ReadyMade: Instructions for everyday life

Now that summer has finally arrived after a very April-like June, my thoughts have turned to water. In my book, there’s nothing like a dip in the ocean but when that’s not a possibility there’s almost always a pool somewhere nearby. But what about when that’s not the case? I was mulling this over last week when my friend, Steve Macdonald of Ramblin’ Worker, dropped me a line to tell me about some pool parties he had heard about in Brooklyn that he thought I might be interested in checking out.

Any pool party generally sounds pretty good to me but this particular one piqued my interest more than usual. “I was in NYC last week and went to see [a friend's] project,” Steve wrote me. “He is making pools out of dumpsters. But, it’s much bigger than that. He is having pool parties in Brooklyn on Fridays. You should see if he will let you write about it or come out to the parties.” Luckily for me, it turns out Steve’s friend was Jocko Weyland, the skater and author of “The Answer is Never: A Skateboarder’s History of the World,” and turns out I had met Jocko a few years back at an opening at the Elk Gallery in New York.

I immediately dropped Jocko a line. He got back to me the next day, informing me that he had been in China for the past two years but had returned to New York not long ago and started working with Macro-Sea, a group whose mission, simply put, is “to do projects we find interesting.” Alright, I thought, but tell me a bit more about the pools.

Jocko wrote me back with a brief synopsis: “We heard about dumpster pools—one was done by Curtis Crowe of the band Pylon in Athens, Georgia a few years ago, and others have done it, but usually smaller—and decided we wanted to do it this summer in Brooklyn as a test site/prototype. We (David Belt, Alix Feinkind, and myself, who are Macro-Sea) heard about it in late February. In late May we found the location, and from the time we got the dumpsters to the opening on July 4th was 12 days.

We would like to do them in the parking lots of the strip malls and show people that with not too much expense you can creatively reuse what is basically considered urban detritus and make something really cool and fun and also fairly easy to put together.”

As Jocko and I continued our correspondence I quickly learned that Steve was right (not that I ever doubted him), the pool project was a small part of something much larger. Macro-Sea has been involved with a number of artists, architects and retailers across the country working to transform defunct strip malls. “By stripping and altering its [strip malls] common architectural features, adding community space and involvement, and carefully selecting and curating vendors and the space itself Macro-Sea hopes to create and promote a place for people to shop, meet, learn, and engage with one another.” Sounds like a good plan to me and I’ve seen it happen successfully before, in Sao Paulo, Brazil a few years ago. I’m looking forward to learning more about the whole project in a few weeks when I get together with Jocko to hear more about everything and, of course, to go swimming!

Update: My colleague, Kara Szalkowski, forwarded me this shot of this pink dumpster she saw on the Upper East Side of New York! As another colleague, Katherine Sharpe, commented, “definitely the most fabulous dumpster I’ve ever seen!.” Now if Macro-Sea could get their hands on this fine piece of steel they may have the most perfect summer project ever dreamed of…

Update Again: Just got another shot of the pools under construction courtesy of Ramblin’ Worker, Steve Macdonald. As Steve says, “Does not look like a party here.” Indeed, but the finished product certainly seems worth the effort.