BBP love

Beloved urban Houston park blooms with national design award nomination

Buffalo Bayou Park's urban design has yielded national attention.

Photo by David A. Brown

Houston is seeing a renaissance of sorts with its urban parks, as evidenced by the colossal, $70 million-donation to Memorial Park by the Kinder Foundation and Levy Park being named a winner of the Urban Land Institute’s coveted Open Space Award.

Now, Buffalo Bayou Park joins the fertile mix, with a recent selection as a finalist of the 2019 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. This means the park can secure either a gold medal, with a $50,000 prize, or a silver medal, with a $10,000 prize, to enhance current and future projects.

Buffalo Bayou Park was recognized for its “enhancement of a historic waterway into a resilient public greenspace,” according to a statement by Buffalo Bayou Partnership and SWA Group. The nomination is especially sweet, given the myriad floodings and setbacks the park has endured post-Harvey.

Buffalo Bayou Park joins four other 2019 finalists from across the country, including Sulphur Springs, Texas, which was recognized for its renewal of a rural, small-town civic plaza and main street. The other projects hail from Lynn, Massachusetts; Memphis, Tennessee; and New Orleans.

The biennial award has recognized transformative places that contribute to the economic, environmental, and social vitality of American cities, according to a statement. Seventy-eight projects in 27 states have been honored since its founding.

Finalists and medalists are chosen by a nationwide committee of urban experts through an in-depth evaluation process involving input from the award application, site visits, interviews with project participants and community members, and committee discussions.

Next month, RBA staffers will begin site visits to each finalist project in preparation for the committee’s selection of the medal winners in June. Buffalo Bayou Park and the other finalists will be featured in Metropolis magazine.

“Buffalo Bayou Partnership extends our congratulations to the park designers and consultants as well as our sincerest thanks to the Kinder Foundation for its catalyst gift and to all of the generous funders that made Buffalo Bayou Park possible,” park reps say in a statement. “Special thanks also to the Downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone #3 that provides BBP with annual funding for the park's operations and maintenance.”

awards parks

bowled over

Houston artist dishes on Food Bank fundraiser happening this weekend

Picture of several artists at a table with a bunch of handmade ceramic bowls.

Photo courtesy Paula Murphy

Ceramics professor Cori Cryer and her students from Lone Star College Kingwood and the bowls they donated to the 20th Empty Bowls fundraiser

On Saturday, May 16, shoppers have an opportunity to feed those in need by purchasing unique, handcrafted items. The 20th Empty Bowls event takes place at Silver Street Studios at Sawyer Yards from 10 am to 3 pm. A preview party takes place on Friday, May 15 from 6-8 pm (buy tickets here).

The fundraiser is a collaboration between Houston-area ceramists, woodturners, and artists working in all media and Silver Street Studios.

Shoppers can purchase one-of-a-kind bowls for $25 each (larger bowls are priced accordingly). A simple lunch from Salata, a sweet treat from Ben & Jerry’s, and iced coffee from Katz Coffee is served until it runs out. Every dollar of the purchases goes to the Houston Food Bank, which estimates that for every dollar donated, it’s able to provide three meals to Houstonians in need. Since its inception, Empty Bowls Houston has raised $1,208,959 for the Houston Food Bank, which equates to more than 3.6 million meals.

The event also includes live music and art demos. More than 2,000 bowls will be available for purchase, donated by area artists.

Empty Bowls began as a grassroots effort started many years ago at a high school in Michigan and is now held all over the world. Nearly everything for Empty Bowls events, from the food served to the venues hosting events and the bowls for sale are donated.

Cori Cryer, a professor of ceramics at Lone Star College Kingwood, is one of those who, along with her students, donated bowls for the fundraiser. She’s been involved with the effort for all of its 20 years in Houston, and before that in other cities.

“When I started donating, I didn't have a whole lot of money,” Cryer tells CultureMap. “I was a graduate student, and so this was a way for me to give back to the local community. And I think my students today kind of recognize that same feel. You know, they may not have money to send a check off to someone, [but this is] an easy way for them to be able to contribute to the community.”

Cryer teaches Ceramics I and Ceramics II to a variety of dual-credit high school students, college students, and continuing education students. Those in her Ceramics II classes are required to create five bowls to donate to Empty Bowls. But her students in her introductory class often end up donating as well. This year, she and her students provided approximately 150 bowls for the event.

Cryer said that the style of bowls for sale range from something as small as a condiment bowl to much larger serving bowls As each bowl is an individual work, they represent a variety of styles and themes. One of her students this year designed a glazed, ceramic leaf-shaped bowl with ceramic insects on it.

“There's a ladybug and a caterpillar and a spider,” she says, each created out of clay and positioned around the bowl.

Cryer loves seeing how the artists use their imaginations and abilities.

“Most of my students do throw their bowls on the pottery wheel, but that's not required,” she says. “They can hand-build them. It’s completely up to them what kind of construction technique they use.”

Cryer loves knowing that this event is a way for students to see that their artistic efforts can have lasting impact on the community around them. In addition to being able to support the Houston Food Bank, the bowls her class donates, she knows, take on special meaning for those who purchase them.

“I tell my students there is a pot for every person and a person for every pot,” she says.

In fact, one of her personal favorite bowls is one she purchased from an Empty Bowls sale.

“It's a very small bowl, maybe like three inches in diameter, and two inches tall, and it's a little pink pig that I think an elementary student made,” she said. “He has no tail, and he has no ears, but he has a snout, and it is definitely a pig. And I love that little bowl. I have it sitting on my desk at home.”

Cryer knows shoppers attending the Empty Bowls sale will find similar, soon-to-be-beloved items.

The Saturday event is free. Those wishing to attend the preview party on Friday, May 15 from 6-8 pm, which offers light bites, beer and wine, and the first chance to purchase bowls, can purchase a $50 ticket online. In addition, Archway Gallery is hosting an exhibition of 30 one-of-a-kind bowls that can be purchased as part of the Empty Bowls fundraiser. The exhibit runs through May 30.