Colour

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: BANANA SLUG

MERGE features twenty colours representing a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and Seymour River area, including the beloved Banana Slug.  

One of our favourite images from the MERGE installation was taken by Jason Hardy from @solidrockfencing.  Jason took this incredible photograph of an actual local Banana Slug sliding out from between panels in the Banana Slug segment just after they had been stored in a grassy area since the Spring.

Reconfiguring this section of Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) is a large and complex undertaking and not without a one or two unforeseen challenges… such as the huge lamp post that was installed immediately in front of the ‘Banana Slug’ section! 

Thanks to the friendly team at @solidrockfencing and @KCIKraftConsultingInc we were able to carefully reposition the Banana Slug panel and complete the 4m tall and 356m spectrum with the Banana Slug unobstructed 🙂

@solidrockfencing

@KCIKraftConsultingInc

@NVanDistrict

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MERGE (2021) Rebecca Bayer, 356m x 4m, Powder-coated Aluminum Acoustic Panels,⁠
Trans-Canada Highway @ Keith Road⁠, Lynnmour, District of North Vancouver, territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

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Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Colour, Design, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Nature, North Vancouver, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Vancouver

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: Colourful Transformation

It’s been another productive week at MERGE. We want to offer a special thanks to Mark Hersey, Jason Hardy and the team from ​​Solid Rock Fencing for their special attention to detail and careful installation of the 623 colourful acoustic panels. This project is starting to transform the landscape and has already made a huge difference in reducing the traffic noise level in the neighbouring Lynnmour community.

It is all coming together very nicely and everyone is excited to see the wall complete in the next few weeks.  

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall – 2021), will feature twenty naturalistic colours which represent a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area. Merge stands at 4m tall and spans 356m along the newly reconfigured section of the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) between Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Creek. The acoustic dampening, sound wall sits between the highway and the residential neighbourhood along Keith Road and is clad in colourful powder-coated aluminum panels. The panels have been carefully configured to produce a giant, site-specific spectrum designed to be viewed by both passing traffic and residents in nearby communities.

@solidrockfencing

@KCIKraftConsultingInc 

@NVanDistrict

Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Colour, Design, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Mosaic, Nature, Networks, North Vancouver, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Urban, Vancouver

Coming Together To Give Back To The Community

On the anniversary of our COVID-19 life, we want to share some feel good news from 2020. With proceeds from the sale of “Come Together” (2020), we were able to donate back to the St. James Town Community Corner, near TTC Sherbourne subway station. “Come Together” is a bespoke, glazed ceramic tile mosaic (0.6m x 2.0m) commissioned by Louis Vuitton.

“Come Together” (2020) glazed ceramic tile mosaic (0.6m x 2.0m) Louis Vuitton. Yorkdale, Toronto.

The St. James Town Community Corner was one of the hosts to the original community pattern-making workshops that Spacemakeplace held in 2018 to gather pattern inspiration for the TTC mosaic. The donation from Spacemakeplace will be used in a program that offers employment to local refugee women to prepare meals for the elderly and vulnerable in the community over the COVID-19 crisis.

Store designers for Louis Vuitton contacted Rebecca last spring interested in acquiring a new work to be included in the Louis Vuitton international art collection. “Come Together” (2020) is displayed alongside new artworks by Toronto-based street artist BirdO, and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, at the new Louis Vuitton Canadian flagship store located in Yorkdale Mall,  Toronto.

“The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of It’s Parts”. TTC Sherbourne Subway Station. Toronto, ON

 

Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Colour, Community, Design, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Mosaic, Networks, Ontario, Pattern, Public Space, Public Transport, Sherbourne, Tessellation, Tile, Toronto, Transit, TTC, Urban

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Update: Waidhofen, Austria

Thanks to FORSTER and Rainer Kraft from Kraft Consulting for their recent photos of the colourful acoustic panels that have now been fabricated at Forster’s factory in Waidhofen, Austria.  Later this summer (2021) these panels will be installed along side 356m of Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 1) between Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing and Lynn Creek in the District of North Vancouver.

The public artwork, MERGE, will feature twenty naturalistic colours representing a selection of local flora, fauna and landmarks specific to the Lynnmour community and area.  The ~620 powder-coated aluminum panels have been carefully configured to produce a giant site-specific spectrum designed to be viewed by both passing traffic and residents in nearby communities.

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria

MERGE (Lynnmour Sound Wall) Panels: FORSTER. Waidhofen, Austria

Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Burrard Inlet, Colour, Community, Design, Infrastructure, Interconnections, Nature, North Vancouver, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Sound Wall, Urban, Vancouver

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Installation

In December 2019, after months of careful planning and preparation, everything was ready for the final installation of the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic.  The installation of the three mosaic walls took seven days.

Professional tile installer, Pedram ‘Tony’ Okhovat laying the first section of the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic on the shower wall adjacent to the main swimming pool at MRLC

Laser levels and spacers are used to make sure that the entire artwork is straight and evenly spaced

Sections of the shower wall mosaic are unboxed and prepared for installation

Tony applying fresh thinset to the waiting area wall ready to set mosaic sections

Rebecca calculating final measurements and custom cuts

Tony cutting tiles on the wet saw

Rebecca inspecting the waiting area wall

David and Tony hand-setting the edge details

Rebecca and Tony finishing the reception area mosaic

David removing the clear face tape from set tiles

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Artwork Assembly

When all the custom tiles had been extruded, baked, glazed, re-fired and ready, we began assembling the Maple Ridge Community Mosaics.

The twelve custom colours for the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic

The mosaics are prepared in small sections that are numbered and correspond to coordinates on a large map.  Each of the ~14,500 custom made tiles are laid by hand, carefully following the design and using special templates to make sure that the tiles are evenly spaced.  After each section has been laid, it gets checked, covered with a layer of clear face tape, coded, mounted to a protective card and boxed ready for transport to Maple Ridge.

Checking the details to ensure a perfect fit

Quality Control

Test layout

Applying face tape and section code

Marking boxes for shipment

Loading 1500lbs of artwork into the cargo van

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Made to Measure

The Maple Ridge Community Mosaic is installed in three locations inside the newly renovated Maple Ridge Leisure Centre; the main reception area, the waiting area outside the change rooms and also at the shower wall on the main pool deck.  Careful measurements are needed throughout the entire design and installation process to make sure that all three mosaics fit as precisely as possible onto the renovated walls.

Inspecting the reception area wall during the MRLC renovations. Summer 2019

Inspecting the waiting area wall during the MRLC renovations. Summer 2019

Inspecting the pool shower area wall during the MRLC renovations. Summer 2019

MRLC Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Made to measure

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Tile Manufacturing

We worked closely with Interstyle Ceramic + Glass to develop unique ceramic glazes to match the twelve Maple Ridge Community Mosaic colours as closely as possible. The twelve colours used for this project were selected from the palette of landscape colours we received over Fall 2018 from public photo submissions.

Triangle tile colour matching samples

Mixing 12 bespoke colour glazes and firing the ~14,500 tiles needed is a complicated task and Interstyle are industry experts.

Colour kitchen

Interstyle is a family owned and operated tile manufacturer located in Burnaby, BC. They have been in operation since 1977 and are among the only tile manufactures remaining in Canada.

Interstyle Ceramic + Glass. Burnaby, BC.

The Maple Ridge Community Mosaic will use equilateral tiles specially made for this project from Earthenglass, a tile produced from powdered recycled glass and locally sourced clays.

Blank tile bisque

Rebecca inspecting the tile bisque

Sheets of ‘Maple Ridge Dark Green’ triangle tiles

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Design Process

Following the public pattern making workshop series held across the City of Maple Ridge during February 2019 we returned to our studio to work on the next stage of the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic, the Design Phase.

We had collected and documented approximately 540 unique triangular patterns during the public workshops and now it was time to study them all and consider ways in which we could blend as many of them together to form a cohesive whole.

During the workshops we had encouraged participants to use groups of themed colours that represented the seasons and this helped us arrange different patterns together.  Over a six week period we tested hundreds of combinations of patterns and colour combinations before we settled on the final design.

Once the final design was approved by the City of Maple Ridge we were ready to begin the next phase: fabrication…almost!

All of the tiles for the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic need to be custom made for this project.  To make sure we ordered the correct numbers of coloured tiles to cover the 410 SF wall spaces inside the Maple Ridge Leisure Centre each of the 14,000+ tiles in the mosaic had to be counted first!

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Community Engagement

The Maple Ridge Leisure Centre is an important hub for the neighbourhoods it serves.  Our new artwork intends to reaffirm the Maple Ridge Leisure Centre as a shared place where the wider community interacts daily.

The Maple Ridge Community Mosaic is created from content gathered from artist-­run community workshops.  Our role, as lead artists, is one of interpreters of the research and to create a new patterned design that represents the unique fabric of the local Maple Ridge community.  Traditional and contemporary patterns and motifs created by local people have been woven together and combined to form the final artwork.

In February 2019 we held community pattern making workshops with local groups at:

● Saturday 9 February
○ Maple Ridge Public Library (Repair Cafe)

● Wednesday 13 February
○ Maple Ridge Leisure Centre (Parents and Child Playtime)

○ Harry Hooge Elementary School

● Thursday 14 February
○ Chartwell Willow Manor

○ Maple Ridge Public Library

● Monday 18 February
○ ACT Arts Centre (Family Day)

● Tuesday 19 February
○ Kanaka Elementary School

○ Maple Ridge Public Library

● Thursday 21 February
○ Kanaka Elementary School
○ Thomas Haney High School

During these public workshops we collected and documented approximately 540 unique patterns.  We had a wonderful turn out and we collected amazing patterns from local people of all ages.  For more information and images about the workshops and the project see our Facebook page.

Tags | Art, Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Networks, Pattern, Process, Public Space, Tessellation, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Ceramic Tile Colour Selection

Maple Ridge community members were asked to submit photographs of their local landscape to the Maple Ridge Community Mosaic Facebook and Instagram pages to help inspire the colour palette for the new public artwork to be located at the newly renovated Maple Ridge Leisure Centre.

Based on the ~150 public submissions we received over Fall 2018, we selected twelve representative colours to be used for the project.

The thousands of cardboard tiles we made for the following community pattern making workshop series were carefully matched to these same twelve colours.

We organized the mosaic colour palette into smaller, seasonally-themed palettes and then rotated through the palettes at each public workshop to ensure that the all the colours were balanced and would work well together.

Thank you to everyone online who submitted their beautiful images of sunrises, sunsets, alpenglow, winter mornings, giant forests, lush meadows, sublime lakes, mighty rivers, and native wildlife and wildflowers.  The images below show how your images helped to inspire the mosaic colour selection.

Tags | Aesthetic, Art, Colour, Community, Design, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Process, Tile

Maple Ridge Community Mosaic: Colours of Maple Ridge

Tags | Colour, Community, Design, Interconnections, Maple Ridge, Mosaic, Pattern, Process