Friday, May 22, 2009

Buttons: Giants

When I was making my weekly mosaic for ArtMind, I found a picture of a huge red button sculpture. I liked it instantly ! so big and bright ! Did some research into outside button sculptures and found some really great ones. Here they are, starting with the red one from my mosaic.

1. button, button, who's got the button?, 2. Lorrie's BUTTON, 3. grand rapids 1, 4. Lorrie's Button

Hy Zelkowitz
Lorrie's Button, 1976
Painted fiberglass and urethane foam
Ah-Nab-Awen Park, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
A huge red button on a tilted axis. The center of the button is pierced with four large holes. The sculpture was designed for children to climb on and is installed in a playground area of the park.



1. Les oeuvres d'art publiques de la région de Granby et de la Montérégie, 2. MTLskyline on skyscrapercity*forums

Esther Lapointe
Bouton, 1977
Tufo stone and marble
Lorne Park, Saint-Lambert, Quebec, Canada



1. The Button sculpture on the Penn Campus, 2. Button Sculpture 2, 3. Cute as a button, 4. Claes Oldenburg ‘Split Button’, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Claes Oldenberg and Coosje Van Bruggen
Split Button, 1981
cast in reinforced aluminum and painted
Blanche Levy Park, Philadelphia, PA, USA
The Split represents the river Schuylkill; it divides the button into four parts symbolic for Philadelphia’s original city quadrants designed by William Penn in 1683.



1. Downtown (4), 2. Thimble, 3. verabee.com, 4. Thimble & tattoo

Stephen Cruise
Uniform Measure/Stack, 1997
bronze thimble and eight concrete buttons
northwest corner of Richmond Street and Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
This area used to be the centre of garment factories of Toronto. The statue reflects on the contributions of its workers and on the presence of 'touch' in the making of garments.



1. Art District, 2. Needle and button, 3. Me in the Fashion District, 4. Button Holes

Pentagram Architectural Services
Needle and Button, 1995
Seventh Avenue and 39th Street, New York, NY, USA
The octagonal kiosk, which is the Fashion District Information Center, incorporates the world's largest button leaning against the kiosk, held upright by a long steel needle. The 5 holes are making a stylized F, which is the logo for the fashion district, which you can see on top of the kiosk.



1. alvik on eFoto.lt, 2. SCANDINAVIANS & BALTICS, 3. SCANDINAVIANS & BALTICS, 4. SocialinėMechanika

Vytautas Narutis
Buttons, 2005
Vienybes aikste, Kaunas, Lithuania
The sculptor says: "A button is a symbol that accompanies us from childhood. A button connects two parts of clothes, the destinies of people, two cities (i.e. Vilnius and Kaunas)". (Many thanks to the Lithuanian members of the European Street Team on Etsy for all the information so far !)


Do you know more button statues, memorials or sculptures ???? Please let me know !

19 comments:

Veerle said...

What a great post, again!
It's incredible how you always find these great subjects for you blogpost! I enjoy them very much!

Stephanie Kilgast said...

Oh wow!
That's impressive and very interesting!
Thanks for this post :)

jealousydesign said...

Amazing buttonart! Really nice to see all these.

Hope you are feeling better soon! *hugs*

ingermaaike said...

Totally amazing, you never cease to surprise me with your posts in a most enjoyable way! Thank you :-D

Meltem said...

Oh wow wonderful blogpost. Amazing buttons picks!

MQuin said...

I love this post! Especially the giant needle and button!!

Dreams and Lights said...

Wow ! amazing post! i didn't know that there are so many Buttons sculptures in the world! and i am a same that i didn't know about that one in Kaunas..
I'll visit it as soon as possible:)

Jane_Bo said...

Very interesting post! Like this huge buttons!

Kreativlink said...

Ha! Amazing! You should have such a gigantous button in your garden :)

Unknown said...

This is truly amazing! I love it. Your posts are so wonderfully inspiring!
~Emily xx

Greet said...

OOOh, waht a great finds, I love the last one the most!!!!

Sigmosaics said...

oh wow, i've never seen a button that big before!! these are amazing works of art!

StaroftheEast said...

Wow so many HUGE buttons!! Great finds and posts!

Dawn of LaTouchables said...

You are the button expert! I would love to see your collection and ask you about the history of buttons!

X by Leina Neima said...

Wonderful finds!!! you have great nose on buttons!

TanyaMac said...

ooh I love that shiny red button sculpture! great post!! :)* ♥

aliceinparis said...

This was a lot of fun! Who knew that there were so many BIG buttons!!
Cheers, Shelagh

jo said...

Thank you for the awesome post i really enjoy them. I so wish i had a huge button in my garden. I Hope you don't mind i posted about your awesome post here: http://www.buttoncandy.org/?p=287

Heidi said...

These images are great. I would never have imagined that there are so many button sculptures, but I am rather smitten by them.