Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The PopUp Park at Minneapolis Institute of Arts comes to life

Well, 8 months has gone by since I was first approached by the MIA to create a installation piece in the front lobby of the museum.  How those months have flown by!  With many many meetings, revisions of concept, and a steep learning curve into the world of fake tropical plants and astroturf, I am pleased that the PopUP Park at the museum is getting lots of great use out of it.  Having all this fun color in the lobby really has warmed up the space and love how the Stella upstairs really seems to pop off the wall between the colors in the lobby and the painting.  To show some of the progress and overall project thru pics, here are a few for you to see how the park came to be!  These first few are from the opening night on the 19th of January.


Right before opening night

Opening night fun!

Wonderful turnout for opening night

More peeps!

First concepts 

First concepts

Then picking out the plants


Revised drawing

Fairly finalized layout



Couldn't have done the park without Al fabricating the mounds



Before
AFTER!
Yes, I do see you hiding in the corner Mom and Dad!   Great to see them come all the way from North Dakota!

My aunt Deb and uncle Steve





2 comments:

Christina Rodriguez said...

Nice, Shawn! Looks like a very happy and welcoming place to play. I'm going to show these to my exhibit designer husband & tell him to steal some of your ideas! ;)

Shawn McCann said...

Thanks Christina! It is always fun to work on new and exciting projects. And by all means, your hubby can grab what he needs ;) Ps, the little animatronic motion sensored birds are by far the biggest hit!