SECCA Steps Up: "Inside-Out"

Great news to start a year of public art. SECCA, Winston-Salem's Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, is sponsoring a series of seven prominent exhibitions of public art in the city in 2009. As the Winston-Salem Journal's John Railey noted in a recent editorial, SECCA is itself closed for all of 2009 in order to undergo major renovations to its building, and could have been forgiven for staying out-of-sight for a year as it revamped. Instead, they have boldly announced a plan to broadcast their mission of engaging the community with best in current art by turning their museum "Inside-Out," the title of this series of shows. You can hear SECCA's Curator of Contemporary Art Stephen Matijcio and Curator of Education Michael Christiano talk with WFDD's Bradley George about the concept for the series in this Triad Arts Up Close radio/podcast interview.

First up in the SECCA lineup is wood artist and sculptor Charlie Brouwer, a Radford University art professor. On the last two weekends in February, Brouwer will invite the town to lend him its old wooden ladders - and any war stories attached thereto - for a month-long show at Tavern Meadow at Old Salem. Brouwer has wonderful gifts for pulling beauty and meaning from woods, from intimate carvings to large assemblages. In Winston-Salem, he'll use the familiar, the community meeting ground of Old Salem and your own garage artifacts, to present an installation of new meaning and depth by which to welcome spring. We'll post more details here on Brouwer's wants and display dates as they become available.

What a nice connection between the craft traditions of Salem and the art aspirations of our modern town - thanks, SECCA! All images from Charlie Brouwer's website.

Proof Everything Ends Up on the Web Eventually

For those who want to imagine a different driving experience on Business 40, I offer a palpable reminder of what it currently is like. An unknown YouTube poster, "linesinthesand," has posted an extended video from his dashboard as he cruises from the west side of Forsyth County, first on US 421, and then to the east along Business 40. The real-time driving experience of the bridges in the planned Business 40 reconstruction begins at 5:19 into the clip at Fourth Street, and ends at 6:28 of the clip at Church Street. Good music here, too, though I personally prefer ZZ Top's "La Grange" as a soundtrack when motoring for pleasure. The groove in this video takes me back to days patrolling Gaston County in the late '70s in a mellow cream-yellow-and-tan Cutlass Supreme. "Opera windows:" now that was public art!

Guess Which City

Here's a job advertisement just received from public art advocates in a North Carolina town looking to build on its cultural advantages. Take a guess: where in North Carolina might such an effort exist?

"X" seeks an entrepreneurial and visionary leader for the position of Executive Director. In fulfillment of its mission to “promote, inspire, encourage and support visual arts for uplifting the human spirit in the community,” "X" commissions public art, organizes exhibitions of public art, presents educational art programs, and supports community arts events with investments of artistic, financial and volunteer resources.

The Executive Director will provide vision for the fulfillment of our organization’s artistic mission. In collaboration with our Board, the Executive Director will identify and prioritize opportunities for new art commissions and programs; identify and recruit artists to participate in competitive selection processes; recruit financial and human resources; and implement commissions and programs. Experience in the management of public art projects; recruitment and organization of volunteers; and fund-raising through grants, contracts, and personal solicitations are required.

The Executive Director will work with the our Board to develop and implement a strategic plan that will address the opportunities and challenges of a community experiencing dynamic growth, one that values its history while welcoming national acclaim as one of the best places to live in the United States. The Executive Director will develop creative partnerships throughout the community – with the town government, private corporations, schools, and non-governmental agencies – to engage personal participation and financial investment in the visual arts.

Now one might think that such an endeavor would be happening in a town many call a "city of the arts," a town that hosts the flagship arts educational institution in the state's university system, a town that boasts the newest member of the state's art museums and another facility hosting a premier collection of American art. The fact that same town has a thriving downtown arts district with galleries, lofts, shops, and restaurants - and is home to the first local arts council in America - would have you nodding affirmatively that that surely sounds like something a town like that would be doing.

But that's not happening in my town, Winston-Salem, the fourth-largest in the state. Instead look to Cary, which a generation ago was a 10,000-person one-stoplight bump on the back-road trip from my dorm in Chapel Hill to see friends in Raleigh. Cary is the fastest-growing suburb in the state, so fast in fact (over 120,000 now, half a Winston) that not too long from now folks may talk about flying into Raleigh-Cary, not just Raleigh-Durham. Befitting a town that sees its best days as both now and in the future, Cary - with a public art plan and the help of Cary Visual Art, Inc., the group in search of a Director in this ad - is intentionally planning beauty and inspiration as part of its rapid growth and ongoing community re-imagining.

In Raleigh-Cary, each community, Raleigh and Cary, has an organization and a plan to accept, site, acquire, and maintain public art. In Winston-Salem, neither Winston nor Salem do. What we are left with here is the "-". Would that we could fill in this blank.

Showing Pasts and Aspirations Along a Highway

Artist Janet Echelman was one of the presenters at the Public Art 360 symposium in Chapel Hill last spring. In browsing through YouTube for public art ideas, I ran across this sculpture of hers done a few years ago for the culturally rich city of Porto, Portugal. After opening with a quick overview of the artist's other works, the video takes you through five years of development and installation on "She Changes," a signature piece which captures the city waterfront's heritage as a fishing community and puts it in the sky above a highway where imaginations and the wind can play with it. The video shows how drivers approach the work, measuring 160 feet tall and 300 feet wide, and then how pedestrians enjoy it as well.

On the YouTube site the comment section under the video is half-filled with snarky comments about the work, half-filled with serious ones (heaven help those who try to please the tastes of the drive-by verbal assassins of the net). The piece was not inexpensive. I don't know how much of its 1.6 million dollar cost was paid for with private funds and how much with public; nor how much of its costs were for land acquisition, or materials, or construction. But as a piece of inspiration, and an authentic jumping-off from a community icon - the fishing net - it works for me.

Art doesn't "work" for everyone in the same way - as the sampled audience in the video shows. Really good works assuredly don't. But what an aspiring, confident statement. I lift a glass of tawny Oporto product in admiration....

Top image from Sculpture.org website, courtesy Florence Lynch Gallery; photo by Joao Ferrand and David Feldman.

20+C+M+B+09: A Year of Public Art?

This year, while taking down the Christmas stuff, I discovered a note which I had somehow overlooked the previous two weeks. The unusual source of the note and its topic make it germane to this blog, and I reproduce it below. My kids have often left notes to Santa. This is the first time Santa left a note about something other than the milk and cookies; and although the envelope was addressed to me, the note inside was to my town....

Dear Winston-Salem:
You have had a good conversation about public art in 2008. I've read your blog and the stories in the papers. I've seen some good ideas, and watched a few cheeks get rosier as visions of public art sugarplums danced in your heads. Why that misty November light show at the old post office got me as joyful as that Tanglewood display always does. Now Santa doesn't do this often...but I really think you can help me give a great gift to yourselves and all who visit you, if you will take a few "next steps" in 2009. You deserve it, Winston-Salem. But even with all my magic, I can't deliver this gift to you without your help. Will you do these five things for me in 2009?

1) Have your city start a public art and design commission. Santa knows it's hard to keep track of goodies unless you have a stocking to put them in. It doesn't cost money to have a place to park and grow place-making ideas with good art and design. But it's hard to grow them, or talk about them, without a place to gather the whole community's wish lists. There, too, you can inventory what you have and take ownership of that idea of yours to be a "city of the arts." Santa's been around. It's hard to be a "city of the arts" if your city isn't organized to make art an intentional part of public life.

2) Hire a nationally-known public artist or architectural design consultant to help do your big transportation projects. Yes, I know you just made a wish list of things for your new president to do with his economic stimulus money. Yes, I know this was not on your list. But think bigger, Winston-Salem. Don't look for new money to do needed things like Business 40 in the old ways. Look for new money to do needed things in better ways. Santa asks for lists for a reason (and no wisecracks about my age). I want to give you what you think is important. If being distinctive, innovative, creative, joyful, and remembered in the way you present yourself on your thoroughfares is important - ask for what you need to make it happen. I always have to remind my older list-writers: dare to believe!

3) Give your first public art gifts to those you see everyday: your neighbors. Santa likes your public art work so much because it is a gift that can keep giving joy and inspiration and specialness every day. (We work so hard to get folks to share that feeling year-round, you know?) You have a centennial celebration coming up in 2013. That's five years to gather ideas, money and talent to make place-making art a part of the landscape in each ward of your city. In the scheme of things, it's like the candy canes on the tree - not a lot of cost, but what a wonderful taste it leaves on the palate. Trust me. It will make you happy.

4) Don't wait - make 2009 a year of public art! Just like my annual visits cause excitement because people know I'm only physically there for a brief time (though I know whenever you've been bad or good, John and Zach), public art can cause short-term excitements. It can be on the streets for a season, and then it will linger as a happy spot in our memories. (Hmmm, I remember first meeting Mrs. Claus at an apple festival. The moment I saw that woman in red, I knew she was for me.) Too often people think of art as tied to an institution or the gallery that exhibits it. Invite some artist folks to town and celebrate with something new every few weeks. You do it every year or so at River Run with films, and at West End's ARTSfest in the fall. Now take the joy to the streets: and just like those wonderful bell-ringers do for me, seasonal public art will cause people to turn their heads, and look and feel better inside.

5) Start a German-style Christmas Market. Okay. This one is personal, I admit. But I look at a place with a pedestrian-friendly arts district and a trail-way to historic Old Salem. I see a community founded by a group of German-speaking immigrants. I know you like to eat (Santa knows his calories). Why not on one or two weekends every Advent have a downtown Christmas market? With outdoor crafts booths, musical performances with UNCSA-types and local choruses, food delicacies Moravian and otherwise, and lay claim city-wide to your distinctive arts, crafts and cultural heritage? You could have tents and booths and stages from Old Salem up to the Arts District. Maybe it's just me - and smelling all those Mrs. Hanes' Moravian cookie crumbs in my beard for six months every year. But if any place in the South could take the holiday experience to - as my younger elves like to say - "a whole 'nother level," it's you, Twin City, it's you.

Well, I'm long-winded and have to scoot. Places to go. Cookies to eat (thanks for yours, btw.). Remember: Santa loves you no matter what. But give some gifts to yourself this year, will you? S.C.

N.B. In south Germany, where I spent a beautiful winter in 1988, the locals write in chalk over the door a New Year's greeting as the old year ends and the new begins - the initials of the three wise men (Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar) in the middle of a "numbering out" of the year arriving. When Epiphany and the wise men get here, down come the letters with other decorations until next year. It's a blessing of the year ahead by the same stewards of good tidings and joy as two thousand years ago, and a tradition I've started doing at our house. (Nice Santa photo by Winston-Salem Journal's David Rolfe.)