News stories tagged with "australia"

(09/28/11) Australian architectural designer Alexander Michael opens an exhibit of his sculptures this Saturday at his part time Adirondack hidden home that once housed an anti-ballistic missile (ABM). Michael will also give tours of his former Atlas Missile Silo in Lewis, in the Champlain Valley.

Twelve ABM sites were built near the Plattsburgh Air Force base in the early 1960's, hidden in the mountains. Each deep underground silo held a missile, and quarters where the crews lived and worked. Many of these silos were taken off alert and fully decommissioned within a few years.

Following their closure, most of them were sold off to local towns, salvage companies or left to decay. But Michael's Lewis Missile Base, also known as Boquet 556-5, is one of the more impressively restored missile silos.

He lives there for about eight weeks each year, and for more than ten years, he's pumped out water, hauled out or recycled scrap metal, restored the former Launch Control Center into an underground retreat. Todd Moe stopped by for a tour.

(09/23/11) Dozens of artists in the Tri-Lakes area will open their doors to visitors this weekend. It's the annual Artists at Work Studio Tour and a chance to ask questions and view art being created up close in studios in Lake Placid, Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake.

Alexander Michael, an architectural designer from Australia, is an artist-in-residence for the event. He'll be working on a series of fiberglass sculptures at 7444 Gallery in Saranac Lake this weekend, and then offering tours of his decommissioned North Country missile silo and part time home near Plattsburgh, next weekend.

Todd Moe caught up with him to talk about living in missile silo and designing art that explores religion, culture and creative expression.

(03/01/04) Dairy farmers are still awaiting the details of a free trade pact signd last month between the United States and Australia. Australia is the world's third largest dairy exporter and dairy farmers in the North Country and across the nation feared a flood of imports.

(02/10/04) North Country dairy farmers are breathing a sigh of relief in the wake of Sunday's free trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia. The National Milk Producers Federation had warned tariff-free Australian imports could have forced as many as 15% of American dairy farmers out of business.

(01/04/02) Martha Foley talks with naturalist Ed Kanze, author of the book "Kangaroo Dreaming," about massive fires burning in New South Wales, Australia. The country has a long history of fire, and some plants thrive on fire, but people settled on the landscape complicate the picture.