Artcrank Artist Profile: Dana Maier

ARTCRANK, the poster party for bike people comes to DC November 8th. Leading up to the show we chat with local artists about their work and riding in D.C. 

Meet Dana Maier a Columbia Heights based artist. 

"I use Bikeshare to ride to the Metro, the gym, run errands, meet friends...it's rare that I don't use it at least once a day. Biking in DC is one of my favorite things to do, particularly in the autumn. " 

Dana has been working in D.C. for six years. "My drawings tend to start observationally, so I'm always incorporating the stuff I see in the city into my work. Also, I am more of a classic DC Type A personality than I feel comfortable admitting."

Dana's preferred medium is pen and ink. She sketches her piece titled "The Bikerack," which will be screenprinted as a poster for next weeks show. "I learned (or relearned, rather) that it's always best to draw from what's right in front of you, rather than try to draw from something you see in a book or on a screen. " 

Connect with Dana via danajerimaier.com and @danajerimaier on twitter and instagram. 

Our Ever Growing School Garden Tour

Our annual fall School Garden Tour takes a look at the ever-expanding network of school gardens in the District. Each school offers a proposal for a new project and the tour concludes with a vote to decide who receives the crowdfunded donations. Our first stop was Cleveland ES in Shaw. 

Sarah and Jasmine help manage the garden as well as a variety of related programs. At Cleveland ES 99% of the student body is eligible for free or reduced lunch and for most students this is one of the few places to access green open space. Every Wednesday is a Garden Market, where students run stands to learn business skills. 

We sampled some cream cheese made with chive, garlic, and radish from the garden. There is an emphasis on family and community involvement. Students can learn recipes to take home and share. They've hosted a pop-up restaurant with some of the garden edibles. Jasmine hopes to use donations for more signage incorporating art in the garden, as well as signs to display information in Spanish and English.  

We depart to our next stop, Tubman ES in Columbia Heights. 

Tubman ES's garden is 6 years old and all 500 students are involved. Together they have 12 raised beds, mostly of edibles. 

Garden Coordinator Rebecca plans to use funds to remove rodents and pests from the north side of the garden and install a pumpkin patch. 

We helped install signs painted by students and volunteers. The beds are class or grade assigned, which give students ownership over projects. 

Fresh tomatoes from the garden. Tubman ES has a number of garden-focused after school programs, such as their Cooking Club and Junior Gardeners for pre-k. 

Tubman ES has been compositing since the garden first began. Rebecca describes the steps taken on the newly designed bins to keep pests away. 

Ward 3 Council-member, Mary Cheh, has been a longtime proponent of programs like school gardens. In 2010 she helped author and introduce the Healthy Schools Act, a transformative piece of legislation that is influencing the way both Public and Charter Schools in District deal with issues such as "growing poverty, poor nutrition and environmental degradation." There is a strong emphasis on increasing access to nutritious locally sourced food. 

We head west to Adams Morgan, happy to have some neighborhood kids cheer us up the hill. 

Marie Reed ES on 18th Street was visited by Michelle Obama and other lawmaker's spouses as part of a focus on healthy schools. The garden has undergone some rebuilding recently. 

The team at Marie Reed ES: Amelia, with Food Corps. Carolyn, School Health Coordinator. Principal Katie Lundgren. Community member and volunteer Jeff. Lundgren, who's in her first year as Principal at Marie Reed, is proud to be part of the Monarch Sister School program. The program gives instruction on building butterfly-friendly gardens and allows them to Skype with a partner school in Mexico, the winter home of Monarch butterflies. Marie Reed donations would be used to construct a compost system.

Our ride leader, OSSE School Garden Specialist, Sam Ullery and his daugther Ophelia. Ullery oversees all 108 school gardens in the District, and Ophelia hands out snacks to ride participants at the stops. Garden programs grow every year. When we began these rides two years ago there were around 80. 

Our group heads back towards downtown for our final stop.

Aptly named, The Farm at Walk Jones Education Campus, a DC Public School pre-k to 8th grade, at 1125 New Jersey Ave NW, is one of the largest gardens in the district. 

The Farm is managed by Sarah, far left, and her team of volunteers at DC Greens. DC Greens is a teaching and training program focused on “connecting communities to healthy food.”  They offer monthly professional development workshops for school garden coordinators across the city. 

It once sat vacant for 10 years, but now The Farm can produce 3000 pounds of produce. Sarah's goal is to make the space as much about the community as the school by recruiting local volunteers and opening up the space for various markets and classes. 

The Farm is bustling with activity in the fall. Lots of community members drop by to volunteer. 

After dining in the outdoor classroom, our group voted for a project to fund. Marie Reed ES in Adams Morgan will receive all of our participants' donations to help create a compost system.

Thanks to Sam for his work managing the program, and to all the School Garden Coordinators in DC: enjoy the harvest!

Thanks to Whole Foods Market P Street and Chipotle for supporting this event.

5x5 Ride Public Art Ride

5x5 is the city’s largest temporary art project, featuring work in every ward. This weekend, we created a group ride led by local artists to explore the various installations across the city. 

While our city is known for many traditional art institutions, such as the NGA pictured here on 4th street, it’s the growth of public art that is producing some of the most interesting and accessible works. 

Director of Hamiltonian Gallery, Amanda Jirón-Murphy, on the right, approaches the “Nonuments” site in SW. Hamiltonian Gallery is a U-street gallery focusing on contemporary emerging artists and hosted our post-ride reception. Rides like this one allow DC’s art community to connect and see new work being produced.  

Riders peer into Peep by Jonathan Fung. This shipping container contains thought provoking imagery that speaks to the plight of human trafficking. 

In Jennifer Wen Ma’s Portrait Garden, blackened flowers are part of an inked garden. When viewed from above, the flowers create a portrait of a SW community member. 

Modeled after wren nests, Cameron Hockenson’s Migration, addresses themes of gentrification and marginalized communities. 

From the artist: "Migration was constructed using pvc pipe, chicken wire, burlap, twine, manilla rope, wooden polls, wire, spray foam, house paint, zip ties, steel brackets, nuts, bolts, washers and bird seed."

Public art is perceived in many different ways. Unlike galleries, many people encounter public art by chance, rather than seek it out. This public setting affects the context in which the art is observed and considered. SW Civic Association President, Kael Anderson, above, speaks to the varying responses he gets from community members regarding the work. Fundamental questions like "what is art?", "is this trash... a nuisance?" are all raised. 

All of the works in this patch of SW were curated by Lance Fung. From here, we headed east to the Navy Yard.

This historic Naval building contained one of the grander installations.

Riders strolled into one of the few original buildings left in the Navy Yard. 

Glenn Kaino’s Bridge was modeled after the raised fist of Tommie Smith, the iconic athlete of the Mexico City Olympic games. 

From the artist’s representative: "[Bridge] speaks of the power of collective action, the responsibilities we have to others, and the idea that the rights we enjoy today were reached because of the path laid for us by those who came before” 

A vote for public art! Our group poses in front of Kota Ezawa’s Hand Vote, a testament to the ideal of democracy. The issue of DC statehood immediately became a topic of conversation. 

From the Navy Yard, we headed back towards Shaw, by way of NOMA. 

Marley Dawson’s Construction (T Street NW) was inspired by his childhood home in Australia. Marley’s father built their family homes from the ground up. “As soon as he finished building the house he was ready to move and build a new one” recalls Marley. 

Marley chose green to mimic chroma-key, the green screen effect in film and video. His construction was created as “a temporary structure built with a language of permanence on a city-owned block whose vacancy is regularly contested.”  

Our two awesome tour guides, Marley Dawson (left) with his work, and Calder Brannock (right), creator of the Adventure Residency Program. 

Calder's program finds new ways to bring artists and collectors together, such as road trips in a restored camper, where they plan, produce, and disseminate new work on site in response to the communities they visit. Brannock is particularly interested in the role of the curators in projects like 5x5. For him, the ability to curate a space and communicate a message is often more powerful than any one installation on it's own.  

Post ride reception: we check out the latest group show at Hamiltonian Gallery. 

Thanks to Calder, Marley, Amanda, Angie, and our ride marshals for putting together such a great ride. Bikes are the perfect vehicle to connect to your city and those around you. We hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse into the world of our city’s art scene.

The 5x5 installations will be up through December. 

If you build it they will come

BicycleSPACE co-founder, Phil Koopman, operates a bike storage facility business. Phil remembers installing some of the city's first bike racks over 20 years ago. 

Phil and Simon are working on contract for the Downtown BID and do all their installations by bike. 

The pair sometimes visits up to 15 sites in a day. 

 It's often a surprise what's underneath the sidewalk. Not all developers fill things in properly.

Phil applies some loctite to ensure the racks aren't going anywhere anytime soon. 

Fresh racks for M Street. As the city's biking population explodes there is some serious demand for more bike parking. Phil has installed at least 100 racks so far this year. 

Story and Photos by Francis Tatem, Marketing Manager 

Bike to Work Day 2014: Freedom Plaza

Rain or shine, D.C. commuters make a splash at the annual National Bike to Work Day celebration, on Friday May 16th. 

BicycleSPACE cofounder, Phil Koopman welcomes the flock of faithful riders. Phil has been a part of organizing local Bike to Work Day events for over 20 years. Phil recalls, "all nighters fueled by stale bagels, putting packets together for the snail mail, to ensure organizers got all their necessary materials ready for the events." It's inspiring to see how far D.C. has come, now nationally recognized as a cycling city. 

Acting United States Surgeon General, Rear Admiral (RADM) Boris D. Lushniak, was just one of the many dedicated commuters on hand this morning at our Bike To Work Day station at Freedom Plaza. Dr. Lushniak emphasized the importance of not only physical health, but equally the importance of social and mental health that events like Bike to Work Day inspire.

 U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx greets crowds of commuters. 

From bikeshare users to bike families, we're proud to see the the many sides of bikedc that came out to support Bike to Work Day. 

by Francis Tatem, Media Specialist

Your Donations at Work: Pathfinders Cycling Club

The BicycleSPACE yoga community was thrilled to welcome Pathfinders Cycling Club to the shop to share the proceeds of our "give what you can" yoga classes over the last several months-- a total of $2500! 

Representing Pathfinders were club leader, Olanza Badger, his wife, and son. We were treated to a detailed description of the Pathfinders activities and how they use cycling and community service to help youth develop healthy lifestyles. The donations from BicycleSPACE will help contribute to these efforts, allowing young riders to have the right cycling equipment to support their activities. As spring approaches and our group rides pick up steam in the warmer months, we'll be seeing more of Olanza and his crew on rides. We can't wait to hear how the season goes! 

All of us at BicycleSPACE remain deeply moved and grateful to the yoga community that comes to the shop to practice and give back. It has been incredible to see all the generous donations at work. We are proud to be part of this vibrant community-- together we have been able to make a big impact!

By Suzanne Wnek, Yoga Program Manager

March on Washington 50th Anniversary

Thousands gathered on the National Mall to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.  President Barack Obama addressed the crowd from the very steps where Martin Luther King delivered his on iconic "I have a dream speech" on the Lincoln Memorial. 

A bicycle was the vehicle of choice for many of the attendees. 

Photos by Francis Tatem, Marketing Manager 

Stop U Turns on Penn

In response to a lack of law enforcement BicycleSPACE and local commuters took to the streets to demonstrate against the dangerous practice of illegal U Turns on Pennsylvania Avenue, America's Main Street. 

Video by Francis Tatem, Marketing Manager