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Raceday is coming! – Schedule & Directions

Christy
PSR 2016_flat_10Poster by Dennis Svoronos

Schedule

11 AM sharp – opening ceremony at the Sculpture Garden
11:10 or so – staggered race from the Garden down Cambridge Parkway and back the same way.
11:50 or so – awards ceremony at the Garden
12-6 – sculpture racing exhibition at the Garden

Location

The Sculpture Garden and the Start and Finish lines are at the top (north) of  Cambridge Parkway.  There’s no parking there.

THREE MAPS (the first two are upside-down)

River Fest - the Sculpture Garden
The Sculpture Garden. This above map is upside-down (east is to the left!)

River Fest - Walk from First Street
Walk to the Sculpture Garden along Lechmere Canal, which runs east from Cambridgeside Galleria (the above map is also upside-down; east is to the left!)

Where is the River Festival
Cambridge Parkway runs along the Charles River near the Science Center. (This map is correct.)

Location of River Festival
And where is all that?  (The red marker is right near the race start/finish line.)

How do you get there?

Walk easterly from the Cambridgeside Galleria past the fountain, along the Lechmere Canal, under Land Boulevard, towards the Charles River.

If you’re dropping someone off, drive in a northerly direction along Land Boulevard (the wide orange road on the map), and pull over just before or after Cambridge Parkway, which runs east/to the right off Land Boulevard (you can use “International Merchant Services” on your GPS).

Parking

  • Cambridgeside Galleria Garage (100 Cambridgeside Place) –5 hours or fewer $11;  more than 5 hours, daily max of $22.
  • First Street Garage (Spring St at First) – 5 hours is $8; more than 10 hours is $20.
  • There is metered parking to the west of the Galleria, and then, further west, resident parking.

The T

10 Minute Walk

  • Lechmere Station
  • Science Park

20 Minute Walk

  • MIT/Kendall
  • Charles/MGH are 20-minute walks.

Consider

Consider giving yourself plenty of time to orient yourself and make your way to the Sculpture Garden and Cambridge Parkway. We look forward to seeing you there!

Permalink to Raceday Schedule and Directions

Community Race at Danehy Park

Christy

Here are the racers from April 23rd’s race at Danehy Park photographed by Andrew Held. More images here.

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Starting line.

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BiblioBurro by Harvard Arts in Education Team with Scott Ruescher

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Aesop’s Fabulous Flying Machine by Maud Morgan Arts kids with Mitch Ryerson

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Planet Express by Team Fornasaro (first place)

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Flock by Artist Operation

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Ofu 22/7  by Team Frehywot

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Flashbulb of Destiny Captained by Jaral HALsen by Parts & Crafts kids with Jeff DelPapa

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Dizzy the Cat by Parts & Crafts kids with Jeff DelPapa
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A Wildly Running Winged Demon by Gilead Tadmor

Announcing Jurors for the River Festival Race

Christy

Introducing this year’s Cambridge Arts River Festival race jurors: Kinetic Sculptors Anne Lilly and Kim Bernard, and Cambridge Arts Council Executive Director Jason Wee

Lilly_Headshot_CourtesyofArtist

Anne Lilly is a  kinetic sculptor and curator. She was named a 2014 visiting artist at MIT and 2012 artist-in-residence at the Art Institute of Boston. She has created artworks for a year-long exhibition of kinetic art at the MIT Museum, the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, the City of Boston’s ParkArts program, and the Fort Point Public Arts Series, among other accomplishments.

Bernard

Kim Bernard, who sits on the Advisory Board of PSR, and led the Harvard Physics Team’s entry last year–the square-wheeled Sisyphus–is an artist working in kinetic sculpture, installations, and encaustics. She teaches at Maine College of Art.

Weeks

Jason Weeks is Cambridge Arts Council’s Executive Director, an adjunct lecturer in Arts Administration at B.U. and a founding board member of MASSCreative.

 

Cambridge El STEAM awards grant to PSR

Cambridge El STEAM awards grant to PSR

Christy

December 22 – The Cambridge El STEAM Network has awarded a Collaboration Grant to People’s Sculpture Racing (PSR) and Maude Morgan Arts. This is a Cambridge Science Festival collaboration supporting Maud Morgan Arts’ sculpture building workshop during its April vacation camp (April 19-22). The workshop will be introduced in a free workshop by PSR Racer Kim Bernard (10:30-noon), and then taught by PSR Racer Mitch Ryerson. Youth will race their work at the Community Race at Danehy Park on April 23.

 

Description of Kim Bernard’s Workshop: “Cardboard Automata: Mechanical Toys”
Using rough and ready materials to create small kinetic sculptures that bounce, bob, spin, wiggle and wobble, Artist Kim Bernard will lead this playful hands-on workshop and introduce makers to the various ways of bringing motion into 3-D design.  Parents and their kids will work side by side to build simple mechanisms such as cams and levers and linkages. REGISTRATION

About the El STEAM Network (EL STEAM:  Extended Learning Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math):
The Cambridge EL STEAM Network’s purpose is to bring people, providers, and projects together, pool resources, and collaboratively increase access to, awareness of, and quality across Expanded Learning STEAM opportunities available to Cambridge’s young people.

About Maud Morgan Arts
Maud Morgan Arts, a dynamic new community arts center named in honor of the noted artist and community resident Maud Morgan (1903-1999), offers a wide range of programs for all ages. Here you can engage with some of Boston’s finest artists in studios purposely designed for ceramics, printmaking, drawing and painting, and sculpture.

WBUR ARTery: sculpture racing one of the “Best Art Around Boston In 2015”

Christy

From Strandbeests To ‘Renoir Sucks’: The Best Art Around Boston In 2015, by Greg Cook

“People’s Sculpture Racing” at Cambridge River Fest
When Christian Herold moved back to Cambridge in 2007, he recalled, “I asked where is Sculpture Racing and everyone shrugged their shoulders.” World Sculpture Racing, as it had been known, was a series of races held annually from 1982 to ’85 in which people raced wacky sculptures through the city’s streets. For real. It was part art, part engineering, part absurdity, part sports. In June, Herold revived the tradition and some 16 sculptures arrived for a madcap, 3/4-mile race at the Cambridge River Fest—a 23-foot-long fish, a giant rat trap, a cart of rolling mechanical waves, a flock of mechanical birds, a sailboat riding atop square wheels. Amazing.

“Tsunami Wave Machine (Homage to Hokusai)” by Steve Hahn of Stoughton has a crankshaft that makes foam-board waves spin. Also a tube rocks to make ocean sounds as he pulls the wagon. “The important part is the effect, to make people happy, especially children. Little kids love to see machinery because they don’t get to see anything anymore.” (Greg Cook)

“Tsunami Wave Machine (Homage to Hokusai)” by Steve Hahn of Stoughton has a crankshaft that makes foam-board waves spin.  Also a tube rocks to make ocean sounds as he pulls the wagon. “The important part is the effect,  to make people happy, especially children. Little kids love to see machinery because they don’t get to see anything anymore.” (Greg Cook)

"Under the Wave off Kanagawa," Katsushika Hokusai, about 1830–31 (MFA Boston)

“Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” Katsushika Hokusai, about 1830–31 (MFA Boston)

“Hokusai” at Museum of Fine Arts
Katsushika Hokusai, the 19th century Japanese master, is best known for his iconic “Under the Wave Off Kanagawa (Great Wave),” one of the most famous images in all of art. That woodblock print was the centerpiece of this sumptuous Museum of Fine Arts retrospective, which offered a deep dive into the rest of his landmark career—depicting cities and Mount Fuji and demons in so many sensual, ethereal shades of blue.