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.