Indiana town mulls 3 sculptures for arts village
The Ramp Creek Covered Bridge at the north entrance of Brown County State Park in Indiana. Photo by Chuck Szmurlo, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) – An 11-foot-tall Japanese-inspired pillar created from limestone, copper and steel. A barn-timber and steel sculpture depicting a guitar, banjo and fiddle. A free-form 1,500-pound limestone piece of art called “Coordinate Harmony.”
All may soon grace public spaces in the Indiana town of Nashville, which as one of the state’s five cultural districts has established an arts and entertainment commission that has funds to lease sculptures for public display to enhance and highlight the presence of art in the community. The district is called Arts Village Brown County and extends beyond the town limits to the county’s edges.
During a meeting Wednesday, members of the commission’s sculpture subcommittee reviewed four proposals from artists seeking to lease their sculptures to the town. Suzannah Zody explained that her subcommittee received a $5,000 private donation that the town council matched for the purpose of paying artists $2,500 to lease a sculpture to the town for 18 to 24 months.
The sculptures must meet a set of guidelines the committee established that don’t dictate what the art should look like, but offer suggestions, such as it being constructed from “vandal resistant,” durable materials that can withstand harsh weather conditions. There also can be no sharp edges to harm children or others passing by.
“We tried to stay away from being specific and saying what kind of art might be good or bad,” Zody told The Herald-Times. “We did say there’s lot of wood and trees, and that natural materials are encouraged.”
The guidelines say public art should create a focal point compatible with Nashville’s village atmosphere, that it should not obscure the view of historic buildings in town, and that its scale should relate it its surroundings.
The subcommittee members on Wednesday selected three pieces of sculpture from the four proposals submitted. The town has identified two sites for the sculpture installations _ in a landscaped section of a new parking lot at Jefferson Street and Pat Reilly Road and a smaller area at the corner of Franklin and Jefferson streets.
She said a third site is being sought, possibly near the new town pavilion, so that all three pieces can find a space.
Town council members will have to approve the sculptures; Zody said she hopes the two limestone ones are not deemed too contemporary for the rustic arts and shopping village. “We’ll see what they say,” she said, anticipating taking the suggestions to the town council’s Nov. 17 meeting. Nashville Arts and Entertainment Commission President and sculpture committee member Tom Tuley said he hopes all three will be in place by spring.
The sculptures proposed for display are:
— An 11-foot-tall and 24-inch-wide Indiana limestone pillar sculpture called “Ishi Kawa Venus,” featuring copper and steel accents and Japanese etchings. Bloomington artist Dale Enochs would install his piece on a limestone pedestal at the parking lot site, and it would be lit by a nearby streetlight.
— A polished barn wood-and-steel sculpture featuring a guitar, banjo and a fiddle leaning together. It is planned for the 4-by-4-foot space at Franklin and Jefferson streets. Brown County artist Michael Evans, a custom furniture maker and craftsman, said his sculpture would have a traditional Brown County bluegrass style to it.
— A smooth and fluid 40-inch-tall and 450-pound Indiana limestone sculpture called “Coordinate Harmony,” crafted by West Virginia artist Carl Wright, that would be secured on a 5-foot-tall pedestal.
“All three pieces are great,” said sculpture committee member Jim Connors, who liked the large scale of the pieces selected. “With public sculpture art, you want to have something big.”
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Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The Ramp Creek Covered Bridge at the north entrance of Brown County State Park in Indiana. Photo by Chuck Szmurlo, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
