lunch time art hunt

 It's difficult to find things to blog about now that I'm not training for a big walk. With the Cleveland walk last week and the Boston walk the week before, I'm itching to walk 60-miles. Bizarre, I know it. So if you know a corporate sponsor, I'm so there. In fact, I'll walk every walk for the three-day in 2012 if I have a sponsor. That means all those $2300 minimums, hotels, transportation.

Now that we've played with fantasy, lets take a trip to reality.

It was hot today, but not humid, so we decided to venture downtown to look for more art from the Art of Urban Environments festival. We found it ironic that the construction was always on the shady side of the street, so we got hot, quick.

We headed down College Hill, around the circle and headed up to 7th and Northampton. I thought the map said we could find Alan Marrero's Tributary Dreams between 6th and 7th. (Pix from the Lafayette website) We didn't. That's because I read the map wrong. It was at 8th and Northampton. Oops. Not finding it we headed back to the office on 248, over the closed bridge and Bushkill Drive (?) to the Williams Visual Arts Building and back to the office. (2.5 miles)

BTW, there's a couple of good hills in that walk.

I'm having a bit of frustration with the map, so today I emailed Michiko, Lafayette's Directory of Galleries. She gave me some pointers. She also told me there are two maps, and I must be using the old one. (I'm a print type of girl. Maybe it's my age, but if I have a map in my hands, why look on the web?) Tonight I looked at the website and it's a bit different, and some concrete addresses are listed.

One, Sonny Wards Grass Wall, I tried finding on rain barrel day. According to Mich's instructions, and the website I was there. I just didn't see it at Centennial Park. I will go back.

There's two I haven't seen in town. On the map that look like the are at Center Square. According to the website Amanda Jimenez's Heartbeats is in the Artist Alley of Bank Street and in front of Connexions Gallery.That's another walk, another day when it's cooler.

Yesterday I walked before breakfast. Just around the block. Down to Broadway, out to the Five Points, up Wyandotte and down Fiot. It was short. Maybe a mile. A hard mile, but just a mile.

Sunday I walked while waiting for Sharon at the gym. Again, it was short. I just wandered the streets of east Allentown, looking for hills.

Finally at some point I got a new official follower, my niece Lydia. You've read a little about her here. I knew she read the blog, I didn't realize she "followed" it. Welcome! She's the orange exclamation point.

climbing stairs

If I'm seriously thinking about doing one of those stair climbs. I need to find larger buildings locally to practice in. And of various ages. Stair rises change from building to building, especially in old ones. No standardization prior to what, maybe 1960?

Last Thursday I had to go downtown to the Williams Visual Arts Center to deliver something to one of the professors. It's a the base of campus.  There are stairs which go from behind Keefe dorms, around the Civil War Statue (no that is not Lafayette!)  to the Alumni Arch on 3rd Street. As I finished my descent, in heels,  I noticed that the sign I designed was on "The Spot", the student nightclub. I didn't have my handbag, so no camera. I vowed I'd return today.

So today I went downtown again. Back down the Alumni stairs in heels again. At one time there was about 199 big, chunky limestone or slate stairs, now there's only about 90. A few years ago, I think when they opened WVAC  they ripped some out and put paths in, for safety, I guess. Damn those paths are steep climbing up. I'd rather have stairs. Today, I took the longer path down, and it's the steepest of all. It took so much energy to "brake" going down.  I thought I was walking at a 20 degree angle!
The first picture is my sign. The second is the Civil War Monument. In the mid-ground  in Rt. 22 and behind that is center square Easton. The peace candle is in the center of the square. The last picture is of the Alumni Arch and stairs from 3rd Street and College Hill. The other is of my sign.

Later today I hope to do my typical 6 flights at Acopian. I should really do the five flights in the old section of the building. They are much different, smaller, and steeper that the "new" ones. And I should also try the ones in Pardee again. They are knee-torturers.