Remember back in January when I wrote about my 3 weeks with Rachel Hayes? Well, all the hard work of sewing up to 15 flutters a day for 3 weeks finally paid off, in that we finally have a visual perspective of the grand installation as the flutters were installed in downtown Arlington, this past April.
Check out the full press release below from Arlington Magazine.
Rachel Hayes- photo by Lloyd Wolf
All Aflutter by Rachel Hayes Installed on Rosslyn’s Skywalks
Sponsored by the Rosslyn Business Improvement District
Arlington, VA – Renowned artist Rachel Hayes installed her temporary fiber artwork, All Aflutter, on four of Rosslyn’s historic skywalks the week of April 22. The pieces were commissioned by the Rosslyn Business Improvement District (BID) as part of its temporary public art program launched this spring. The program aims to soften Rosslyn’s hard edges as many of its buildings undergo redevelopment.
“Over the next 10 years, Rosslyn will be going through a transformation, which includes eventually taking down most of Rosslyn’s iconic skywalks,” says Rosslyn BID Executive Director Cecilia Cassidy. “We are celebrating these skywalks with All Aflutter.”
The bridges were originally built in the 1960s to allow pedestrians to navigate Rosslyn above and away from the car and bus traffic. Although many of the skywalks provide outstanding views of Washington, D.C., and the spires of Georgetown University and the National Cathedral, most pedestrian traffic and retail has moved to street level.
All Aflutter will adorn four skywalks on North Moore Street, Nash Street, and North Fort Myer Drive for up to a year. Hayes’ large-scale works have also graced skywalks along Kansas City, Missouri’s Central Avenue during Avenue of the Arts, New York City construction sites and in galleries throughout the United States, including Solvent Space at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
The Rosslyn skywalk pieces were created as part of the first-ever Artist-in-Resident program at the Kansas City Art Institute’s Fiber Department.
To plan All Aflutter, Hayes photographed Rosslyn’s architectural elements to determine fabric placement and the flow of the bridges. “I spent time thinking about how each piece would look close up and far away, how they will relate to each other,” Hayes says, “and how someone will move their body across the skywalk and ‘see’ what is ahead of them. Pedestrians will have the ability to reach out and touch the materials, and make their own associations with the materials and color.”
all photos taken by Lloyd Wolf
About the Rosslyn Business Improvement District
The Rosslyn Business Improvement District (BID), which started operations in 2003, provides services designed to make Rosslyn, Va., an exciting, urbane commercial center. Funded by a special tax paid by property owners in the 17-block commercial office core, the Rosslyn BID works to make Rosslyn a livable, walkable, sustainable, transit-oriented, mixed-use community where people can live, work and play.
