Perhaps the word Jerry-Build perfectly describes how Abecedarium blog was conceived. It was a very long process of trial and error. All of us had to work together to come up with the best way to build a blog that could allow general public to post their artworks easily, but at the same time we had to make sure that they were moderated every step of the way.

You can see the example of Abecedarium Jerry-Building from my scribbles:

Day by day, it was as if nothing was happening. But as I look back on it now I feel that we achieved something special and very unique. Here’s to all of us who had to work so hard on this project…

Eddie Boros’ Tower of Toys grew and stood for a few decades on 6th and B. It was taken down in May 2008, a year after its creator’s passing. At my first encounter with the tower, the garden was closed. It was a cloudy day. It drizzled. The tower stopped me in my tracks. I lingered to take it in, looking through the bars of the fence. As a recent art school graduate, the Tower of Toys mesmerized me. It both honored and defied design theory. The structure was showing honesty in how it was built, starting on a broad base, tapering towards the welkin of this skyscraper city. It showed clarity in how it was created. If there is a comparison worth making with an architect-built structure it might be San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, while in the realm of outsider architecture the structure has evoked Simon Rodia’s Watts towers for many. Eddie Boros defied what I learned in design theory in his construction and connection details. Although his tower looked and stood like a tall structure, its details did neither suggest that it should, nor assure its stability or longevity, where Rodia’s creation does. But Boros wasn’t a designer or architect in that schoolish way. He built from passion, with intuition, using that rough-n-tumble New York grit as the tower’s backbone and his own longevity as mortar. How cool is that

A photo album:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jschumacher/sets/72157605010716901/show/with/2485379258/

An elegy: http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/47237/

Taking it down:

Reminiscing:

Here’s a list of J words that I discovered during my artist Abecedarium:NYC residency at the McDowell Colony. I spent two weeks reading the dictionary, looking for words that sparked my curiosity, sent my brain into a reeling spin, or simply sounded good when read out loud. A few of my favorites in this list include: jejune, jackstone and joey. With all of the ramshackle building going on in New York right now, there seemed to be no choice other than “jerrybuild” if we wanted to reflect the zeitgeist of the day. LS

Click the image to enlarge it for an easier read.

Here is an example of Jerry-build in Long Island City. I have watched the progression of this building from the platform of Queensboro Plaza station when waiting for the 7 train.