slu
Looks like someone dumped a heap of plumbing supplies smack in the middle of the expansive grassy area separating the modern Doisy Building and vintage SLU medical school complex. It’s really an abstract sculpture, right across Grand Boulevard from the SSM-SLU Hospital under construction, and a driver stuck in traffic that’s sluggish or stopped altogether can’t help but use his imagination. White Mountains is quite attractive, actually. But mountains ain’t in it. Slightly rectangular, the piece kind of resembles white plateaux to anyone really trying to stretch their imagination. It begged a closer look. Not quite as tall as the average human, it’s nothing like the mess of PVC pipe one may imagine from a distance. It’s steel, painted bright white, and set on an expanse of what appears to be crushed gravel that could have survived some light weeding by the crew responsible for mowing and weed-whacking the otherwise verdant area. The artist is Clark Murray. SLU received the work on a 25-year loan in 2010, and it’s been on display in its current location for about five years. But if you think it doesn’t belong there, don’t try to move it somewhere else. You’ll throw your back out.
creve coeur
Late last month there was a homemade sign in the grass off the shoulder of Lindbergh Boulevard, right across from Chaminade. White poster board hand-lettered with permanent marker was secured to a metal frame. It was not as sturdy as those Open House signs real estate agents put up on Sundays, but it was more professional than the sign a kid tapes to a lemonade stand. Those are installed near the action, designed to pull you right in. Few are along one of the metro’s busiest thoroughfares. This one was close to the traffic signal and hard to miss. It read something like, ‘Want to Learn About Real Estate Investing?’ I was flabbergasted. The income demographic for the message was probably about right. Hundreds of entrepreneurial folks probably glanced at it, some rolling their eyes as they accelerated when the light changed. I’d venture a wealthy real estate investor—like, say, the president—has a bigger ad budget. Some mail postcards to prospects in upscale ZIP codes, inviting them to seminars at the area’s best steakhouses. That can’t be cheap. But this sign sure was. Maybe the advertiser knows something I don’t. Could it be, then, that people really do sell their houses to random strangers who put up hand-lettered signs offering to buy them in any condition? (Which begs the question: Do you live in your car from then on?) Someone should make an ‘Ocean Liner for Sale’ sign. All you’d need is an ocean liner, an ocean to float it in and a sucker. There’s one born every minute, apparently.
Space … the final frontier. There’ll soon be excess retail space aplenty throughout the metro and Metro East, unless a buyer expresses interest in 16 orphaned Shop ’n Save discount supermarkets. At about 50,000 square feet apiece, that’s 800,000 square feet, about the size of an airport terminal. (Lambert’s main terminal is approximately 1.1 million square feet; the east terminal, which handles Southwest Airlines, is about 225,000 square feet. That’s more than enough space to stage a fake landing on Mars.) Supervalu, the chain’s Minneapolis-based parent, has unloaded 35 stores here. More than 1,300 employees got pink slips, although Schnucks will retain union workers at the 19 stores it’s absorbing. Dierbergs, Aldi and Straub’s have said no thank you to the remaining 16. What’s more, the shells are immense, too big for the boutique grocers that have cropped up. So Supervalu plans to close them before Thanksgiving. Schnucks plans to convert it’s new portfolio additions in short order: Each will close just a few days for the changeover. A couple of addresses on Manchester illustrate the quandary for supermarketers. If you blink, you might miss the new Schnucks in downtown Maplewood that used to be Shop ’n Save. Meanwhile, Schnucks in Kirkwood is just east of Lindbergh, less than a quarter-mile from a Shop ’n Save that’s not long for this world. A newish Fresh Thyme is even closer. The discount grocer’s imminent vamoose will leave a huge gap in the streetscape, room enough for a Kmart, Toys ‘R’ Us or maybe even a Venture store. Of course, those big-boxes are no more, save a lone Kmart in Florissant. How about a second IKEA store? A few floors and a multilevel parking garage probably would do the trick. There. Fixed that.
u.city
Who wants to Get LOOPed in U. City this Friday, Oct. 5, during the second self-guided tour of the Delmar Loop’s fun shops, restaurants and much more? You do? Well, c’mon down! Get LOOPed starts at 5 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. This go-round, there will be two ribbon cuttings for new businesses set to open. You may have to be two places at once but, failing that, they’re only a couple doors from one another … so just walk down. Yoga Source will open at 6170 Delmar Blvd. The Baked Bear is the new arrival at 6140 Delmar Blvd. The latter offers a scrumptious spin on the ice cream sandwich: freshly baked cookies, brownies or donuts to sandwich your ice cream. We already know that U. City bills itself as ‘Neighborhood to the World’ … lion-emblazoned signs with that motto welcome you and bid you farewell at the city limits. We just learned another reason: On both sides of Skinker Boulevard are restaurants representing 17 countries. Not into Italian or American tonight? Try Thai.
Robert Fishbone of Clayton found his first creative partner in Sarah Linquist, scenery painter at The Muny. Together, they painted murals on buildings all over town, perhaps the most famous being Lindy Squared, a pixelated image of the legendary aviator. (Alas, the building it graced was torn down less than five years later in 1981 … but it’s set to reappear in the 2020s as part of the Missouri History Museum’s collections.) Sarah passed away in 2010, but her legacy lives on through Robert and his second creative partner—their daughter, Liza Fishbone, who paints with her dad when she’s in town. She’s been helping to refresh murals her parents created 20 years or so ago. Robert and Liza just finished their latest mural project, the side of the building at the western entrance of the Cherokee Street district, in June. With a disco ball as the center of interest, it’s vibrant, whimsical … and huge. And a perfect look for STLstyle, the St. Louis-themed custom T-shirt shop owned by twin brothers Jeff and Randy Vines. Robert’s first big project with Liza, the side of the building housing the KDHX studios in Grand Center, raised eyebrows. It originated with a marketing campaign by Phillips 66—a giant corporation that cozy with a community nonprofit? “As the artists, we got caught in the middle,” says Liza of the 2015 project. “Some people saw it as an advertisement.” She saw their point, but above all, it was a learning experience. “She jumped right into the deep end of the pool,” says Robert, who was working on a restoration near SLU while his daughter took time out from installations for a music festival in her home city of Austin, Texas, to join a three-way phone call with us. “There’s quite a difference in skill levels,” Robert emphasizes, comparing his to Liza’s. “This is so much more than, ‘Can you draw?’ or just imagining your art big.” Liza demurs. “I became really, really good at cleaning brushes,” she says. Her father adds: “And mixing colors!” Liza is a partner in Chalk Riot, for which she draws oft-surreal images with street chalk, many of them anamorphic. The perspective may be altered such that viewers feel they’ll fall through a hole if they get too close. Classic trompe l’oeil. Liza loves being physical with her art, getting dirty and tired and maybe a little sunburned, all while interacting with observers. She feels public art is vital to society. Museums? Access is only one drawback. “You stand in line, you have to be quiet,” she says. “And who determines what goes in there, what to charge for admission?”