Neighborhood Art
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Neighborhood Art Windows of Maple Ash Nina Solomon Concrete irrigation standpipe base covered with plaster, river rock and tiles 2004 Location: Maple-Ash Neighborhood 9th Street and Maple Avenue Artist Website: www.ninasolomon.com Description: The Maple Ash Neighborhood Association (MANA) sought to create artworks out of irrigation standpipes that had become repositories of graffiti and discarded drink cups and cans. Association members also wanted to celebrate the benefits of flood irrigation to the neighborhood. It was decided that each project would feature some aspect unique to the neighborhood and include a repeated circle of tiles that depict the process of flood irrigation in simple line drawings. This first Maple Ash standpipe artwork represents the architecture of the immediate neighborhood with stoneware representations of windows, doors, picket fences and a curlicue of wrought iron crowning the top. The neighbors helped create and glaze the leaf tiles and apply them to the standpipe along with the artist-designed architectural tiles. Neighbor Marty Miller created the intricate stonework design at the bottom of the standpipe, and neighbor Chris Rowley created and installed ironwork curlicue. Artist biography: Solomon holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from Arizona State University. She has completed several art standpipes in the Maple Ash area of Tempe. Her many public art projects in Arizona include mosaics in the Art Education Building Courtyard of the Tucson Museum of Art, a bus shelter at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe and a 30-foot x 5.5-inch interpretation of a Navajo weaving outside of the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Funding: This project was funded through the city of Tempe Maryanne Corder Neighborhood Grant Program. www.tempe.gov/neighborhoods www.tempe.gov/PublicArt .