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Description:
The artists turned strictly functional metal bicycle storage lockers
into works of art by embellishing them with imagery that celebrates
the bicycle. The purpose of the project was to encourage employees
at municipal facilities to utilize bicycles as an alternate form of
transportation. Visual artist Ron Bimrose and poet Rita Maria
Magdalena worked with eighth-grade students from McKemy Middle
School who participated in the development of design concepts for
the locker and of bicycle-related poetry. Bimrose refined the
student designs and integrated the poetry to create the final design
for the 48 inch-high locker which features a brightly painted
surface and poetry.
Funding:
The project was funded through city of Tempe Capital Improvement
Project Percent for Art funds made available through the Tempe
Transit tax.
Artists biographies:
Ron Bimrose received his MFA from Arizona State University in 1984.
His artwork is primarily mixed media on paper and often utilizes
photographic imagery. His work has been shown in several solo and
group exhibitions, both in Arizona and throughout the United States.
Rita Maria Magdaleno works as a poet-in-the-schools. Since 1991, she
has served on the creative writing roster for the Arizona Commission
on the Arts and is also a Commissioner to the Arizona Commission on
the Arts. She participates in “Tumblewords: Writers Rolling around
the West,” a regional literary project to reach underserved
communities, and she has taught at the University of Arizona
Extended University, Pima Community College and the Writing Works
Center. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous
publications, including Walking in the Twilight: Women Writers of
the Southwest.
Artist statement (Magdaleno):
I am a community-based writer, focusing on writing that begins with
personal experience. Writing poetry and story from one's life is a
powerful process, a way to find “one's self in the world.’ I see
students become excited about their photo-narratives and family
stories. Writing builds self-esteem. In the process of learning how
to shape a poem, I believe that the heart is shaped into a stronger
context and the writer begins to connect with that larger “communal
heart.” In this project a classroom of eighth-graders worked
together to create something bigger than they all dreamed. |
