Friday, November 11, 2011

Rebirth is Dead

^Note the irony in that title.

So yes, apparently the giant deer-baby statue above the future Park Place station in Milawukie has been 86'd. Really, I have only one response to that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sY1nEtjtZw&feature=channel_video_title PARTY!

Finally, TriMet has done something logical. That statue would have drained at least two bus lines' worth of money. But! That does leave the question on whether this money gets used for logical stuff or just more ugly sculptures. (Seriously, TriMet. If I had to say goodbye to my precious line 27 or 51 for those pieces, at least make then... not hideous.)

But that brings me to my next point- that thing was hideous. Not only hideous but freaking creepy. *shudders* It reminds me of one of those really creepy stuffed animals with the baby faces and the animal bodies. I cannot imagine walking past that towering over me- I'm pretty sure my inner child would be pretty terrified.

For better or... better, this thing is gone. Just a little bit of right in this city. Sorry to whichever artist had this in mind but... yeah, it was pretty ugly.

4 comments:

  1. 51 is not going anywhere! Everybody who rides that bus line would fight trimet about it to the end. None of us would let it go lightly. ;)Anyways, if that line went anywhere we would be screwed up here because that's the only bus line.

    Anyways, I completely agree with you on the topic of that deer baby thing. That thing gave me the heebie jeebies just looking at a picture of it.
    I can't say how happy I am now that it is gone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, I mostly meant in regards to how they already emaciated line 51 thus far (thereby making it unusable to Crest Tourists like myself.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. But as you say, TriMet isn't planning to cut the money and put it back in the budget to save a bus line. It's just going to select some less unpopular art costing the same amount! I did not think it was very responsible of Joe to single out that piece as if killing it were a budget solution. This is just an argument about taste. (And that's valid, of course.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just to point out, because of the way funding is setup under law, you guys realize that they can't spend that money on anything except art. I think that's kind of silly, but at the same time I do wish they would work out a public-private partnership of sorts to enable art in the architecture. It could be less expensive (even though the art is only set at 1% of the budget I think, but when we're talking about bloated projects like the $1.4 Billion dollar light rail effort that should come in around $500-600 million WITH the bridge, one can quickly realize they're spending an exorbitant amount of money on art).

    Even though the art adds a lot to the community, for some riders, and adds an element of class and culture to the system - it sadly is ignored by the vast majority. I like it, but hate the idea that they're spending the money in times when they're cutting services. It should have an "automatic" cut in times of decreasing tax revenue & budgets.

    ReplyDelete