Roadside Mysteries

By Chakaia Booker

Tire Treads

Booker started making sculptures out of rubber tires in the early 1990s and continues in this medium today. There are a lot of tires out there, to be sure.

Rubber Plant

Fake SEM Photograph

Magnified 300 times, one can’t ignore the various striations and dimples found on belted radial tires

Chakaia in her element

Her works are on display at the University Center for the Arts in Fort Collins.

yet again in Old Town:

Art you can see in the works, to be installed near Linden and Walnut

eek! It’s another Transcended thing-a -ma-jig!

Wait, this ogre ballerina is going to be cast in bronze! Oh my!

It’s the ‘What do you do with a tree stump?’ idea of the month:

A Gnome’s Home

It’s got a little house on the top, a face in the tree, a window with a little gnome facing out of it, and a seal from Better Gnomes & Gardens! If you can tell me where this picture was taken, the first one to comment with the correct answer will receive a unique gift from either Greece, Italy, or perhaps Turkey !

A Fort Collins 8th grader wins the Google regional art competition!

Tessa Marquardt-Burrell

stands in front of her work “Ant Inspiration”.  She was one of 40 regional winners out of 33,000 entries in the Google contest and was flown to New York for the finals; Makenzie Melton, a 3rd grader from Missouri was the national winner.

At the CoCOA or Colorado Coalition of artists:

They have art on display

and studio space

representing media of all kinds

and they paint left-handed banjo players at times!

Here’s Don George Vogl making a correction on the mustache

About five artists altogether trying to capture the moment.

Apparently someplace on Maple and Mason streets:

Used to be in Old Town Square

It was forgotten for a while after it was moved. I just happened upon it the other day and I began to wonder if this particular area of town is the official dumping ground of unwanted art.  I will take a closer look and make the assumption that anything north of this statue is a “Bad Art” warning zone. If I find some examples, I will post them in this blog.

It now faces in the north-east direction away from town. Does it greet the train engineer on the way into the Mason street line daring teenagers to vandalize the hand in a way that many PhotoShop novices have dreamed of doing?  Is it a target for drunk drivers like the one who hit the Swetsville zoo’s dino sculpture?  I have a feeling it ain’t over!

What are we gonna do now that the expansion of Timnath has eroded our little bastion of outsider art known as The Swetsville Zoo? Remember that place? We reported on it here, and here, and even here! The place is sort of still there, but it’s in disrepair! Even the drunk drivers that run into the dinosaur advertisement near the intersection of Harmony and Route 25 have had little affect.

There is an “emporium” of sorts

It’s in Old Town

Stuff is welded together

with several organic elements

It’s rather fantastic!

There’s this guy named Les who has this weird little place. It’s the place you just have to see to believe! These pictures do not do it justice. Trust me. If you come and visit us, we will take you there!

On College Avenue near CSU:

On the side of Rock n’ Robins

You go there to get concert tickets

Hippie posters, body jewelry, Rasta accessories, and occult items!

with this wonderful mural by Terry McNerney