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I'm going to try real hard to do at least one post a week on Gateway and keep it going.
Sometimes the Arch seems not quite real to me. I mean, how did Eero Saarinen and a bunch of space aliens drop this far-beyond-human scale metal epiphany in an ordinary Midwestern city? Sometimes when I walk or drive by I start thinking what the hell is that doing here? Building the Arch was one of the few acts of real vision in the modern history of this sometimes indifferent burgh.
I enjoy the Arch on foggy days, when its great mass plays peek-a-boo with us groundings.
Today is a particularly auspicious day for Arch pictures. The Mildred Lane Kemper Museum houses the art collection of Washington University, as well as special exhibits. A biggie opens tonight: Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future. Saarinen was the visionary architect who designed the Gateway Arch, among other notable works. The exhibition traces Saarinen's career and achievements, with special emphasis on the history, design, engineering and construction of my beloved monument.
There is an opening reception tonight and I'll be there, getting my 15 minuted of fame: the muesum's director of education contacted me awhile back and asked if they could use some of my stuff on the exhibit's web site and printed materials. Why, yes, of course. The educational resources page of the exhibit's web site has links to my Gateway Arch photo blog and my big Flickr set of Arch photos. There's also a link to the American Institute of Achitects' web feature on the Arch; most of the photos in the slide show are mine. Lastly, click the link to the Eero Saarinen Connections guide and, um, scroll down to page 14, making note of the photo credits and the last quotation.
Feels good, doesn't it?
A company called LifePixel will convert DLSRs to an infrared sensor for a reasonable price. I had them do my old Canon 10D, which was in storage. I'm having a hard time learing to use it but this is an IR picture of the Arch that turned out well.
Something really nice happened yesterday. Washington University in St. Louis has a newish art gallery, the Kemper Museum. A special exhibit opening on January 30 is about Eero Saarinen, the designer of our own Gateway Arch and architect of many other important buildings. One of the curators emailed me, asking if they could use some of the text from the sidebar in this blog in the exhibit's printed materials and link to my blog in the in its web page once the show opens. Uh, yeah, I think that's okay. Everybody loves recognition.
I'm going to try real hard to do at least one post a week on Gateway and keep it going.
