If in Hickory, Clayton, and Asheville - why not here?

An editorial last week reported that the city of Winston-Salem is currently debating a structure for formally supporting public art in Winston-Salem, and that members of city government and the Arts Council's Public Art and Design Committee have varied ideas about how best to do that. The editorial endorses some form of support for public art, but shares others' worries about costs in these tight economic times.

According to this survey from the North Carolina Arts Council, there are already in the state a dozen different established programs for the procurement, siting, and maintenance of public art. Chapel Hill, Asheville, and Charlotte have a "percent for art" requirement in different public works that creates an income stream for public art acquisition. The North Carolina Zoo, Charlotte and Triangle transit authorities, Raleigh-Durham's airport and Greensboro's Public Library System have their own public art programs with varying budgets. The City of Hickory and the Town of Cary each follow a public art plan, and rely on occasional public and private grants to fund commissions.

Though some government entities have designated income streams to fund public art, most do not. But not having a dedicated fund for art doesn't mean that many cities in North Carolina aren't better prepared than Winston-Salem to accept the gift of public art when it is made. According to the state Arts Council, "The municipalities of Durham, Greensboro, Burlington, Concord, Davidson, Hendersonville, Hickory, Kinston, Rocky Mount, New Bern, Smithfield, Clayton, Salisbury, Waynesville, and Wilson, do not, as yet, have formal public art programs, but do have public art boards that commission public works of art on a project-by-project basis."

Why can't we have at least that in Winston-Salem, the self-proclaimed - with some justification - "City of the Arts" in North Carolina? If "chance favors the prepared mind," doesn't it make sense that a more beautifully adorned streetscape is favored in a city prepared to make it so? Shouldn't we organize for good things, gifts, opportunities, public art beauty, when times are lean, so that when times are right we will be prepared to "seize the day"? As a cheerleader for this effort, let me offer a sports analogy. If they had stopped preparing when the prospects looked bleak, would last season's Arizona Cardinals ever have become this season's opportunistic Arizona Cardinals? (as painful as that is to think about, being a Carolina Panthers fan...)

Yes, it would be great to have in place everything on a public art civic wish list: money to spend, professional leadership attracting top talent, organized community support and participation, and a shared vision for a city enriched by public art. Agreeing on the importance of that vision and beginning to organize for it are steps we can take now as a city. These are more character decisions than economic ones. For what do we wish to be known, to ourselves and others? Winston-Salem has been blessed to have many art resources - schools, galleries, an art district with shops and eateries - most of which have happened through the hard work and the philanthropic largesse of private individuals. It's time we took ownership as a city of a part of their gift. What's important to us as a community will be known by where we act, and where we fail to act.

The mission of the North Carolina Arts Council is to make North Carolina a better state through the arts. The council nurtures and supports excellence in the arts, and provides opportunities for every North Carolinian to experience the arts. A division of the Department of Cultural Resources, the Arts Council serves as a catalyst for the development of arts organizations and facilities throughout North Carolina with grant funding and technical assistance.

Raising Arizona - and Winston-Salem

Imagine driving down an expressway and, within the space of just a couple of miles, three different pedestrian bridges turn your head because of how different each is from a normal concrete span and from each other. Such was the experience of local Arts Council Public Art & Design Committee Chair Thorns Craven last week on a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona - and here are his photos of the pleasant driving surprise.

Winston-Salem resident Ruby Bailey read about our PA&DC's efforts in the paper last summer and called me to talk about how she loves driving when she's visiting her daughter out in Arizona for the same reason. It's the unexpected surprises of her driving trips, the care of placed beauty that the locals give to you to help you remember and appreciate the space. Ruby sent me some materials about the "petroglyphs" incised along the retaining walls and bridges of some Arizona highways that mimic other area rock writings, both at historic Native American sites and those incised in the modern landscape. She sent along drawings her family and friends there secured from the Arizona DOT as a way of encouraging us locally in our push to get our downtown Business 40 done in an artistically distinct manner.

Other government agencies have been impressed how transportation officials and artists and designers have raised Arizona highways to a special level of excellence. Seattle transportation planners have reprinted an article featuring the Arizona success story in a three-part manual they had artist Daniel Mihalyo create as a guide for urban design - scroll down this page of the city's public art plans to the section on the Seattle Department of Transportation. You can read that article, "Road Work," by Harriet Senie originally in Public Art Review in the Spring/Summer 2002 issue, on page 135 here of the Seattle design "toolkit."

All three parts of Mihalyo's Seattle toolkit make important reading for anyone interested in better transportation design through public art. Keep lobbying NCDOT and local elected officials if you think this effort is important. Rock art from City of Phoenix website.