of the grandest strolling boulevards on the west coast. My family and I walk it daily. We wanted to find more ways to interact with the street on top of the obvious commerce of shopping. The Public Flag Pole is intended to add another access point for people on State street to interact with their community. We are excited to see the designs sent to our email address palegrayarts@gmail.com. The project will grow with the assistance and collaboration of the people of our community. The flags that get sewn will provide an inspiration for discussion. The pole becomes a meeting place for people who have designed flags or people who simply want to follow the project as it evolves. Flags are one of our oldest visual languages. They bypass words and effectively signal to their observers. Countries, teams, and companies all utilize flags to identify themselves and declare their presence. With the Public Flag Pole we will be giving the people of Santa Barbara the opportunity to make a declaration of their own. A flag flying over their street to make the simple statement of imagination made real.
California Love Locks
California is a big place, a place full of people arriving and leaving. This project leans heavily on the language of the tourist city. We wanted to give an appropriate but playful place for people with the instincts to leave a bit of themselves behind. California Love Locks will be an object designed to feel native to State Street. The chainlink should intice people to add their own version of love locks. We will have several locks from people of importance to the project. They will place their locks on locations of the piece that would reference geographically different sites of importance. The potential is for the project to mature through the participation of the public and their placement of padlocks. The piece should grow like barnacles in harbor or coral under the waves. Locks come in so many different varieties like the participants of this project. Ideally the map of California will be completely obscured and changed by the participation of the public. The evolving project will become a timeline of interest and visitation by countless people. Everyone will have the chance to leave a lock securing their place in the authorship of the piece and ultimately the culture of our community.
