I’ve Got A Brand New Pair of Rollerskates

Bravo to Chris Gregory who completed his March2Work campaign earlier today. As we don’t have a satellite feed, we can’t share this morning’s last hurrah with you but we can look back on Thursday and it’s well worth a peek.

Chris’ funful campaign sustained throughout March was all about bringing focus to outdoor play and safe routes for kids. Check his Play Isle of Man blog and treat yourself to a few smiles through this creative public awareness performance that practices what it preaches – play, play and more play.

Chris, I’m going to miss your daily adventures.

In the Name of Play – On Assignment, Dateline Atlanta

On occasion friends, family and colleagues traveling abroad indulge my playground proclivities. When I hear of an impending trip, I ask the traveler if they would consider keeping an eye out for interesting playgrounds and bringing back a few photos to share with readers of PlayGroundology.

Colleagues sometimes look at me a little bemusedly smiling all the while – they’re usually not aware of my playground blogging but are game to grab a few digital images once I give them the elevator pitch. To date, PlayGroundology‘s intrepid freelance photographers have provided great pics from small town Italy, Paris, Hong Kong, Scotland, Vienna and most recently, Atlanta.

Shortly after I heard my co-worker Chris was Atlanta bound I popped the question. Any chance of taking a few snaps of the Isamu Noguchi designed Playscapes? Turns out he was staying close by Piedmont Park and thought he’d be able to swing it.

Playscapes, Piedmont Park, Atlanta, USA. Click image to enlarge.
Photo credit: Chris Brooks.

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When an artist stops being a child, he stops being an artist.

– Isamu Noguchi

Inscription on the rededication plaque for Playscapes, the Noguchi-designed playspace in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park

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Play aficionados revere Noguchi. Even though he was a visionary at creating space for kid’s play, only two of his designs, Atlanta’s Playscapes and the Kodomo No Kuni Playground near Tokyo, were realized during his lifetime. The sculptor, artist and landscape architect has a museum dedicated to his life work in Long Island, New York.

Playscapes model. Source: The Noguchi Museum

During some down time, Chris strolled through the gates of stately Piedmont Park and made his way over to the Playscapes playground. On arrival he read a sign with the following message. “This playground is an area for children’s recreation. Adults unaccompanied by children are respectfully requested to use another part of the park.” As unobtrusively as possible, before receiving a tap on the shoulder from a parent or member of the local constabulary, he snapped the pics in the slideshow below and hightailed it to ‘another part of the park’. Thank you Chris for your steely determination in the face of opprobrium.

Playscapes slideshow. Photo Credits: Chris Brooks. Click through here or on image above for flickr slideshow.

Atlanta’s Playscapes is elegant in its simplicity, functional and fun with the added benefit of lending itself as a tool to explore geometry and shapes.

For more on Noguchi’s playground designs check these fine write ups in LandscapeOnline.com and Sweet Juniper. To view some interesting models for Noguchi playspaces click through on Remiss 63’s photostream on flickr. Finally, here is a brief story with photos on the Playscapes restoration from the Atlanta Task Force on Play.

Playscapes under the Shading Trees. Photo credit: Chris Brooks. Click image to enlarge.

My fine arts photography major daughter Alexa will set aside some time on her trip to New York City later this week to grab shots of NYC playgrounds. I can’t wait to see what her keen eye captures for PlayGroundology readers.

If you have playground photos you’d like to share in PlayGroundology, we’d love to see them. Just send them to playgroundology@gmail.com and we’ll get back in touch with you.

Jamie Bell Adventure Playground Photo Shoot

Earlier this week, the Jamie Bell Adventure Playground in Toronto’s High Park was partially destroyed by arson. The community is outraged and vows to rebuild. I’m sure the playground will rise again and reclaim its former magical hold on kids and adults alike.

Below are four slideshows I posted on flickr today. The shots were taken about a year ago on a cold frosty March morning. Click the text links or the photos themselves to activate the slideshows.

The Towers

The Equipment

The Etchings

The Paintings

All the best on the rebuilding.

And Now For Something Completely Different

To counterbalance yesterday’s sad news about Toronto’s Jamie Bell Playground torching, here’s a snippet of fun. From Chris Gregoy’s jet fuel imagination direct to YouTube here’s Day 13 of the March2Work campaign. Yes, Chris is the mastermind pilot behind the day of the plane – see for yourself.

Chris is at it all month, taking different modes of transportation to get to work all in the name of promoting outdoor play and safe routes for children.

Only 11 days left until he finishes his epic journey. Send him a tweet to help him on his way @chrisplayiom or leave a comment on his blog – Play Isle of Man

I have to fly back to Halifax later today. I’m hoping my pilot is more experienced.

How do we stop the Jamie Bell Playground madness?

For about a year now, I’ve been compiling media stories on vandalism and arson in playgrounds with the intent of writing about this contagion. I signed myself up for a discussion group on the topic on LinkedIn but haven’t really created the time to participate though many others have as they seek solutions to the problem.

The stories I’ve read frequently report on destructive activities in small towns. Cities are not immune but proportionately, I’ve read fewer stories about vandalized playgrounds in urban centres. This may be because these kind of stories are not covered as much by big city media. Invariably, the playgrounds involved are of the composite plastic and metal variety. For these structures, a raging fire’s superheat results in twisting metal and plastic melting into a dripping caustic goo.

On St. Patrick’s Day the senseless madness struck Toronto’s Jamie Bell Playground in the city’s beloved High Park, the downtown green space sans pareil. Here’s what it looks from a Toronto Star photo.

Source: Toronto Star. Click image to enlarge.

This one really hit home for me. On a business trip to Toronto last March, I made an early morning pre-work visit to Jamie Bell Playground just to check out one of the funkier downtownish play spaces. Though I traipsed through mud on a frosty frost morning I wasn’t disappointed. This is a Robert Leathers special on a grand scale. They can be found in communities throughout North America – customized, wooden playgrounds built with community engagement and sweat of the brow labour.

I took a lot of photos that cold March morning thinking of the day I’d get to take my kids there. It was a soft, sweet and dreamy start to a long business day.

Source: PlayGroundology. Click image to enlarge.

The now burned towers once looked like this. I’m on the road again today and only have access to these thumbnails. I’ll post a set of Jamie Bell photos to my flickr account later in the week.

It’s such a despicable act of cowardice as it confronts children with senseless destruction. More than 2,000 people have facebooked the Toronto Star story. Jamie Bell will rise again through the same community spirit that created it in the first place.

Another photo of the destruction from Torontoist.

Source: Torontoist. Click image to enlarge.

More photos from Torontoist here

Here’s PlayGroundology’s original Jamie Bell post

Let’s hope the perpetrators are caught. This kind of senseless destruction is happening in communities across the US, Canada and the UK. Charred remains are a terrible way to start a day.

MyBlockNYC and a 5-year-old Rock the Playground

A couple of weeks back I tweeted a link to a sweet story I came across in the online New York revue Gothamist. It generated a little appreciative twitter traffic and I’ve been going back for a peek at the video the story is about on a few occasions because, well it’s just so funky, cool and childlike. If you haven’t had a chance to watch An Afternoon At The Playground, sit back and enjoy. Click through here, or on the image below.

Posted on the MyBlockNYC platform

That’s a rollicking ride. Even though I know what to expect, I sometimes get a little woozy as this shot by a 5-year-old POV flashes by. The NYC mom ‘producer’ had a fine idea strapping the iPod Touch to their child to get this kid’s point of view. The tune Nothing But Time by Opus Orange is a marvelous fit for a playful spontaneity romp.

MyBlockNYC is an innovative mapping and video sharing tool. What a wonderful way this would be to map a city’s play places…

“Like other video-sharing websites, MyBlockNYC allows people to post and view videos for free. What sets it apart is the fact that videos are embedded in the map of New York City. People anywhere in the world can click on a particular locale to see what’s been happening there.” (source: Change Observer)

Original story from Gothamist – here.

It’s Saturday and spring will soon be popping so get outside and play some playing.

The Playground – A 20th Century Masterpiece

Is this the most highly valuated painting depicting a playground?

The Playground (oil on canvas) 46.4 x 62.2 cm., LS Lowry – 1945. Click image to enlarge.

At its last sale price of £553,000 The Playground is way beyond my ability to consider acquiring to grace a wall in our home. I’ll have to settle for an offset print.

The Playground was one of 21 works by the popular 20th century British painter LS Lowry that was sold by millionaire bookie Selwyn Demmy. Proceeds from the sale helped to finance Demmy’s Hunter’s Moon animal sanctuary. The auction at Christie’s in November 2010 brought in £5.2 million.

Demmy was born around the corner from Lowry in Salford, Greater Manchester. At the time of the sale Demmy reflected on the collection he had acquired over a nearly 20-year period. “For me, the works of Lowry have a very powerful personal resonance as they capture the heart and soul of the people and landscape which I have loved and lived in all my life.” He told BBC that his favourite piece of the lot was The Playground.

For my part, I love the bustle, the busyness – five kids whooshing down the slide in a perpetual zip of motion. The space is bursting with activity – a kid magnet. Adults are present but not in an overwhelming, take charge way. This truly looks like a kid’s show, kid’s play. In 1945, this painting shouted out hope, an end to six years of darkness and war in Europe. Children playing in the open without fear of air raids was a return to normalcy, a cause for celebration.

Here is the Christie’s description of The Playground excerpted from the news release publicizing the auction.

The Playground is a superb panoramic cityscape with enormous charm, illustrated right. The 1930s and 1940s are recognised as the greatest period in Lowry’s oeuvre, when his vision was strongest. This canvas, from 1945, is bustling with life and, as with the best of Lowry’s paintings, presents the viewer with a multiple of shared and private moments, with numerous smaller vignettes in front of, surrounding and beyond the central focus of the children’s slide. The playground’s fence in the foreground is a characteristic motif; many of Lowry’s works have a barrier in the foreground, in the form of railings or posts, which have been suggested as representing Lowry’s own loneliness: slightly removed from, and unable to become part of, the world around him. The bandstand in the left of the middle-ground anticipates the wonder of the Daisy Nook fairground, which Lowry depicted the following year. There is a lightness to the palette which contrasts the darker works of the earlier 1940s and the beautiful balance and dynamic of this composition with the painterly figures, joyous children playing and distant industrial cityscape make this substantial painting (18 ¼ x 24 ½ inches) very significant.

Imagine if the current owner were to place The Playground back on the market and maintain the momentum of Demmy’s gift of giving. They could donate the sales proceeds to non-profit organizations that support play. If he were still with us, that would probably bring a smile to Lowry’s face and maybe even all the ‘matchstick’ men in the painting.

More on LS Lowry.

Mr. Lowry, thanks for this fine playful piece.

ScreenShot Mondays – Hand-Made Play

A couple of Mondays per month, PlayGroundology screenshots a cyberspot that focuses on playgrounds, or play. I hope readers dive in and explore. Even if you’ve seen the selection before, take a moment and check to see what content has been added recently.

Think of this as a very slow stumble upon, an invitation to relish something new or to revisit an old friend. Some of the people and places may be household names in the world of play and playgrounds, others not so much. I hope all will pique your interest in what they have to offer and further your own possibilities for playfulness.

Hand-Made Play

Hand-Made Play is created out of Tokyo by Chris Berthelsen and collaborators. The site, part of the larger A Small Lab, houses a treasury of play ideas and a resource section with links to articles, books, websites and videos.

Click image to enlarge.

The masthead says it all – ‘notes from a collaborative + open research project investigating, enjoying, and learning from the self-initiated non-commercial play of children in Tokyo’. Most of the examples draw on ‘hand made, everyday creativity, play, and usable environments’.

One of the more recent additions to the Hand Made Play collection is Rainy Day Treasures: A Study on the Child’s Perception of the Street. I’ve just started strolling through this small gem tonight and am enjoying how it is shifting my perspective so much closer to ground level. The pamphlet is available as a free download.

I enjoy how Chris’ work highlights the simple pleasures and shows how galaxies of possibilities exist within the smallest of worlds. You won’t go wrong giving Hand-Made Play a few moments of your time.

Hula till it Hurts – March2Work

When we last tuned in, Chris was bouncing his way to work on a spacehopper in Douglas, Isle of Man. If you missed the introductory post on March 2 Work, just scroll down as it’s immediately below this one.

Earlier today, Day 7 in the March 2 Work campaign, Chris was really working it. He was winding his waist in a hula for humanity like he just stepped off a plane from the islands. Watch the technique, the uphill swivel, the get me there gyrations.

It was a grand day in Douglas, perfect for promoting the importance of outdoor play and safe routes for kids. Check in on Chris’ exploits for the rest of the month at Play Isle of Man, or on twitter @chrisplayiom.

Hats off to the kids who traveled the route with Chris – some real hula hoop champs in that lot.

Thanks for the fun video, we’ll be back to check in on you.

A Journey of Epic Proportions

How do you spice up your morning commute to work and at the same time make it more meaningful? Look no further than my friend Chris Gregory for an answer. Chris is a champion for play at the Isle of Man’s leading children’s charity The Children’s Centre. To raise awareness for outdoor play and safe and playful routes for children, he is taking a different means of self propelled transport every workday for the month of March. His epic journey started out with a 3 kilometer spacehopper commute. Do I hear sore thighs?

Isle of Man News covered the action too. Click through for their video segment – Hopping to work.

It seems like March came in like a lion for Chris. After regaining his lucidity, he penned a few humourous words about the inaugural March2Work jaunt in his Play – Isle of Man blog.

The spacehopper and scooter have now bit the dust as means of transport in this commuter odyssey. Tomorrow morning, Chris will be in a canter on his hobby horse as he makes his way along the home stretch of Douglas’ Woodbourne Road. He’ll stable the horse at his office digs and get on with his day’s work in support of play.

We’ll be dropping in periodically throughout March to see how Chris is making out. Personally, I can’t wait for the hula hoop next Friday and the grand finale piggy back – Chris please try and get video of these!

Show your support for Chris, outdoor play and safe routes for kids by sending him a tweet or two to @chrisplayiom.