We Have a Winner: Sound Sculpture To Be Installed at the To-Be-Built North Beach Library

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, September 23, 2011, by Sally Kuchar

[Click image for a larger version]

The public comments are in and it looks like San Francisco sound artist Bill Fontana (and North Beach dweller) is the crowd favorite for the public art installation at the to-be-built North Beach library. Fontana's "sound sculpture" beat out two other finalists at the Arts Commission's Visual Arts Committee meeting Wednesday. "I am excited by the win and the fact that this permanent sound sculpture will also be there for my children growing up in North Beach and they will have this kind of legacy in that community," Fontana said. The artist proposed to build small weatherproof loudspeakers that will be embedded in the overhang (soffit) that surrounds the new library. They will play a changing mix of sounds that are taken from environmental, historical, cultural and social situations in the surroundings of North Beach and its adjacent communities. "The presence of the sounds will create an evocative dream like sonic atmosphere around the building that will interact with people passing by or entering the library," he wrote in his proposal.
· Opinions [Curbed SF]
· Art at North Beach library aims to resonate with community [SFGate]
· Fontana's proposal [PDF]

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Tiny Buildings: Sculpture by Laurie Poast

As someone foregoing a summer vacation in order to save up for a few home improvements, these delicate clay buildings by Amsterdam-based American artist Laurie Poast are the lovely reminder of far-off travels real or (in my case) only imagined.

From several-hundred-year-old windmills on Greek islands to French country farms to Dutch row houses, the tiny sculptures recall almost magical European landscapes — certainly a welcome view on any mantle top. Poast sells her handmade miniature buildings in her Etsy Shop, ARTISANIEeurope.

Images: ARTISANIEeurope

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Adventures With Weather: Massive Ice Sculpture is Just About as Big as One Man's House

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, March 7, 2011, by Sarah Firshein

We've got to hand it to proud Minnesota resident Roger Hanson. Instead of complaining about the weather in his fair state, he's turned lemons into lemonade a 65-foot-tall ice sculpture with the help of a snazzy at-home geothermal heating system. In November, Hanson erects structural poles; later, a computer system determines when the weather is so cold that any water sprayed onto the poles will freeze, thus "growing" the castle. It looks like his creation is about the width of his house, but luckily for Hanson there seems to be nary a NIMBY in sight. Comments on Hanson's official Winter Water Wonder page range from "Thank you for sharing your talent and your artistry with everyone" to "That is such a GREAT THING YOU ARE DOING!...When will you hit the 100 ft. mark and turn it into an amusement park?" Looks like that former Blue's Clues star who built a sorry little igloo in his Brooklyn backyard should get to work.

· Incredible Ice Castles Grown by a Minnesota Man Using Geothermal Heating System [Inhabitat via Gizmodo]
· Winter Water Wonder [official site]
· Former Blue's Clues Star Builds an Igloo in His Courtyard [Curbed National]

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