Friday, September 18, 2009

An apology, and an update.

I asked my girlfriend what she thought of my last post.

She said (paraphrased) "God that was boring. You haven't posted in a week and then you drone on for ten paragraphs about speed traps? I didn't even get halfway through."

I apologize for that. I guess it was kinda boring. I will try to keep my posts either more trivial, or in those cases when I write on serious matters of politics and speed bumps and such, I will keep them snarky and inflamatory so people will read them and I will get published in Express more often. Yay!

On that note, the firebox near my house which I have written about here and then again here has morphed again!! Actually it was a couple weeks ago, but I kept forgetting to write about it until today.

They seem to have added some orange trim. Now, it is essentially painted the same way it was before they did anything (see bad picture from my first post), except it is much sloppier, and with uglier colors. It does look better than the previous stark-red incarnation, at least.

Will this be the end? Now that school has started, will we be spared the paintbrush for nine months? Only time will tell.

7 comments:

Titania said...

Jamie, are you turning into and Express Ho? (just jealous I don't get published)

Jamie said...

Is there any other reason to have a personal blog?

It's all about shit to put on your fridge door...

saf said...

It's an art project, and has nothing to do with the summer jobs program..

Art on Call - Sponsored by DCCAH, with cooperation from DDOT, administered by Cultural Tourism DC. The Latin American Youth Center's Art and Media House is working on the art that will go in the boxes.

Let me note that the blue box in your last post on the subject is also part of the Art on Call project. Here, have some details:
http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/

Shoot, it's down right now, but when it comes back up, you'll be able to get some details.

Jamie said...

My humblest apologies to the summer jobs people.

And serious jeers to Cultural Tourism DC for this. Every one that I've seen painted recently looks A LOT worse than it did before.

Ironically, today I took a closer look at that one. I was going to post about it tomorrow.

The paint job, which wasn't very good to begin with, has gone to hell already and it's only been a month or two since it was painted. You might think about using outdoor paint and some primer next time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamietre/3946997019/sizes/o/

I'm sorry to be so critical, but having good intentions means nothing if the implementation is not handled well.

In this case the fireboxes were all very nicely painted beforehand. Now, they all look like crap and the paint is already bubbling and peeling.

I think putting art in the boxes is a great idea, but I hope that a little more care is put into these projects than was put into the unneeded paint job.

saf said...

Dude, CTDC didn't paint it. LAYC did. They did the last round of painting too, I think.

Jamie said...

Sorry, that wasn't clear from your comment. It sounded to me like they were all in this together.

saf said...

Well, they all kind of are in it together.

DDOT owns the boxes.

DCCAH provides a portion of the funds and artistic oversight.

CTDC administers the funds and assists the neighborhood groups.

Neighborhood groups handle the actual painting (or hire it done), procurement of art, fabrication of the art in a weather-proof form, maintenance of the art, etc.