Art League Houston

Art League Houston Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Wishing Well for Houston, a collaborative project by Heath Hayner, Aram Nagle, and Brian Piana, January 15 through February 26, 2010 in the Main Gallery of Art League Houston. Originally conceived by the artists while enrolled in a Collaboration in the Arts clas...s at the University of Houston, this much expanded and realized version of Wishing Well for Houston depicts the disparities in average median per-capita income among Houston's super neighborhoods through a major interactive sculptural installation.

The opening reception for Wishing Well for Houston is Friday January 15, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:45.

The City of Houston is known for its diversity. An underplayed aspect of this diversity is in the uneven distribution of wealth, which in its disparity, can be seen as one drives around the city. At times, these geographical shifts in income are subtle and hard to perceive; while in other instances the differences are severe, as in the case when low income neighborhoods abut million dollars high rises.

One way that the City of Houston classifies the different geographic regions of the city is through the designation of Super Neighborhood. A Super Neighborhood is, as defined by the City of Houston website:

"... a geographically designated area where residents, civic organizations, institutions and businesses work together to identify, plan, and set priorities to address the needs and concerns of their community. The boundaries of each super neighborhood rely on major physical feature (bayous, freeways, etc.) to group together contiguous communities that share common physical characteristics, identity, or infrastructure."

Wishing Well for Houston is a three-dimensional map of Houston that was created by analyzing per-capita numbers associated with the city's established Super Neighborhoods.

In constructing Wishing Well for Houston, the artists have reduced the intricate and irregular contours of Houston's approximately 80 super neighborhoods, along with other municipalities in Harris County, to simplified angular shapes. These shapes in turn have been extruded into vertical columns, with the major freeway arteries of the city defined as canyon-like voids that act as reference line for the viewer.

Within this framework, the height of each column has been determined by the average median per-capita income value of the specific super neighborhood, as described by the 2000 U.S. Census. Each column houses a steel chime, whose tone itself more or less corresponds to the wealth of the neighborhood. (For example, the more advantaged a neighborhood, the taller the tower and the lower the pitch of the chime; the more disadvantaged, the shorter the tower and the higher the pitch.)

Chimes are activated when the viewer tosses coins into the installation itself or into a chime's respective tower. At the end of the exhibit, the resulting loose change will be collected and donated to Avenue Community Development Corporation. Avenue CDC is a non-profit organization dedicated to revitalizing Houston's Washington Avenue and Near Northside Community by developing affordable housing and economic opportunities, while preserving our area's economic, cultural, and historical diversity.

About the Artists
Heath Hayner is an artist, composer, designer, writer and teacher with a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) in Theater from the University of Houston (2007). He was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1974 and moved to Houston in 1982. Hayner began playing the violin at 11 and began his studies in theater at the age of 17. Versed in theater, music, and visual arts, Hayner has written a play, composed music, collaborated on projects with artists, and designed sound, lighting, sets, and costumes for a number of organizations, including Main Street Theater, Stages Repertory Theater, Mitchell Center for Collaboration, the University of Houston, Infernal Bridegroom Productions, among others. Presently he is completing a certification program to teach Theater.

Aram Nagle is a sculptor with a B.F.A. (2003, Sum Cum Laude) and an M.F.A. (2006) from the University of Houston. His work has been featured at Blaffer Gallery and CSAW Art Warehouse in Houston, Stella Haus Art Space and UTSA Satellite Space in San Antonio, Rand R Gallery in Eugene, Oregon, and 922 Nolden in Los Angeles, California. Nagle was awarded Best In Show in the 2003 UH Sculpture Art Crawl Show. A former CSAW Artist-In-Residences, Nagle teaches Art and Art History at Houston Community College Northeast, and is a Teaching Assistant in Sculpture at The Glassell School of Art.

Brian Piana is a visual artist working primarily from the Internet. He has an M.S. in Visualization Science from Texas A & M University (2000) and an M.F.A. in Photography/Digital Media from the University of Houston (2007). In 2007, his first solo exhibition, Lawndale Has Many Friends, featured a room-sized installation at Lawndale Art Center depicting elements of the Center's MySpace page. In addition to his Lawndale show, Piana's work has been featured at galleries throughout the United States, including the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, FotoFest in Houston, and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, among others. Piana is a professor in Art and Visual Communications at San Jacinto College, and is co-director of Skydive, an artist run exhibition venue.

About Avenue CDC
Avenue Community Development Corporation (Avenue CDC) was founded in 1991 to develop affordable housing, preserve historic buildings and revitalize the Old Sixth Ward, a National Register Historic District in the shadow of downtown Houston. By 1999, Avenue CDC expanded its target area to include the entire Near Northside and Washington Avenue communities north and northwest of downtown. Avenue CDC revitalizes the community by developing affordable housing and economic opportunities, while preserving the area's historic, cultural and economic diversity. Since its inception, Avenue CDC has leveraged more than $36 million of investments through the development of 85 single-family homes, 331 rental units, and 78,000 square feet of commercial space. Avenue CDC also provides free homebuyer education and counseling services, as well as training and tutoring in financial literacy.