Functional Urban Art in Buffalo
Harvey Garrett gave us a call a little earlier asking if we could come right over to check out a great idea his partner in (fighting) crime, Blair Woods, had come up with. He sounded pretty excited, so we decided to go over and see what all the buzz was about. When we arrived, a darling little gardener, named Lameshai, wearing her white flower flip-flops, greeted us. Lameshai (pictured) had been tending to one of Rhode Islandis newest wild flower gardens in preparation for Buffalois upcoming Garden Walk. Blair was apparently busy tending his won garden across the street, but soon walked over to show us his most recent brainstorm.
We spotted his environmentally friendly creations immediately. Apparently, Blair had decided that he (like the rest of the city) was tired of seeing old shopping carts sitting on street corners and vacant lots. His idea was to take a few of these discarded eyesores and transform them into functional urban art. Each one of these shopping carts goes through a one-hour transformation to become a zink plated garden chair. Not only do they look amusing, they add fun and function to oneis garden setting.
We asked Blair if he had any further intentions of fabricating any more of these funky pieces for city dwellers. He told us that the chairs were designed and built for the neighborhood, but we at Buffalo Rising would love to see more of these chairs throughout the city. If you want to see the chairs in person, check out Rhode Island and surrounding neighborhoods on The Garden Walk.
FYI: The fist shopping cart chair was designed by Frank Schreiner in 1983. The chair was called Stiletto, and still had wheels on it. The chair was produced in a limited edition of 100, so good luck getting your hands on one. Looks like we might have to rely on Blair to produce some more for other interested blocks in the city.
What Do You Think?
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