And check this out -

Two Dutch artists trained young people in the favelas of Rio to paint on a huge scale, and they painted 34 houses in incredible rainbow stripes. Hmmmm.... Maybe Miami deserves some of this treatment.......

See more at favelapainting.com

Some summertime joy to share with all BxB participants

Here are two videos (with links) that inspire us to discover new possibility in the urban landscape.
Enjoy!

Masstransiscope was installed on a disused subway platform in New York City by independent filmmaker Bill Brand in 1980

MUTO
MUTO is an ambiguous animation painted on public walls in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Baden, Germany by artist BLU.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Interacting with Miami Art Museum exhibition

Brick by Brick students LOVED the exhibition: Carlos Cruz Diez: The Embodied Experience of Color.
It brought out many of their natural performative abilities, and there was an audible whir as cell phone cameras were whipped out to document and text their enthusiasm.

Our end of year reception 2010!

All good things come to an end. Brick by Brick 2010 had a fantastic final reception with groups from Mater Academy and Girl Power. The Miami Art Museum staff welcomed us, and treated us all to a lunch, gift cards and certificates - and an exhibition of works produced during BxB's weekly workshops. A video full of scenes of all of our meetings and projects reminded us of all the work we actually did this year! Thanks to our funder JP Morgan Chase for making it all possible.

A cool project - already thinking of next year!

The endless design possibilities of post-its!

Art for Now

Art for Now.

This recycle piece made of discarted grocery bags and is the last project for this year.
It is a collaborative piece done between Mater Academy and Girl Power.
It was ironed together and organized by both groups. Today the Mater students added their final details by adding and making new marks on it.
The result will be on display next Wednesday at the reception at MAM.

Earth Works in Little Havana

Just realized we never posted the final images for the intervention projects at Mater Academy. Check it out!!!!

Girl Power exploring the possibilities of text

Typefaces expressing student impressions of Miami - in TWO WORDS - are drawn, enlarged with an opaque projector, and painted on canvas banners. The completed banners will be exhibited at Miami Art Museum for the Brick x Brick year-end finale on June 9.

Mater Constructions

This week students took the task of building 3-D block letters out of corrugated cardboard, the build the word BRICK, and then with wood blocks created a base for their word. An homage to this program.

Landscape interventions.

Last week students from Mater Academy took over the some of the public areas around the School to create attention to environmental issues.

Image transferring- Mater Academy

In the process of creating our large scaled paintings we chose typefaces on-line and created small drawings that were then projected and painted onto large canvasses.
Following is a link to collaborative public project created in Chicago where we used this approach to image transferring. State Street Mural
Also see how artists used projection to recreate and enlarge their images onto different surfaces before electricity- Art and Optics

A painting being made

by the dedicated group at Mater Academy!

YOUNG ARTS can help you succeed in the arts

Lego on a grand scale

In keeping with the Brick by Brick theme, check this out! James May of the BBC show Toy Stories built and designed a two story house made of the boldly-colored pieces. The entire process took two weeks and 3.3 million little bricks!

Placing the building projects...

Yesterday a group of student makers from Girl Power took their buildings to sites in the hood to see their work interact with real spaces.

Updates from the Garden

Girl Power's New Earth Garden in the making.

The site keeps getting new elements and ideas for improvement.

Last week feathers and dry leaves were added.

Each element creates new meanings and possibilities.

Banners - Describe Miami in 2 words

Mater Academy students are painting with house paint on large canvas and paper dropcloths.
After boiling down their description of Miami in 2 words, the text is given a graphic expression, and painted in a limited palette.
Happy Sorrow.
Urban Elephants.
to come:
Lively Panic.
Lavish Poverty.
Endless City.
Mahou Diverse.
and more.......

Building Bonanza Begins at Girl Power

So, last year it was dominoes, the year before it was sugar cubes; this year we're using found objects (i.e. garbage - with a few popsicle sticks thrown in) to build our projects. Here is what the building frenzy looked like at Girl Power this Thursday.