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.

Place-making with Public Art in our City of the Arts

This blog will serve as a spot for ideas and inspirations. How we as a community can better claim for ourselves and our visitors the title "City of the Arts." How we can demonstrate the qualities of life and priorities that makes Winston-Salem a place apart. How we can show an appreciation for the insights and pleasures and aspirations that the arts community offers to all. How we can make it more obvious that in this place "ars urbi serviat": "art serves the city." A Public Art and Design Committee at the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County has been meeting for some time now trying to strategize how we can better intentionally design and showcase a City of the Arts.

A wonderful opportunity to show the value of art to our city is in the upcoming redesign of the Business 40 highway right through the heart of our town. Imagine if we could take a necessary engineering improvement and simultaneously intentionally design it with a sense of place unique to Winston-Salem - bettering the function of the roadway and also its form and beauty. We wouldn't be the first place to try it, as later posts to this blog will show. Those localities which take the time to do something more, to make special with art and design that which might otherwise be bland and homogeneous, have found rewards in community pride and increased visitor interest. And the costs for major improvements in aesthetics are comparatively small. Above, Earline Heath King's Barbara Smitherman statue in Grace Court.