Would you sign on?

"I/We, ___________, advocate the use of distinctive architectural design and public art in the renovation of our major downtown transportation corridors as a way of branding and communicating the city of Winston-Salem as a place of creative commerce."

How many institutions, civic groups, neighborhood associations, business groups and individual citizens could we get to sign on to such a simple declarative statement as a way of telling political and transportation leadership that this issue and opportunity is important?

Fill in your name. Get groups you belong to to agree to this modest proposal as well. Share the signed statement with area elected officials, city transporation and planning departments, and the state DOT. Share a blank one with friends and neighbors. Moneys will be set aside to be spent on our thoroughfares. This is about how, not how much. Add your support before old habits are in place.

More Public Art news via Twitter; Blog Update Schedule

You'll notice if you are a regular browser of our blog that we recently added a Twitter news feed at right on our full screen pages. Why did we add the feature? It's a way for me to post links to stories that will be of interest to you if you like public art, but which are on topics that were either too short to expand upon - as Goldilocks would say, they were already "just right" - or the topics were not directly relevant to current work in Winston-Salem. They were just...interesting. Idea generators.

What have you been missing if not following our Twitter "tweets"? Recent posts include: "CNET's recent list of 'Top 5 Hi-tech Public Art Masterpieces' (with another five thrown in for good measure...)." "Love and Public Art in the Time of Budget Cuts (apologies to G.G. Marquez): How St. Lucie County FL is coping." "See how this Plensa piece in downtown Des Moines perks up the skyline." "Congrats to 4 in NC listed; but no Winston-Salem? AmericanStyle's Top 25 Arts Destinations: Asheville #2 small city." We will try and post something new twice a week to our Twitter account on Sundays and Wednesdays (though we won't be chained to an update if our personal travel schedule makes us late a time or two). Point is, there is much to see and learn from out there, and we want to keep you interested in this topic as we wait for more local leadership on the issue. If you'd like to follow us directly through your own Twitter account, our account is @arsurbi. Otherwise, just check our Twitter RSS feed updates here regularly.

Finally, to date, most of our blog posts have been events-driven, not calendar-driven. As summer is usually a slow period in our town, I'll be trying to post new blog entries once a week or so on the weekend. Again, the goal is to keep you abreast of news in the development of public art ideas locally, and the best in public art practices in other locations around the state, nation, and "planet Earth." Quentin Tarantino said at his Cannes premiere this week that he doesn't make "American" movies, but "movies for the planet Earth." It was movie promo hubris - and Cannes organizers loved that they were the place to go to be seen by "planet Earth" - but as art goes, it was the right kind of hubris. Public art may have local ties in Winston-Salem, but quality art has a language understood by "planet Earth."

Art needing tending by YOU - Small Plots

A new public art show needs your participation this weekend in Winston-Salem, as Greensboro experiential artist and UNCG professor Lee Walton brings real-time performance art to the streets and gathering places of our town. The next installments of his interactive series, Small Plots, are tomorrow: "Too Many Oranges" at 2pm at Mooney's Mediterranean Cafe at 101 W. 4th Street downtown; and "Lost Business Man" at 3pm on the open lawn at Trade and 4th Streets in front of One Park Vista. Other shows and locations are on Sunday afternoon, and following Saturdays and Sundays throughout May.

From Walton's own well-crafted website, this next installment of SECCA's Inside Out public art series uses "parcels of Winston-Salem as the platform for short vignettes snatched from everyday life. As such, everything from street corners and park benches to supermarkets, shopping malls and residential neighborhoods become potential stages...." "The beauty and magic of these acts is thus, that – somewhere between social experiment and staged event – the very distinction between life and theater grows dim. Instead, the city and people of Winston-Salem are activated as players on a shared stage where no one is entirely sure of the parameters." Audience members should come prepared to be "play"-ful participant observers.

A complete schedule of all venues and times for the six different 30-minute performances can be found on the SECCA website. You can preview the setup in each performance, and get cues on when and how to interact with the actors, by visiting Walton's website. The artist and actors would love to see you there this weekend. And remember: there are no small players, only "Small Plots."

Our Fermata Cantata

I am often asked "where are we on the Business 40 bridges project?" "what's going on with public art?" "what we can we do to help get it going?" And I must say, big-picture wise, regarding public art in Winston-Salem, the image that flashes in my mind, and catches responding words in my throat when asked such questions, is the symbol above.

For the musically challenged among us - and yes, I once pronounced the phrase "treble and bass" as if I were describing fishing adjectives for "hook and boat" - here's a nuanced description from the site www.bach-cantatas.com. "A fermata is the musical symbol of a semicircle (facing downward) with a dot inside it. In some music, it means we should hold a note longer than we would normally. In other music, it simply marks the end of a phrase (e.g. in a Bach chorale) suggesting a lift or a breath, with or without extra time; or in some other situations it merely marks the end of a whole piece, meaning 'don't bother turning the page, you've reached the last note.' Some people automatically assume that it means the first thing; others take it situation by situation. It's important to think about, anyway."

I think giving birth to a sustained public art effort in Winston-Salem is a bit like listening to a "fermata cantata." There are many beautiful voices - artists, institutions, politicians, administrators, advocates. I hear some intriguing melody lines - new bridges defined by creative art and design, a centennial to be celebrated with art placed joyfully around town. Efforts at a basso continuo - a city-sponsored public art commission, maybe, eventually, with common folk involved in the claiming and proclaiming. There are performing stages (though to date they change with each movement of the work) - Arts Council, SECCA, NCDOT, private developers. But there's just a lot of fits and starts that are hard for people to follow. Even for someone as dedicated as I am to the promise of public art, it takes a lot of effort to believe there is a unity to all these staccato bursts, a product that will sound as sweet as I believe it will when we look back on what we've done here.

The fact is, in music, you have to have a conductor, a leader, to tell you how long the fermatas are. The conductor tells you when to stop, but when to get going again. The conductor has to have a baton everyone can see and acknowledge from their point of view, not just a soapbox to stand on. For our public art effort, that baton-wielding conductor could be a political leader, a sustaining benefactor, or both.

I'd like to tell you when this "fermata cantata" piece will be set, when everyone will heed their cues, when unity of purpose will make a beautiful public art music we can all see with our eyes. I can promise you, though, that the more who advocate for public art from the city, who say they want "a ticket," the sooner the performance will be underway again. And at the end of that day, I'll say "Bravo!"