Lucy's Gone Away

On this chill of a day, a blustery afternoon after the first dusting of snow of the year, it might be appropriate to pause and remember part of Winston's public art past. In the mid 1970s neighbors in the revitalizing West End part of town contracted with an artist to gift to the city a work that seemed to symbolize the emerging yet unfinished rebirth of their own historic neighborhood. The artist, a young Thomas Sayre, placed the work in the woods-encircled natural amphitheater that is northeast Hanes Park. In a moment of unintended prophetic irony, the artist called the walled edifice "Lucy's Gone Away." Though not everyone appreciated the symbolism of the work, no one thought its presence in the landscape was in jeopardy. But, not many months after this picture was taken, a landscaping crew damaged part of the work while mowing. When someone asked what to do about it, no one in the city quite knew how to "fix it;" and, not long after that, one day the work was simply torn down. Lucy went away.

Public art is a mix of things large and small, temporary and permanent. But it almost always is intentional in its appearance in the landscape. The lesson of Lucy is, if a community is not intentional in preserving and maintaining public art in the landscape, it will disappear. Let's hope we've learned our lesson in Winston. Photo courtesy of Thorns Craven.

A Light in our Piazza - Tonight thru Saturday

Following on last month's Stevens Center performance of the Adam Guettel work about Winston-Salem folks on Italian holiday, tonight through Saturday night you can see the Millennium Center's piazza in a whole new light. Literally. Every thirty minutes, from 6:30-11:00pm.

As Ken Keuffel reported in the Winston-Salem Journal last Sunday, lighting students of Norman Coates at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts have teamed their design talents with lighting industry leader and masterclass teacher Paul Gregory to add a definite new spark to the public art scene in Winston. Underwritten by the founding owners of Lucifer Lighting in San Antonio, UNCSA supporters Gilbert and Suzanne Mathews, the show at 101 W. Fifth St. will have plenty of attention running concurrent with the annual Piedmont Craftsmen's Fair in town. It's just the kind of creative flash the town needs more of. Thanks to all involved in this project - perhaps something permanent is on the way soon?

Photo, from UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, shows how one of six different designs has been planned for the building - here by Michael Kohler and his team of Alex Bright and Kyle Grant.

Video of September 16 "Creative Bridge Design" Exhibit Opening

Triangle Neighbors Paint the Town

Or at least one whole street of it.

groundSPARK, the Raleigh Street Painting Festival, will be held September 19-21 in City Market, Moore Square Art District. Sponsored by Visual Art Exchange, this free and open-to-the-public event is part of SPARKcon, both a local talent showcase and a series of workshops to capture ideas about the creative future of the Triangle area of North Carolina.

The event won't just involve letting the kids loose with those oversize pastel chalk sticks on the asphalt (though they'll be a space for that, too). City Market will be filled with over 400 artists actually painting the street, using Martin Street in Moore Square as their canvas. The artists will have only 27 hours to complete their work and will work alongside graffiti artists, fashion designers and musicians to transform Downtown Raleigh into a work of art.

The Raleigh event reminds us in Winston that while we're unafraid to boldly dream of bridges and immovable legacies through public art and design, public art can also be joyously immediate and celebratory, even for a brief moment of time and space. It's a reflection of life - a mix of poof and gone, treasured and transcendent.

Attend a Community Forum During the DADA Creative Bridge Exhibit

Last night's "Creative Bridge Design" exhibit at the DADA Center was a wonderful introduction to the possibilities that the renewal of our transportation infrastructure can bring. Twenty-two local architects and artists have works displayed, and we will try to post some examples of their conversation-starting work here in future posts.

Because the exhibit space does not have regular hours but is usually available by appointment only, members of the general public will want to stop and see the showcase of Business 40 brainstorming during a series of one-hour community forums these next three weeks. The forums for discussion and presentation of design successes from other states will be led by members of the Arts Council's Public Art and Design Committee. Forums take place from 6:30-7:30pm at the DADA Community Center Gallery on 526 N. Liberty St in Winston-Salem on the following three nights: Thursday, Sept. 18; Thursday, Sept. 25; and Tuesday, Sept. 30. A final forum will take place during the October DADA Gallery Hop from 7:00-9:00pm on Friday, October 3.

If you are unable to come during these forum times and would still like to see the works before the end of the show, contact Sandy Romanac at sromanac@triad.rr.com to arrange a time for a peek.

The above photo of Fourth and Main from Liberty Street in Winston is by NCBrian and found here at flickr.

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Bridges to Somewhere

In a guest editorial published over the weekend in the Winston-Salem Journal, Russell DuBois, a staff architect in facilities planning for the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, argues that NCDOT replacement of the Business 40 bridges will provide downtown with architectural possibilities.

DuBois notes: "With the price of gas rising and the economy hurting, some may scoff that the last thing we need is to drive up the cost of the bridge replacement by incorporating a bunch of design frills. But it is a hallmark of great architectural design that it is often no more expensive than the run-of-the-mill alternative. And remember, this is an opportunity that won't happen again for decades. Surely we as a community can agree that any nominal extra costs would be more than made up for by the added value these designs would provide to our built environment and how it is perceived by visitors as they drive through."

Words well said.

Photos above are of the Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge, Brasilia, Brazil, as seen on the website Nine Amazingly Unique Bridges, recommended to this blogger by Katie Gunter.

Seeing Our City

Under the title "Seeing our City: The Art of Defining a Place," Reynolda House is hosting a series of free public forums, with talks by leading experts and local leaders, on three successive Thursday evenings in October. The forums are in conjunction with Reynolda House's new exhibition "Seeing the City: Sloan's New York." John Sloan's paintings present a unique opportunity to promote discussion about what makes a city interesting and beautiful. Is it the variety of people that make up its residents? Is it the architecture? Is it the natural parks and places where people can relax by the water, or artists and their creativity that add an indefinable spark to a city? Support for this series is provided by the North Carolina Arts Council and the J.C. Tise Fund of The Winston-Salem Foundation.

Members of the audience will be encouraged to ask questions and contribute to the discussion. Forums begin at 7pm, and a reception follows each forum. On October 9 the forum's topic will be "The Face of Our City: Architectural Characteristics, Unique Assets, and Conscientious Development." On October 16 the focus turns to "The Heart of Our City: Downtown Living, Diversity, and a District for the Arts." The speaker that night will be Dr. James Johnson, a fellow of the Urban Land Institute, director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center, and professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler School of Business. Johnson is a nationally recognized authority on urban development and social justice. A panel discussion that night will include representatives from Goler Community Development Corporation, the Downtown Arts District, and the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership.

Finally, on October 23 the series closes with the topic "Transforming Our City: Bridging Public Art and Public Works." The featured speaker this evening will be Frederick Gottemoeller, an architect, engineer, and author of the classic study Bridgescape: The Art of Designing Bridges. He is recognized for generating significant public involvement in conceptual engineering for major public works projects around the country. In 1998 Mr. Gottemoeller co-organized "Thinking Beyond the Pavement," the national conference that initiated the Context-Sensitive Design Movement. The evening's discussion panel includes representatives from the Public Art Committee of the Winston-Salem Arts Council, the Community Appearance Commission, and the Business 40 Project.

Eyesore to Eye Candy

An exciting overview of trends in public art placemaking, Roberta Smith's article in the August 22 New York Times is well worth reading. As she notes, "over the past 15 years public sculpture — that is, static, often figurative objects of varying sizes in outdoor public spaces — has become one of contemporary art’s more exciting areas of endeavor and certainly its most dramatically improved one." For those who want to get excited by possibilities, Smith's piece is a good place to start.

The picture above of Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate,” nicknamed by locals in Chicago "the Bean," is by Peter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times.

Creative Bridge Design Exhibit Opens Today, Through October 3

The art exhibit "Creative Bridge Design" will take place Tuesday, September 16th and run now until October 3 at the DADA Center at 526 N. Liberty St. in the Downtown Art District in Winston-Salem.

The art exhibit is to inspire and motivate both the Winston-Salem Community and funders of the Business 40 Project to incorporate public art and creative design into the Business 40 Bridges. The presenting of local artists’ works and examples of innovative bridge design will be among the first visual models presented to the public and NCDOT for the Business 40 Bridges. It will be part of a dialogue in which the community, the Arts, and the State can work side by side on a large scale project that will heighten the city’s development and identity as the “City of the Arts”.

For further information on Creative Bridge Design art exhibition contact Katie Gunter at gunterk7@gmail.com

"Seeing the City" - Exhibit and Forums Offer Fresh Perspectives

Beginning this fall, Winston-Salem's Reynolda House Museum of American Art will present “Seeing the City: Sloan’s New York,” a traveling exhibition of John Sloan’s images of New York City, which presents both an in-depth view of the artist’s time there and the effects of the city on his art. By bringing together numerous images in all media from 1904 through the 1930s, “Seeing the City” is the first major traveling exhibition to focus on Sloan’s depictions of New York and the first since the 1970s to present significant new scholarship on the artist. By cataloging in words and pictures the vast changes in the city during his time, Sloan (1871-1951) created a "pedestrian aesthetic" which helped define New York in the popular imagination. The exhibit will be on view from October 4, 2008 through January 4, 2009.

Those interested in the "pedestrian aesthetic" in Winston-Salem will also find of interest a series of public forums accompanying the exhibit. As the Museum's press release notes, "John Sloan’s paintings present a unique opportunity to promote discussion about what makes a city interesting and beautiful. Is it the variety of people that make up its residents? Is it the architecture? Is it the natural parks and places where people can relax by the water, or artists and their creativity that add an indefinable spark to a city?" The Reynolda House forums, with talks by leading experts and local leaders, will be held on three successive Thursday evenings in October. October 9, 7–9 p.m. - The Face of Our City: Architectural Characteristics, Unique Assets, and Conscientious Development. October 16, 7–9 p.m. - The Heart of Our City: Downtown Living, Diversity, and a District for the Arts. October 23, 7–9 p.m. – Transforming Our City: Bridging Public Art and Public Works.

Thanks to Reynolda House for expanding both the conversation and the venues for discussion of how art might serve our city. Top illustration is by John Sloan, "Spring Rain," 1912. Original is oil on canvas, 20 ¼ x 26 inches, at the Delaware Art Museum, a gift of the John Sloan Memorial Foundation, 1986.

Celebrating with Creative Beauty

The Winston-Salem Journal was kind enough to post today a guest editorial on a fine way to celebrate Winston-Salem's centennial in 2013: with the creation of a Centennial Public Arts Commission and public art works in each ward of the city. I have been involved with how to create and care for beauty in public space since leading an effort to raise funds for a Millennium Clock in Grace Court in 1999. It was certainly very much a community-building effort in my neighborhood, and I highly recommend such efforts for public beauty to others.

Value Added? At What Cost?

Even if life isn't "all about the benjamins," tough economic times remind us that money is a scarce resource, and that communities - like households - should prioritize their expenses. When Mary Giunca wrote today about the effort to beautify a new Business 40 with the aid of counsel from the arts and design community, an online reader posted this response: "No one will argue that beautifying our roadways is nice, but at what cost? We need to be careful how much this could end up costing because it is always easy to spend other peoples' money."

One of the attractions of the Business 40 project to those like myself interested in investing in public art and design is that monies for this project will be spent on beautification of the roadway no matter what. If they are not spent in small part on the advice of an artist or a designer, something else will be coded as "beautification" and the money will be spent. Failure to spend it on this kind of enhancement will not save taxpayers money - it will just be spent on something else to meet the federally mandated expenditure. But why would you pay money for outside advice on how to spend money? What is the "value added" of hiring design and aesthetic expertise like this for our city?

Last fall the City-County Planning Board celebrated its 50th anniversary and invited Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute to speak. As reported in a story about the visit by Giunca, McMahon said that Winston-Salem had made a good start in downtown revitalization, but "the city must continue to distinguish itself from other places, push for new construction that adds local character and be creative in telling the area's stories. The choice is not schlock or nothing, which in the South is what we've always thought it was." Later Giunca notes, "Another critical part of McMahon's message was the importance of seeing the connection between development, good planning, an attractive community and sound economic policies.... The more Winston-Salem comes to look like every place in America, the less people want to visit, he said."

Seattle is asking for design advice at the cost of $60,000 for a $75-100 million dollar bridge project (see the blog entry at right "I'll have what they're having"). You might call that a ball-park figure for nationally recognized expertise on distinctive place-making. The cost of not being distinct is lost business - a high "lost opportunity cost" indeed.

At a 2003 Philadelphia conference sponsored by the Social Impact of the Arts Project, Lynne Sagalyn, a city planner, spoke on "the arts as an urban development strategy." While she focused mainly on cities creating arts districts, she notes: "Arts-based strategies are different from other types of economic development in several ways. Arts-based development must be based on local cultural resources. The current wisdom is that successful local economic development cannot be based on imported cultural resources....Arts-based development is not tied directly to increasing the city's tax base. Tax increases are dependent on multiplier effects--i.e., the number of patrons who eat in restaurants or shop, ride in cabs or park in lots.."

So does that make an aesthetic improvement just too wishy-washy to measure? Actually, no. Giunca quotes McMahon's telling of the experience of one small town's "multiplier effect" with art on its streets. "Gettysburg, PA, had a problem with tourists coming to the Civil War battlefields and then leaving without ever visiting the city's downtown. Gettysburg researched the history of the battle, which had come into downtown, McMahon said. It painted a mural and installed a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln that tourists often pose with. Three years later, sales taxes and other forms of revenue had increased 20 percent in downtown."

The Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania raised $100,000 to cover the costs of the Gettusburg statue of Abraham Lincoln (no federal monies for that investment), and the statue was placed in 1990 near the Wills House on Lincoln Square. In sculptor Seward Johnson, Jr.'s statue Abraham Lincoln stands with his hat pointed toward the Wills house (where he spent the night in town in November 1863): a contemporary American with a map is with him. Johnson is known for his realistic portrayals, and attempted to transport the figures in time beyond time. I can report I stood next to Abe in 2001, pleased that, absent his hat, we were about the same height. I can also report that, without knowing I was supposed to, Abe got me to look around downtown, to spy an ice cream and soda shop, and to buy my souvenirs in town rather than at the battleground. I could point him out to the kids and talk about that town as a memorable place. Would that just the casual driver discover a "memorable place" thanks to a drive through our downtown boulevard, Business 40.

Our Rivers Running Through It

Many cities are built near the intersection of waterways with transportation corridors. Historically, the two - water and transportation routes - were often one and the same. Hence many memorable urban vistas today are framed by water. In earlier times water was a source of factory power and a crude discharge route for commercial waste. Waterfronts were not the most scenic vistas of a city. Now cities are attentive to the enjoyment of waterways, and their attractiveness as much as their necessity. Tourism and community identity are often tied together with the embrace of the water by a city - I think of Wilmington, NC's Cape Fear River alongside downtown, or Shockoe Slip along the James in Richmond, VA, and San Antonio, TX's River Walk. A regional town well-admired (if not outright envied) is Greenville, SC, which took the falls of the Reedy River - the power source of a century ago - and made the area around it into a wooded park, an urban strollway, the venue of their performing arts center, and the site of a dramatically designed pedestrian bridge which celebrates the possibilities of place.

I have often thought it would have been nice had the Moravian founders of Winston-Salem located the main town of Wachovia settlement along the banks of the Yadkin rather than on one of the three forks of Muddy Creek. I think that way until flood season, of course, when I'm reminded that topography can make not all rivers equal blessings to their neighbors. Unusual Iowa floods this week show that some floodplains are just too easily breached to make of waterfronts a full community embrace. Levees and floodwalls have to trump aesthetics. My vacation memory of Columbus, OH will be of an impressive city hall statue of the city's namesake overlooking what appeared to be a large concrete culvert snaking through town. I didn't know at the the time that floods had been such a problem on the Scioto River that the 1993 floodwall had been hailed as rescuing the development prospects of the westside Franklinton neighborhood. I only knew the 2003 drought made the concrete-lined riverbed a disruption to a pleasant urban sunset.

Winston-Salem's downtown has two main transportation arteries running through it: the north-south US 52, and the east-west Business 40 interstate. These roads frame the downtown view for guests and residents. We can treat them with utility in mind only, as our forefathers did once out of necessity with rivers. Or we can fashion transportation corridors for both beauty and utility. More easily than with a natural riverbed, we can alter topography on a roadway, predict and channel traffic flow. And if the general boundaries of where our roadways will be are set, their presentation through our urban heart is not. The first two photos of Greenville's Reedy River Falls are from the Falls Park website, as recommended by friend and former Greenville reference librarian Bill McRee. The Columbus skyline, along a more full Scioto River, is from the City utility department's Franklinton floodwall page. The Ponte Vecchio, below on the Arno, is both a place of maximized utility and a lasting symbol of beautiful Florence, Italy (and it's near, btw, both a great history of science museum and the restaurant where this southern blogger first tasted tortellini in 1982, long before it was an item in the local supermarket...)

Where to Lobby for Better Business 40 Design

If you've been to the Business 40 project website, you'll see that the feedback form provided is limited to polling the public on the six-year versus the two-year closure plan. You can leave more general comments online at the Communications Office of NCDOT, or write these transportation officials directly with your thoughts.

Mr. John F. Sullivan, III, PE
Division Administrator
Federal Highway Administration
310 New Bern Avenue, Suite 410
Raleigh, NC 27601

Mr. Lyndo Tippett
Secretary of Transportation
North Carolina Department of Transportation
1 South Wilmington Street
Raleigh, North Carolina 27611-1501

Ms Nancy W. Dunn
District 9 Board Member
North Carolina Department of Transportation
Aladdin Travel
485 Shepherd Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27103

Mr. S. Patrick Ivey, PE
District 9 Engineer
North Carolina Department of Transportation
375 Silas Creek Parkway
Winston-Salem, NC 27127

Mr. Ed Lewis
Public Involvement and Community Studies Supervisor
North Carolina Department of Transportation
1583 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-1583

You may also contact city and county officials to lobby federal and state highway officials on this issue. And, as turnabout is fair play, if anyone has any comments about this effort, feel free to contact this blogger at this email or the snail mail below.

J. Eric Elliott
1219 Forsyth St.
Winston-Salem, NC 27101-2403

Photo Essays Show Local Bridge Details, Public Art

Winston-Salem Journal photographer David Rolfe posted this week a photo slide show of aging bridge constructions scattered around the city. With voice commentary by the City-County Planning Board's LeAnn Pegram, the feature follows on the celebration of this resource by the Historic Resources Commission during Historic Preservation Month this last May. A print story by Rolfe appeared in the paper last Sunday. The Wachovia Historical Society and the county will soon release a survey of 45 bridges built in the county from 188o to 1954. I doubt there are many streams in the country crossed by a road bridge supported by hidden fluted columns!

David Rolfe and the Journal have also created a community art map online highlighting the locations of major public art works currently around town. Take a walk online - then take a walk on the streets and see the works yourself. If you know of other works of public art that should be on the map, send us a picture (or tell us where to take one) and we will add to our online inventory! Winston-Salem Journal Photo by David Rolfe.

Of Legacy and Livability

Why take extra time, spend money, on making the design of Business 40 better, more attractive? It's actually something many communities have found helpful when they update their transportation corridors and assess the impacts of construction projects. Since 2001 Forsyth County and its eight municipalities have been evaluating growth and construction in light of its Legacy Development Guide. One of the ten guiding principles of Legacy is to "Promote Design Excellence": encourage high standards of design in new development and redevelopment that create distinctive places and a sense of community. As the first three principles of Legacy are to "develop vibrant city and town centers," to "create pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods," and to "provide real transportation choices," the Business 40 corridor reconstruction can certainly demonstrate the impact of Legacy in the choices we make in 2008 and beyond versus those made nearly sixty years ago.

The American Institute of Architects Communities by Design "10 Principles for Livable Communities" are an even broader statement of best practices from the national design community. "Design excellence is the foundation of successful and healthy communities." Haphazard urban sprawl tends almost always to look similar. Places with distinctive urban landscapes - the recent heatwave here makes me think of Savannah's stately urban squares - were designed and have been preserved by intention.

And now on video...

WGHP Fox 8's Brent Campbell reported on the advocacy of the Public Art and Design Committee and the Business 40 project in tonight's six o'clock news. You can watch the report here [Link expired 6/20]. A nice nearby example of extra attention to the details of functional bridges is the Innis Street bridge in Salisbury, featured in the report. We'll leave posted (as long as they are active) this link and other video feeds about public art and design in the city in a sidebar on this blog. This also gives us a chance to re-post a video report about the earlier community meeting in April that was originally only referenced in a blog comment.

"I'll have what they're having": Here's my ask for NCDOT and the Community

Arriving in today's email is this news from the city of Seattle: 4Culture and the King County Department of Transportation Road Services Division are seeking a United States artist as design team member on the South Park Bridge Replacement Project. The qualified applicant will have experience working in design team collaborations for large, transportation infrastructure projects and or specifically bridge projects, with additional experience working with Landmark structures. The selected artist will be asked to realize innovative solutions respectful of local historic context within a culturally and economically diverse community. The selected artist shall receive a Design Contract for $60,000. Upon proposal review and approval the artist shall be awarded a contract for Commissioned Artwork for $240,000 plus applicable construction credits. King County is considering a replacement bridge that would cost in the range of $74-$90 million.

Folks ask me what should we ask for, aesthetically, on this Business 40 project. It would be nice if the City of the Arts had the trifecta in place for all its public art opportunities: a steady funding stream (filled in many arts-conscious communities by a percent-for-art program); a professional process for the hiring of public art and design talent and the strategic siting of their work (filled in many arts-conscious communities by a paid public arts administrator or public design commission); and a governmental process for airing community hopes and concerns for the public art and design projects that share their space. The City-County Planning Department has just started such a citizen committee to review public arts gifts after my neighborhood, West End, offered a sculpture to the town at the conclusion of the city's last ARTSfest celebration jointly with the event's other co-sponsors. But, the truth is, we just do not have all the parts of a long-term process for public art and design in place in Winston-Salem; and they may not be in place before Business 40 plans need to be set.

The Business 40 project, however, affords a way to meet all three of those public art process needs itself, and can serve as a catalyst for finishing local long-term process considerations. A dedicated portion of federal highway monies (1-2% of an estimated $100 million) must be spent on beautification of the route, and hiring design and artist advice at the beginning of the roadway process can be a more effective way of creating beauty than adding shrubs, doo-dads, and light fixtures at the end of the process. Secondly, NCDOT already has experience working with outside consultants on other transportation projects around the state to improve their aesthetics, if not yet in Winston-Salem. And finally, NCDOT already has scheduled the forming of community bridge design teams to gather input on the layout and appearance of the roadway bridges from citizens. The current Business 40 project is already setting a high bar for effort in gathering community concerns; adding community aspirations shouldn't be that difficult. The process elements are here, folks, if we will just ask for them. I'm asking NCDOT that they make a national search for an artist to be an integral part of the design team of this roadway from the start. By adding an experienced transportation corridor artist/designer to the Business 40 team, NCDOT can offer the community some aesthetic choices for the new roadway, not just alternative bypass routes. I want our place to give itself the chance to see some of what's possible within a budget. And what's more possible if we as a city find ideas worthy of extra funds.

What might come of the effort? A postcard-view bridge opportunity at Peters Creek, with stadium and skyline in the background. A chance for a fun pedestrian bridge at Green Street. A way to knit back neighborhoods torn apart by the initial build of the road nearly sixty years ago. Symbolic reminders of things found in our place shown right along the roadway. Showing travelers that they are driving on a dash that separates old Winston from old Salem. Or a corridor driving experience that in its styling and details will feel different in such a way as to mark our place special.

I'm no artist. The choices in my brain only mimic other places in the way ideas for interior design at Home Depot and Lowe's always fall in certain style baskets. But if I want my house to reflect me, my priorities, and sense of style, I'll hire a professional designer, and not just order from the catalog.

Even in the City of the Arts, which so values design and creativity in many ways, we do not live in a perfect public art world. Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the better. Let's ask for more than interchangeable interstate concrete. Let's support transportation engineers doing their work with design and art professionals adding their talents as well. Ask for more from our transportation and community leaders - not more money, but more design and artist input. I confidently expect that NCDOT will deliver us a good roadway. But I want us to ask for something better, something more. I'll have what they're having.

The Gifts of Art and an Artist

Tuesday night, June 3, Winston-Salem's newest work of public art was unveiled to an audience of friends and supporters of Senior Services, the area's leading provider of assistance and programming for the elderly. The trustees of the agency tapped local sculptor Duncan Lewis to create a unique work honoring the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Tab Williams, Jr. and Family, whose philanthropy and leadership have made the Senior Services Center facility at the corner of Shorefair Drive and 30th Street a reality. Titled "Second Blooming," and placed invitingly before the building's entrance walkway, the upwardly reaching blossoms of this twenty-foot high piece open themselves "to the spirit of compassion that lies at the heart of the mission of Senior Services."

The agency and Director Richard Gottlieb could have properly honored its benefactors with a plaque or designation in the interior of its space, or certainly in a less symbolic fashion. Instead, with this piece they have created a new community gift themselves, making a welcoming space accessible to the general public that shares in the feelings of renewal and hope this wonderful place is host to every day.

Duncan Lewis' skill as sculptor can also be found inspiring and iconographicly reflecting the work at another Winston-Salem institution: downtown's Piedmont Triad Research Park. He has proven a unique set of talents - artistic vision, community listener, craftsman's touch - common to all who successfully create public art. Our community thanks go for the art and the artist, and the benefactors who made the project happen. Duncan's dad took the shot of the piece being hoisted by crane into place, and Duncan provided the photo above in situ. The photo below of "Triple Helix" at PTRP is by Greg Kiser from AOL Journals Photo Trek blog.

Carpe Viam

Probably the most famous bridge in the state of North Carolina is the Linn Cove Viaduct, a serpentine embrace of the slope of Grandfather Mountain installed along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the early 1980s. Although the technical challenges of traversing the site could have been made easier with road cuts and strategic mountain blasts, the bridge designers, Figg Engineering Group, seized the opportunity to make an aesthetic statement with the highway and to work with the landscape rather than simply conquer it. Blending iron oxides into the concrete, the team even "painted" its building materials to more closely resemble the granite of the rock face on which the bridge rests.

The city of Asheville sits in a high valley surrounded by mountain crests. When the I-240 thoroughfare into the city was completed a few years back, engineers sacrificially blasted through one wall of mountain encircling the city. But the highway awkwardly merged with the town's main east-west local street. The subsequent completion of north-south Interstate 26 offered the city a chance to connect the two interstates near the French Broad River running through town, relieving pressure on downtown traffic. The initial drawings from transportation officials for the I-26 connector offered several options to the city. But to many in the local design community, the plans were unnecessarily complex and wasteful in their use of city space, as well as being visually unappealing.

A local group of architects and design friends, aided by a grant from the American Institute of Architects 150th Anniversary Celebration, pooled their talents and formed the Asheville Design Center. They rented a downtown storefront, offered volunteer hours, canvassed community concerns, created a three-dimensional model where citizens could visualize alternate routes, and came up with their own set of technical concerns and aesthetic opportunities they wanted the project to address. The biggest concern was to reduce the amount of scarce lands lost to exit and entrance ramps in the official plans. When locals suggested a double-decker roadway in strategic points and a single bridge instead of two, area friend Figg Engineering Group (of Linn Cove fame) offered up a design for a two-story bridge that will solve the technical needs of the I-26 Connector and give the city a beautiful new postcard view, uniting river, mountains, and city skyline with a stylistic statement that will say that place does things differently and more beautifully.

Asheville's experience on the I-26 Connector has changed the way dialog about transportation projects and potentials is approached in that community. Both transportation officials and community leaders have new insights on the benefits of working together. NCDOT is already making great efforts in Winston-Salem to collect community concerns in the upcoming Business 40 project, and our strong local transportation and planning agencies are anxious to put their good talents to the technical challenges ahead. But Winston-Salem has yet to pull together its creative design resources, its priorities for beauty and self-statement, in addition to those technical requirements that a new urban roadway must meet. The picture below shows the new downtown baseball park just to the west of Winston-Salem's skyline, alongside the Business 40 corridor (at photo right) that will soon be re-designed. We have an opportunity to add beauty as well as improve the function of this roadway. Will we as a community "seize the day" of this opportunity? Will we, in essence, "seize the roadway," and make it uniquely our own?

Corridor-Wide: Next Round of Business 40 Meetings to be Held

The first set of corridor-wide meetings for the Business 40 project has been scheduled. Corridor-wide meetings will be conducted at major project milestones or for specific topics and provide opportunities for the community to interact with the project team and discuss project issues and recommendations.

The dates, times and locations are as follows:
Tuesday, June 10; 5-8 p.m.; Anderson Center at Winston Salem State University; Reynolds Park Drive, off MLK Jr. Drive.
Wednesday, June 11; 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; Sawtooth Building Amphitheater in Winston Square Park*; 226 N. Marshall Street. *If inclement weather, the meeting will be moved to the Ballroom of the Sawtooth Building adjacent to the park.
Thursday, June 12; 5-8 p.m.; R J Reynolds High School Cafeteria; 301 N. Hawthorne Road.

Call for Entries: "Creative Bridge Design" Art Exhibition in September

The art exhibit "Creative Bridge Design" will take place Tuesday, September 16th and run until September 30th at the DADA Center in the Downtown Art District. The art exhibit is to inspire and motivate both the Winston-Salem Community and funders of the Business 40 Project to incorporate public art into the Business 40 Bridges. The presenting of local artists’ works and designs of innovative bridge design will be among the first visual models to present to the public and NCDOT for the Business 40 Bridges. It will be a chance for the Community, the Arts, and the State to work side by side on a large scale project that will heighten the city’s development and identity as the “City of the Arts”.

This community arts project is open to local artists, architects, engineers, and designers that are 18 & older ("local" meaning Forsyth County and other artists who are able to "hand deliver" their artworks matted or framed to DADA Center by the 5th of September). Artworks will range from drawings, both artistic and technical, painting, watercolor, photography, graphics, and 3D. Artwork should illustrate in some form a cultural connection to the Winston-Salem community. Imagine new symbols and artistic expression to represent Winston-Salem. Final deadline will be September 5th. Purpose of exhibition will not be to sell artwork, but inquiries may be made and passed onto the artists. The "Creative Bridge Design" art exhibition is the continuation of the Community Arts Forum held April 22, 2008 at Green St. United Methodist Church with guest panelists Thorns Craven, Eric Elliott, and Mark Leach discussing public art’s impact on community and city development.

Additional information on the Business 40 Project and Public Art can be found at http://www.business40nc.com or http://winstonsalempublicart.blogspot.com. For further information on the "Creative Bridge Design" art exhibition, contact Katie Gunter at gunterk7@gmail.com

A Next Chance to Talk Possibilities

At the June 3 meeting of the West End Association, Public Art and Design Committee member Eric Elliott will present a brief 15-minute slideshow highlighting national "best-practices" in the use of bridge design and public art in the creation of transportation corridors. The meeting begins at 7pm and will be held in the community room of the Central Family YMCA, accessible through the entrance of the Y at Glade St and West End Boulevard. For more information on its meetings, visit the Association website at www.historicwestend.org

Introducing the Public Art and Design Committtee

The Public Art and Design Committee has been working within the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County since 2004, first under the leadership of art professor David Finn and currently led by attorney Thorns Craven. It follows an earlier Mayor's Task Force on Public Art assembled in 2000, led by neighborhood advocate Eric Elliott. The committee has worked to add new public art in the downtown landscape; assisted Wal-Mart as they worked with a local artist in the production and installation of sculpture and a gazebo at their Peters Creek location; and is investigating possibilities for funding and processing art acquisitions by public and private entities in the area with the assistance of Chapel Hill's Gerald Bolas, past interim director of SECCA. Though the group lacks a formal budget and depends on volunteer time, they are knowing and active advocates of the value of a better-designed cityscape, of which the insights and inspirations of public artists can play an important part.

The re-design of the front room of our shared Winston-Salem house - the renewal of our downtown transportation corridors - is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make improvements both functional and aesthetic to our town. When you re-do the interior of your home kitchen, you want all the function a kitchen needs. But because you live there, you want it to be a place of beauty as well. Why not add beauty to the function of our city's major roadways? The current committee consists of: Thorns Craven, Chair, Attorney, Mediation, Inc.; Nick Bragg, Former Director, Reynolda House; Eric Elliott, Past President, West End Association; David Finn, Artist and Professor of Art, Wake Forest University; Tripp Greason, Attorney, Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice; Glynis Jordan, Deputy Director, City-County Planning; Mark Leach, Director, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art; Carroll Leggett, Ralph Simpson & Associates; Doug Lewis, Southeast Gateway Council, and Past Chair, Community Appearance Commission; Duncan Lewis, Sculptor and Adjunct Professor, Salem College; Leo Morrissey, Assistant Professor of Art, Winston-Salem State University; Mary Elizabeth Parks, Executive Director, North Carolina Stroke Association; Milton Rhodes, President and CEO, Arts Council Winston-Salem/Forsyth County; Sandra Romanac, Calibre, Inc.; Greg Shelnutt, Director of Visual Arts, North Carolina School of the Arts; Ralph Simpson, President, Ralph Simpson & Associates; Carol Strohecker, Director, Center for Design Innovation; Belinda Tate, Director, Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem State University; Bill Watkins, Architect, W. R. Watkins Architecture; Keith Wilson, Architect, Calloway Johnson Moore and West.

Creating Cultural Icons with Public Art

The very first speaker at the recent "Public Art 360" Conference in Chapel Hill was Winston-Salem native Glenn Weiss, a leading critical voice in the field of public art and guide at the helpful blog Aesthetic Grounds, which both samples his critical eye and provides some of the best web trails at the nexus of disciplines and interests that converge in public art projects. Glenn has also pulled together videos of successful public art installations and events (Newcastle-on-Tyne's "Nocturne" bridge illumination project is featured in a video on the sidebar on this page), and offers photos of his visits to installations around the world.

One of Glenn's photo albums is actually a presentation of his on what makes successful "Icons in Public Art". Interestingly, he begins the presentation with the happy accident of the tin coffee pot, the unofficial hospitality symbol of his hometown, Winston-Salem. The over-sized coffee pot was an advertising gimmick, suspended in front of a store along old Main Street, and now sits in a grassy median island at the northern edge of Old Salem. Though it is a sentimental favorite of locals, I think it has surpassed the possible kitsch of its advertising origins by reminding residents and guests of something about the value of memory and hospitality in the town, not to mention the taste of the special coffee that is a part of Moravian Lovefeast traditions. In his Chapel Hill talk recently, Weiss noted that while critics often evaluate the success of public art based on a vocabulary of professional art criticism, communities consider public art successful if it becomes a cultural icon, or a photo opportunity; if it makes enjoyable a pedestrian space; or if it solves some other non-artistic problem for the area. The transportation corridor work coming to Winston-Salem offers plenty of opportunities both for "problem-solving" and successful place-making - in the eyes of the local community and of professional art critics. We've added this week a number of links to Public Art sites on the web that Glenn and others have suggested, as well as a sample of other helpful local links to those thinking about public art in Winston-Salem.

Welcome to the Conversation!

Thanks to those who took part in tonight's conversation at Green Street United Methodist Church about the possibilities for public art and enhanced design in the Business 40 bridge project. As tonight's panel discussion showed, the potential to re-imagine and re-present our city with the aid of transportation corridor renovation exists both along US 52/future I-285 and along Business 40, and helping create an infrastructure to address those opportunities will likely be a part of the future work of the Arts Council's Public Art and Design committee. But we'd like you to be part of the conversation now with us. How?

--Leave a comment here on your ideas for what's possible - what's exciting - what's important to say about our place in such a venue. Showplacing the work of well-known artists and designers? Integrating stories and symbols of what makes this "our place"? Brainstorm with us on how can we use art and design to make the necessity of transport corridors into opportunities to celebrate and build and reflect community. Is there a cultural icon or got-to-have-photo-opportunity down the road in this project?

--Participate in local bridge design meeting groups sponsored by NCDOT over the summer and insist that the talents of artists and designers be included in the plans for the corridor from the start, not after the fact. Keep in touch with plans for these sessions at the Business 40 website.

--Lobby regional and state leaders at NCDOT to include consultation with artists and aesthetic design teams in the earliest planning of the project.

--Stay tuned here for updates on future events promoting the opportunities of this project and other public art work. And tell your neighbors you want them to join in "this vision thing," too!

Special gratitude to our hosts at Green Street United Methodist Church for being yet again a great place for community building, and to Salem College Arts Management Students Sandy Romanac and Katie Gunter for their good work in promoting the Business 40 corridor opportunity.

Community Arts Forum on April 22

Titled "The Integration of Public Art into the Bridges of Business 40," this panel discussion, idea slideshow, and community inspration-sharing session will be held Tuesday, April 22, from 7:00 - 8:30pm at Green Street United Methodist Church (639 S. Green Street, Winston-Salem – Phone: 722-8379). Panelists will include: Thorns Craven, Attorney and Chairman, Arts Council’s Public Art and Design Committee; Mark Leach, Director of SECCA and Member, Arts Council’s Public Art and Design Committee; and Eric Elliott, West End Association Past President and Member, Arts Council’s Public Art and Design Committee. Hear business, arts, and community perspectives on the opportunities for our city hidden in Business 40 highway renewal project. A question and answer session to follow with refreshments. For additional information, contact organizer Sandy Romanac. This forum is presented in conjunction with the Public Art and Design Committee of The Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County.

Public Art 360

North Carolina is blessed with a number of examples of cities who follow plans for the intentional integration of public art into their landscapes. A gathering of folks from those cities and from places interested in public art throughout the southeast, and of nationally known experts in the field, attended a fascinating and insightful conference last week in Chapel Hill. "Public Art 360" was a series of panel discussions on best practices and challenges in public art creation, siting, and management from the perspectives of seven different "publics": artists, critics, governments, architects, private developers, landscape architects, and communities. We'll be posting information gleaned from this event over the coming weeks. The event's website remains open for information and inspirations.

Attending a Business 40 Project Public Meeting

The second set of public meetings sharing results of neighbor surveys on the upcoming Business 40 reconstruction proceeds this week. Please attend one of these sessions if you can and show your support for the project and the design possibilities it affords our city. Here's a report on the Business 40 Improvements Neighborhood Meeting held February 19, 2008 at Reynolds High Cafeteria for the West Highlands and Buena Vista neighborhoods.

The first impression one had was of forty smiling people decked out in orange welcoming you to the event: at four check-in stations, at easel displays around the room with color graphics of survey results in each neighborhood, and at a delicious buffet spread, the latter (for this event provided by the Arts Council of W-S/FC) included chicken pie, cake and salad, as well as beverages. I felt like I was a guest at a restaurant or an art gallery rather than an attendee at a public meeting. As first impressions of hospitality go, this one was impressive.

The room was organized for a PowerPoint presentation by DOT and survey group officials, with two microphones for use by the public in a Q&A session, a court reporter transcribing the session, and a gentleman summarizing points made by the audience on a flip chart. The first 15 minutes of the presentation by Jumetta Posey were about process steps, including a review of the household survey and various stages for public input thereafter (neighborhood meetings being the first public meetings). Then DOT's David Spainhour reviewed the engineering challenge of the project. First, to bring Business 40 up to today's standards for pavement and bridges. It was built in 1955 before interstate standards were set as a crosstown parkway (like Silas Creek and Peters Creek would later be) and was never meant to be an interstate. In fact the eleven bridges that have to come down (eight overpasses, three underpasses, not all overpasses may be rebuilt) were built by different contractors and represent eleven different bridge designs!

The second goal of the project is to improve safety and roadway conditions, primarily through improvement of ramps and shoulders. Interestingly, DOT does not have room to expand the highway much beyond its current width, and so at the end it will not look like Bypass 40 interstate - but just a newer narrow Business 40. Were it not for the extra prestige (and some highway dollars) that some attach to the business interstate designation, Spainhour said it would be a better road as a limited access parkway as initially designed. [Ed. Perhaps here's an opportunity to call the thing the "Wachovia Parkway" (whether we keep the Business 40 designation or just leave it as US421), reclaiming the Wachovia name which publicly left town displays with the bank, and bringing it back as the land identifier for here that it once was.]

Ms. Posey reviewed the results of neighbor surveys as posted around the room. The showcase statistic was that most people favored closing the road completely for two years rather than leaving it partially opened for six. But that statistic was shown somewhat hollow in the Q&A period. Neighbors wanted to know which roads would be alternate routes, and the one helpful survey question on this point (which other routes would you use were 40 closed) was not summarized and graphed. Ms. Posey said they would try to have that up at future meetings. Neighbors expressed concern about a complete shutdown of Business 40 absent details which of their traveled streets might be impacted. DOT's Spainhour said the normal construction time for a bridge reconstruction project like this would be 4 years, so 2 years would already be an ambitious cycle, requiring 24 hr construction schedules [Ed. No survey questions asked how neighbors would feel about construction noise in the middle of the night for two years.]

Before any shutdown happened, several years worth of improvements to alternate routes would be done first - including possible extension of MLK across 8th/NW Blvd to hookup with Reynolda as an alternate around downtown route. Several people expressed their disappointment that the public meeting was not a chance to hear more details from DOT on alternate routes and actual inconvenience costs of the project. Posey and Spainhour said those details would be forthcoming after all neighborhood review meetings were held, and there would be a chance after that time for more public meetings on specific issues: bridge design, alternates, etc.

Several people spoke up requesting that DOT include considerations, in addition to the safety and standards upgrades, about the design and aesthetics of the roadway project. First brought up by Eric Elliott of the Arts Council's Public Art and Design Committee, Katie Gunter at Salem College said she is doing a senior project on possible bridge designs as part of her Arts Management degree. Another Salem Arts Management student, Sandy Romanac, spoke of her excitement about the potentials for the area. Neighbor David Wallace mentioned the ARTS Council email he received about the meeting and asked DOT to please consider the aesthetic and design opportunities. Afterwards, Cuban artist Raul Montero was introduced to Eric Elliott by Que Pasa Carolina's Adolfo Briceño, and seemed excited about the community building aspect of the project.

The meeting was unique in its hospitality, daunting in its challenges for the city, but optimistic in that folks seem ready to pull together for a project that can help our town tremendously. - Eric Elliott, West End Association Past President, Arts Council Public Art and Design Committee member. Photos courtesy of www.business40nc.com

Business 40: Our Workhorse, also Our Canvas?

Business 40 has been the workhorse thoroughfare of commuters and visitors to Winston-Salem since being built as our "downtown expressway" in the 1950s. The planned rebuilding of eight overpass bridges at the heart of this roadway gives us a unique opportunity to design not just a functioning roadway but also a new series of vistas and impressions about our place and its sense of self. Community meetings about the rebuilding will be held starting in 2008, as neighbors along the route share their hopes and concerns for the project. You can find updates on the public meeting schedule at this website.

We hope that neighbors and other community members will ask transportation and political decision-makers that the project be designed both for engineering traffic needs and for its artistic impression-making potentials. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."