BIG Art; Tiny House
See the finished house, and four other tiny houses, at the 2nd BIG Tiny House Festival on July 16!
BIG Art; Tiny House is yearlong public art project that highlights the functional forms of art rarely seen in more traditional venues. At The Umbrella, we believe that art isn’t just nice, it’s necessary. To demonstrate this, we incited the community of Miranda's Hearth to build a tiny hosue on our front lawn and fill it with handmade objects crafted by local artisans. Simultaneously, we are exhibiting a second, fully-completed tiny house built by InRiver Retreats. By exhibiting the full creative process of building and filling a house, we are drawing attention to the creative fields of architecture, woodworking, pottery, quilting, interior design, and weaving, to name a few.
Our goal is to help people of all ages recognize the role that art plays in their daily lives, even when they don’t know it’s there. By engaging the community in this project from start to finish, we are cultivating the awareness that everything around us was at some point made by someone and that many of these artisans are right here in our local community.
On April 9, 2015 the Concord Zoning Board of Appeals approved a special permit that allowed us to build our tiny house on the front lawn of The Umbrella. The community of Miranda's Hearth started building on June 13, 2015 and worked throughout the summer to complete the exterior shell of the house by the winter. Throughout the winter they will be finishing the interior in order to fill the house with local handmade items in the spring.
In the long-term, BIG Art; Tiny House will become the first hotel room for the fully-realized vision of Miranda’s Hearth as the first community art hotel. We are hoping to find land to start this project within one to two years within an hour of Boston and can’t wait to invite you all to stay!
ABOUT BIG ART AT THE UMBRELLA
The Umbrella’s BIG Art Project started in May 2012 as an annual outdoor large-sculpture exhibit that uses art to encourage dialogue and animate the front lawn of the property. For the past two years, The Umbrella has been home to David Stromeyer’s exhibition, Shaping the Void.
ABOUT MIRANDA'S HEARTH
The mission of Miranda’s Hearth is to build a community through creativity that is affordable, accessible, and approachable to people of all professions. They hold monthly Dinner, Art, + Music nights every Second Sunday where there is always a participatory art project, music, a potluck, and vendors selling what they make. Their long term goal is to become the first community art hotel, where everything from the furniture to the quilts to the soap is made by members of the community. Visitors can buy what they use during their stay, buy something similar in the gallery, or take a class to learn how to make it.
ABOUT TINY HOUSES
The growing Tiny House Movement emphasizes conscious, simple living and coincides with the environmental movement, the buy local movement, and the makers movement. Our specific building plans are for an 8’ by 20’ Cypress Tiny House, designed by Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, on a professionally welded trailer. The peak of the roof will be 13’4”, well under the Interstate System’s minimum vertical clearance of 14’, and the utilities will all be self-contained. At no point during the yearlong installation of BIG Art; Tiny House will the tiny house be used as a residence. At the end of the project, the tiny house will be driven off the premises and used as the first hotel room of Miranda’s Hearth.
