PAPER LETTER CLOUD

We follow stories through pages, tracing a winged migration route through the imagined world. Writing guides us along the flight path in a weaving course of words creating stories. Leaves of paper left to the winds of the tale... hands turning pages. 

Our spoken words and thoughts have been written, printed, recorded, placed on film then miniaturized to a digital pixel of the hand print on a computer keyboard. Libraries are now world word information centers holding our collective stories and marking the trail to expanding and understanding other ways of thinking, seeing and dreaming. 

We recently spent several months working on a commissioned sculptural work for a new library in the Salt Lake City area. The Viridian Library and Event Center is a beautiful new Leeds Gold rated building at the city center of West Jordan south of Salt Lake City. The art committee chose us to produce a work that could integrate the three areas of the building, create a flow between the library, the central lobby and the event center within the building complex.  

The resulting design of the work came about through various means. We wanted the work to involve a simple form of flying and floating paper, letter forms and pixelated color. Within the library space were deep light wells extending up through the central lobby atrium entry as well as the main library room. The library sky lights also extended up through the second floor staff offices and further to the roof top at 50' from the library floor. What a great aerial space to work with! 

The aerial sculpture traces a trail from the pictographic to the formation of letters and words, to paper, book, library and to the digital language of binary information process. We imagined the entire work to trace our evolution from the beginning of language to the present form of global information sharing. It's been a long journey.

The work itself is also long....close to five hundred feet from one end to the other. It meanders and floats through the ceiling spaces, into the skylight wells and down hallways at the facility creating discovery areas and flashing changing color patterns from the dichroic units of the 'cloud' mobiles. A cascade of letters descend from the high light wells in the library and weave among the paper and flying book forms. The paper then floats into the entry lobby, up the central skylight to a flock of gently moving mobiles. The trail of paper forms then drifts to the Event center hallway transforming into cloud-like pixel grid mobiles that float above. 

After a week of installing the mobile units the staff at the library were very pleased with the results. The gentle movements and soft color changes set a quiet tone to the building and we hope will lift the spirits of the people visiting the library and event center there. 

SKY ON A STRING

Maybe kites are the prime form of artwork for the outdoors. Some can be as large as billboards offering some prime space for shouting whatever message the flyer wishes the world to know. Kite making is an art and craft available to all as almost a folk art form throughout the world's cultures. We like to think of kites as a celebrationist form of expression. The act of flight being a magical lifting of our cares. It is the play of color and form in the invisible medium of wind and air currents that delights and brings our eyes up and spreads that smile across our faces while flying. .

Kites could even be one of the highest art forms depending, of course, on how much string you might have on your spool. We've often been tempted to fly our kites above the great art museums of the world so we can say "We've shown our kites at the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art..." But the real show place is in the sky gallery and tacked to that beautiful blue and white ceiling.

We were asked to put up a kite show at the Museum of Outdoor Arts in South Denver in the city of Englewood for the spring wind season. While the kites have been stilled in their wind dance, it is inside within the doors of the gallery that reveals an up close view of our kites.

The kites include a view of over thirty years of wind blown passion. Melanie's new photo kites are featured using printing processes onto polyester covers. A special collection of Japanese kites that were gathered from numerous trips to Japan are also included as early influences in my early kite making.

Here's a few quick views from the show...

the entry to the museum kite show

opening night was full of delights

Melanie Walker's photo kites

the Japanese kite gallery

Star Man kite by George Peters

Cloud Kite Triptych by Melanie Walker

Lady Bug kites and Sky Bird kite

Te Manu kite by George Peters

Japanese kites by Hideo Matsutani

In another very small enclosed gallery in the museum there is a show of miniature kites. Some are from the Airworks Studio collection along with others from the extensive kite collections of the Seattle based Drachen Foundation kite archive.

The "Sky on a String" kite exhibition will be at the Museum of Outdoor Arts from March 10th to July 21st, 2012. If you're in the Denver area, stop by and enjoy a wind blown colorful feast.

For a slide show of the exhibition, visit the Airworks Studio Flickr photo site here..

COLOR THE WIND

We rarely exhibit our kites indoors. They are outdoor creatures, made for the winds, made to move and dance under the clouds with the sun shining brightly and illuminating their skins in the brightest colors imaginable. We were recently offered a show at the local Art Center in Grand Junction, Colorado. The timing worked perfectly with our kite festival calendar and the space in the large round gallery exhibition hall at the art center proved a perfect showplace for the kites. The high ceiling overhead could support numerous kites in flying positions while the surrounding gallery walls worked for showing our new sets of new photo kites.

The exhibit entry has a few traditional Japanese kites representing the initial inspiration in delving into the art and craft of kite making back in 1977 when, while living in Hawaii, I started making kites in earnest. I was introduced to Japanese kites through a book entitled “The Art of the Japanese Kite” by artist & writer, Tal Streeter. The definitive collection of stories from his travels around Japan gave insights into the deep cultural roots and fascinating tales of meetings with the old kite masters, many of whom were reaching an age when their craft would pass with them.

Since then and after many travels throughout the world attending international kite festivals, I’ve learned much from friendships with other kite makers. Around the world each country visited has unveiled the culture and depth of this simple air craft made from paper, string and sticks. From Europe to India, Indonesia to Japan, New Zealand to the US, each country has a very unique history that is wrapped tightly into the culture and traditions of flying. The kites at the entry to the exhibit represent kite makers and friends from Japan who either gave or traded a kite for one of mine.

Sky & Desert - Melanie Walker

The kites in the exhibition represent a history not only of my kites but also my partner, Melanie Walker’s kites who joined me in 1995 and started making kites as well. Many of her recent kites were produced with a photo printing on polyester technique which involves a dye sublimate digital printing process. This is a new and exciting realm that has opened up many possibilities of combining her first passion in photographic processes with kite making. Some of the photo kites are first prints of mine as well.

House & Artichoke kites - Melanie Walker

Venice House - George Peters

Fish 1 - George Peters

Zebra kite - Melanie Walker

Rabbit Kite & Househead with Bunny - Melanie Walker

The other kites in the exhibition feature various kite designs of ours that have been developed through the rough school of trial and error. It took maybe two years early on for a kite of mine to finally soar to a high angle and just stay up there. Many kite ‘bones’ were broke in the process of learning the subtle aerodynamic principles of kite aeronautics. The early kites made by traditional Japanese means with carefully split, shaved and balanced bamboo spars very soon gave way to modern materials of fiberglass rod, tube and sewn nylon covers. These new materials were, for the most part, crash proof.

Kites have given an appreciation of the simple act of watching the sky and participating in an act of celebration with the winds. It’s a peaceful pursuit, above it all, in the limitless expanse of overhead space. It is like saying, “Here I am”, swimming in the sky, fishing with no lure, no barb, making no political statement, and letting the wind pull our heavenly tether out higher and higher. The gatherings at the international kite festivals around the world are like a high wire circus act putting colorful paint dabs on the blue canvas overhead.

Pipes - George Peters

Bird Man & Kat Man kites - George Peters

Artichoke Kite - Melanie Walker

Leopard Man, Pod kite & Falling Man kite - George Peters

Chevron Edo kite - George Peters

To see more photos from the "Color the Wind" kite exhibition, go to the Flikr slide show.

SKYS OVER ITALY

Monumento al Aquiloni Signora Volantino

(Monument to the Lady Kite Flyer)

Flying at the Cervia & Venice International Kite Festivals

There is something grand about Italy. Maybe it’s the embedded history on every wall and each face. Or is it those clear skies and steady winds? When we were asked to come to Italy for two kite festivals, one in a little beach bagno community of Pinarella near Cervia and a second on the Lido di Venezia just outside of Venice on the Adriatic, we jumped at the chance.

our kite and banner display in Cervia

our kites after a day on the beach..

The festival of Cervia was held in a new location this year on a bigger beach, more room to fly, and a perfect wind for the ten day festival. Each day glistened with a sky full of kites brought from all over the world hovering overhead on the blue sky gallery ceiling. Each day brought great pictures of the scene and great times with friends we’ve known for many years. Sometimes it’s hard not to just pinch ourselves to make sure we’re not just dreaming this life up.

Each day began with a visit to ‘our’ bagno to open our storage lockers and carry the kites, banners and flying gear to the beachside. Setting up the show is always like putting on a circus. Banners go up, the colors are displayed, the colorful aerial acts start to rise to the big blue top overhead on kite lines angled up to the sky. Some people stand gazing at their addition to the overhead scene, others group together in beach chairs like fishermen watching their lines. We tend to try to see how many kites we can put up there at once… a constant challenge like juggling balls. The kites are tethered to sand bags and spread across the beach so that each kite has some airspace. When the wind is ‘clean’, like straight off the sea, the kites claim their space up there and hang almost motionless drifting together in an overhead aerial sky dance. I never tire from watching this.

the Sardinian ribbon poles

The days passed with lunch treats of sumptuous food Italian style. In the evenings we all gathered at a central hotel along the beach boulevard of Pinarella that gave us a spectacular banquet each night. The waiters and waitresses rushed the plates in a frenzy of service keeping the pasta at just the right temperature. It is a hard job serving eighty hungry kite flyers each night.

the hotel dining room

behind the kitchen doors..

The prima chef

The festival drew big crowds of people each day. The beach tourist season was just starting and the kite festival, organized by Claudio Capelli and his daughter, Caterina, of ArteVento was a welcome event in this community of beach houses, hotels, bagno beach clubs and restaurants. I believe this was the 31^st annual kite festival, one of the longest running kite festivals in Europe.

Makoto Ohye's kite display

on the lido del Venezia

One might ask how a group of kite people can keep the colors up there for a full ten days on a beach without serious mental damage? The routine quickly takes front stage as every morning the kite flyers would wander in, choosing a spot on the beach to set up their ground displays, put up some shade and let a first lined kite up into the overhead sky circus. Over the course of the day the sky gets thick with kites dancing in tight formations over the beach. At about noon there were spontaneous little gatherings hosted by different country delegations for a refreshing drink and a taste of each favorite international cuisine. We hosted a US group picnic in our beach encampment serving ‘mini-Mac’ appetizers, mini pizzas, brown and white ‘wine’ (Coke and Sprite) and a big spread of small bite appetizers that were gobbled up in record time….then everyone migrated over to the German vodka tasting.

The USA beach party

Each day we visit with kite flyers down the beach, keeping a sharp eye on our kite group making sure that they stay up and are not lost into the nearby pine forest or on the roofs of the bagnos. As the day goes on the wind always gets perfect as the stomach growls for dinner. Everyone then meets at the local dinner hosting hotel for drinks and a delicious Italian meal each night.

The second weekend after a disappointing rainy Saturday night fly evening that washed out the planned event we had a glorious last day in Cervia/Pinarella and then headed North to Venice the next morning.

Claudio Capeli at the announcer's table

the sky over Lido Venezia

The Venice festival was attended by a smaller group of kite flyers from the Cervia event. Since this was the first festival for the Lido of Venice Claudio and Caterina were asked to help to organize the group of kite flyers chosen for the trip. Many details were kept a bit fuzzy but the kite flyers were ready for anything. Arriving at the field we were greeted by a beach full of umbrellas set up for the beach season on the rather small beach at the east side of the Lido. A large overhead steel pier bisected what was left of the beach. Not much room to fly kites or put up a large show. After a day of trying out the tight space it was decided to move the festival down the beach to another location in front of a large hotel that was closed at the time and being refurbished. The spot was perfect as we all spread our overhead kite show down the long beach.

Each day was a perfect picture of kite fun. Crowds of people came and enjoyed the show despite the fact that the weekend featured some competition in Venice proper...the Pope was there on a special visit and the canals and squares were packed to the hilt with tourists and followers of the Vatican. Banners we set up down the beach. Kites floated overhead and each day was almost perfect conditions.

The last day we were the last on the beach packing up kites. Behind us an ominous dark sky loomed. Suddenly as the last of the kites were packed in our bags and we started to take down the banners, the wind picked up to speed sending an intense sand storm across the beach. Banners flew off poles, sand bag anchors blew tumbling and our Italy tans were sandblasted away.

The next day was spent dumping sand out of the bags and repacking in the garden of our hotel. We were told that plans had changed for our bus trip to the airport in Bologna and we would have to make it to the Venice train station ourselves… with our eight bags of gear and luggage. Somehow we managed to hook and strap everything with wheels together in a long train of gear and rolled down the main street of the Venice Lido to the water bus to the train station. One last trip through down the Grand Canal made us want to come again, again and again. Ciao Italy!

the kite train home

For more pictures of the Cervia and Venice International kite festival go to the Airworks Studio Flikr Slide Show.