The Seattle Square -- Call for Vendors and Musicians

A new public market, The Seattle Square, is coming to Occidental Park for the remainder of Summer, beginning July 17th. Live music and food carts will round out the experience, making the square a place to both shop and relax.


I met up with one of the organizers yesterday and they are still looking for both vendors and musicians. Do you have a crate full of old vinyl or boxes of books to sell? Perhaps some CDs that have been supplanted by your iTunes playlist or clothes from last summer are cluttering up your apartment? Or if you only have a few things, one option would be to set up a People's Parking Lot table where several of us could sell things together. And if you're a musician, DJ, producer, laptop beat-maker, or any kind of sound installation artist, there is room for you as well. Send me and email or get in touch with James Grindle on Twitter.

Speaking of Twitter, you can also follow The Seattle Square here.

Holding Patterns Finalists and Honorable Mentions

I just received an email from Valerie at the DPD with a link to the finalists and honorable mentions for the 'Holding Patterns' call for ideas.

You can see all 13 finalists and 13 honorable mentions here.

One of the standouts that reminds me of an idea I've heard expressed many times, is temporary planters, as submitted by the architect, William Arens:


John Fleming's entry calls for metal panels to be erected as canvasses for graffiti artists to paint over time, before being taken down, cut up and rearranged like his own artwork:


Lastly, a project proposal for our own neighborhood, by Ben Gist, AV Goodsell, and Roman A. Pohorecki, that incorporates mobile food trucks and outdoor cinema, called the ViVi Traveling Cinema:


Unfortunately, Signal to Noise's entry, which I posted previously, was not included in the finalists, but it did receive an honorable mention.

Wildlife

And no, I'm not talking about the human-folk across the Capitol Hill, but the vegetation in the northwest corner of the People's Parking Lot. After reading a CHS post about wildflowers behind the ugly meteor known as the Joule Apartments (follow their marketing team on twitter here; feel free to express your disgust for their project as frequently as possible), I remembered these photos I snapped a few weeks ago.



It also reminded me of how lush the space used to be, as shown in the old photos that are still in Google Maps and street view (you can only see these, replete with the 'spring break' tag, if you send the little man down Summit; from Pine, the images show cars parked in the space).

Book PI

Book PI, the guerilla book exchange (website is under construction) movement has begun in downtown Seattle:



[Photos swiped from Animish's facebook page].

Alleycat's GOOD Video!

Check out what GOOD magazine caught the good folks at alleycat acres doing a few weekends ago.

Thanks!

Big thanks to all the garage sale participants, Emerson Salon for sponsoring, and the good, kind, wonderful and generous folks who donated money online to help make the garage sale happen. Two of them are artists, one of which we work with often, and the other with whom we hope to do something soon: 12 hr notice and The Lonely Kazoo.

The PPL coffers are now $40 up (for the first time) and that much closer to putting on another event. Doing things on the lot is expensive, both in time and effort, and we're grateful that both CHS and Shunpike can help lighten the load (in fact, Justin, carried 99% of it himself for the garage sale so keep reading CHS and write your own stories too).

So, what would you like to do there or see done? As previously mentioned, I like The Lonely Kazoo but their project lends itself to an indoor venue. I'm talking to the city about Signal to Noise's temporary, site specific art project and have spoken with Queer Youth Space about an event. Parking Day 2010 is in November and several people have expressed interest in another garage sale this summer. Am I missing anything?

More Garage Sale Photos and Video

Plus some short video shot with my digital camera, so please excuse the (lack of) quality. Note the soundtrack provided by 12 hr notice in the background.

Garage Sale Photos

I have quite a few more but my sophisticated blogging software here is giving me trouble. I am happy though that the one I managed to upload was from a different vantage point (big thanks to Scott at the Consulate apartments; if you're looking for a studio apartment for around $700 a month, he has two with this view available).


Check out CHS for more photos. Also, if you have any of your own let me know and I'd be happy to share them.

Update: more coverage on CHS here.

Garage Sale

Cap Hill Garage Sale starts in an hour (@ 10 AM). Here's an early photo from a neighbor.

Couldn't Have Said it Better Myself

"Bitchin'!"

In response to a discussion on the CHS blog about unsavory characters and graffiti guys defacing Signal to Noise's "Holding Patterns" entry, the commenter Mhaire writes:

The best antidote for use of a space by unpleasant characters is to use the space ourselves. The idea that this design is flexible enough to allow multiple uses is sharp: why didn't someone think of it before? Materials are durable, structures would be hard to move inappropriately (e.g. stolen), and while big gardens are nice, they don't maximize uses of the space and aren't nearly as flexible... and someone has to maintain them. I like that trees are included in the design, certainly flowers can be put at the bases of trees, and you have small gardens? Graffiti is art nowadays, I'm thinking let the graffiti artists pay for painting them, and we benefit. And if we don't like the layout, we change it (Maybe even add raised P-patches as a border later). "Bitchin'" as one of my friends said of the idea.

Well said.

All Systems Go

Everything is set for the garage sale, even the backdoor dealings that require insurance policies in case someone stubs their toe in a mad dash for a vintage Members Only jacket.


That said, insurance isn't cheap so if you are willing to part with a few bucks (seriously, $5 would help) to help make this event, and other such events at the lot, a reality, you can click here to donate via shunpike's website. Thanks and see you Saturday.

Garage Sale Sign and Fliers

Independently produced by two great PPL co-conspirators. The latter is sized to be printed into quadrants on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Feel free to print some out and pass them out (if we're friends on facebook or you pay attention to the PPL twitter feed, you'll 'get' the font.)