Top photo picks of 2009

The past few years I've posted my top brick photos during December.
This year I'm posting some of my all time favorite photos.

Abandoned wasp nest pretending to be an incoming meteorite:


Tracks in TGS:

Paw print in brick:

Mortar joint:

Marti Frumhoff: St. Louis Activist and brick hugger. RIP.

View from the roof of 3410 Oak Hill:

Gothic arch:

Visiting artist Lesley Caldera:

Jen's gangway garden and window detail:


Holy Family School and bricks:


MGF:

Diamond Brick:

Fluer-de-lis:



Blue bricks:




Here kitty, kitty

Art Deco building Kingshighway Hills:



Blue coral

Beau photos:


Paw and foot

Beau in the snow:

Sculpture in Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden

This sculpture anonymously appeared in Marti's Garden in the late fall. It's a piece of driftwood, was perfectly placed in a dark circle of mulch and anchored with a white rock. I'm impressed with its placement and the use of organic materiel.

A few weeks later another piece of wood appeared next to it.
It's quite suspenseful and I'm curious how it will evolve.

The Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden is located on Morgan Ford Road and Utah.
The site was donated by St. Louis City.
I maintained this garden with lots of help from friends,neighbors, and a gorilla artist.


I took these photos last month. The garden was looking gorgeous and a group of volunteers from TGS helped plant hundreds of bulbs n late September for spring blossoms.

There's two benches in Marti's garden, one was anonymously donated by a local business and the garden fund paid for the other.
I researched benches online for a week in spring 2007. One day while in McDonald Park I spied a similar bench and called Dan Skillman, St. Louis City Parks Commissioner who shared the source for these benches. Dan Skillman has been a wonderful resource for the garden and his Dept. maintains the irrigation system.

Next spring the front of the garden facing MGF will be replanted with liriope.

Art and Brick Part 2

A word?
Jackson Pollack was notorious for public urination and infamous for his legendary emission into Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace.
He liked to whip it out and heavy drinking provided justification.

Pollack spent many hours with a hand against brick walls peeing. I submit at one point he looked straight ahead at a brick and glanced into his future.
Pollack painting:

Detail of iron ore in brick:

I'm not dissing Pollack, he's one of my favorite painters.
My point is I believe Abstract Expressionist painters studied spent some time observing face brick.

That reminds me, many years ago I an article in a national Arts publication about Franz Kline. The writer had toured Kline's studio after his death and wrote about a telephone book that had pages and pages of small paintings where Kline supposedly practiced his gesture strokes.

Any painter will tell you he was cleaning his brushes.
Give me a break.
Kline's bold gesture strokes needed scale and an extensive range of movement. He painted with his arms and not his fingers.

I imagined telling this to Armin and hearing his laughter.

Armin

I was informed via email last week that my erstwhile companion Armin died in 2002.

Armin was amazing and exceptionally talented.
He was one of the best adventures in my life and my heart is on his absence.

Used Clothing Drive for Marti's Memorial Garden

I've partnered with Remains at 3340 Morgan Ford Road to collect clothing and shoes as a fundraiser for the Marti Frumhoff Memorial garden.

The white trailer above is in front of the business and will be available from Friday DEC 4 through Sunday DEC 13th. Bags can be delivered to the trailer which be open from 7 AM to 7 PM.

They accept: Clothing, belts, paired shoes in a separate bag, purses, and linens (towels, sheets, bedspreads and curtains). They'll also accept toys that 12 inches or smaller (and not sets like railroad tracks or card games).

They're paying 6 cents per pound collected so gather all clothing you're no longer willing to wear, keep it out of a landfill, and help provide for long term care for the Marti Frumhoff Memorial garden.

I miss Marti.


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Hydraulic Press Brick Company

Henry Ware Eliot was the owner of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company and father to T. S. Eliot. I found this page from an Architecture magazine from the 1920s.

Remains on MGF is your Saturday Destination!

Remains is located at 3340 Morgan Ford Road just south of the Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden* at Utah and Fyler here in TGS. They are open to the public on Wednesday and Saturdays from 8-4. Cash only. What's available? Scroll down to the price list and photos below.

Where to go:

Drive back about fifty feet, this open door is on the left. There's a friendly dog on the premises name Pal.

Rag refers to any article of discarded clothing or textile and Remains is a rag company in the business of post-consumer textiles. It's mega Green!

I've been fascinated with this industry since I first heard the term 'rag company' from my grandfather when I was a teenager. I had been reading the Post and noticed fibers in the paper. He explained that newsprint has a high rag content (as does paper money) and the rag industry developed in large cities with a side business of selling rag for pulp. The pulp gets mixed in huge vats but that's another post.

A rag company contracts for textiles from thrift stores (They also use donation boxes). They buy and resell it by the pound. It's a huge and vital industry with dozens of related businesses. Owner Kelly Stewart recently started a related business: Arch Paper http://www.archpaper.net/servlet/StoreFront

After arriving at Remains the textiles are sorted and graded. The clothing in excellent condition is baled and purchased by brokers then shipped to Canada (for another sort) and third world countries where it's sold for the third of fourth time.

The history of rag companies is, as I mentioned, fascinating. It's directly linked to paper production and the history of public schools. Prior to paper (a rag product) being mass produced, formal education was only for the wealthy who could afford tutors for their children since the ability to mass publish texts and primers didn't exist. Paper also allowed students to develop linear thinking by writing a series of numbers and learning basic math.

My thanks to Kelly and the staff of Remains who graciously allowed a tour of the business and answered my relentless questions.

Textiles are delivered by fork lift then fed by a worked onto the conveyor belt:

The conveyor belt where clothing and textiles get sorted then head up the line to be baled:

A worker on the sorting line:

The baler where clothing is compressed:

Baled textiles:

Price list and photos of the sales floor:


Photos of the 'sales floor'.

All garments are hung and the place is hyper neat.


I saw many pairs of never worn fleece and flannel lined slippers:

Long johns, union suits, and bibs.



* As a fundraiser for Marti's garden I am talking with Remains about accepting donations of shoes and clothing. More info will follow.

Heinous Repointing

There I was driving down a street minding my business when I spotted this building and the bizzaro repointing:

Click to enlarge if you're seated.

Gates

Flatirons - Mt Pleasant

Friday morning at 5 AM Tim and I arrived at St. Claire Hospital in Fenton where I was having surgery on my hand. I had been up for 20 hours and was a bit delirious. Should have taken the camera, the waiting room (Tim said) looked like a Shrine and the counter (I swear) looked like an altar.

I like my doctor, he a stitch. I felt for the poor nurses who were baffled my absence of an obvious vein to run the IV. Nurse 1 tried everything including the rubber hose and usual prodding. After five minutes Nurse 2 stepped up with no success. The anesthesiologist finally gave it a shot, kneeling down next to the bed.

You're holding me up, my favorite doctor said.
I flipped him off under the guise of discussing my useless finger.
What kind of pain med do you want, he asked, tapping a pen on the script pad.
I'm allergic to all narcotic pain pills but my dentist gave me something non narcotic so I'll use those.
No script?
No, I have some at home.
Anyone else want a script, he asked of the nurses but no one laughed. He's a stitch, I tell you and one big ass pharm pimp.

The last thing I remember saying was something about how men should always be on their knees when talking to me. One nurse guffawed and that was when the anesthesiologist opened the line. Lights out!

I slept most of Friday, woke up in time to take some mail orders to the post office (ignoring the Don't Drive advice and found myself driving down a one way street. Bad, very bad). It took another 12 hours for the anesthesia to dissipate.

I picked up something in the hospital of course. Some nasty stomach bug in addition to my slashed hand wrapped in gauze which was pulled open today when Beau lunged on the leash. Worse, the gauze was stuck to the stitches which gave my stomach an extra turn.

Just in case you're wondering I type with two fingers.

By yesterday afternoon I was feeling recovered (before the stomach flu) and Tim and I drove the Mount Pleasant neighborhood so I could snap some photos of two flatiron buildings:

Just imagine what this looked like with pavers and street car tracks.
This building is now smartly owned by an architect and I am envious. Tim said this building was built by Anheuser-Busch and was a tavern.


Triple arch alert!



Sonrie likes these green glazed bricks but I'm queer for the amber color. BTW, white mortar was always used with glazed brick to make them POP.



In the front of this second flatiron is an original planter on the sidewalk that resonates with the buildings design.

Wrap around step that some idiot painted red.

Dreamy ivory glazed terra cotta.


I'm betting the original door had a keyhole design.

When I first saw this circle within circle motif I thought: Celtic. Bad Tim Said it's a Moorish influence.


Water struck bricks.

Flecks of feldspar in the brick and large pebbles in the mortar.

These buildings sit on triangular island blocks on Virginia in the Mt Pleasant neighborhood.