From sticks to snails

From pigs to snails, public art has popped up across Northwest Arkansas this year.

Painted fiberglass pigs are located all over Fayetteville as part of PIGShibition, a community art project and fundraiser sponsored by Ozark Literacy Council. The idea was to promote literacy and “get people to notice that this is a problem in Arkansas,” director Wendy Poole said in a Nov. 2 What’s Up! report.

Some of the pigs will be put up for auction in March at Piggies Go to Market, with the proceeds going toward literacy projects, and the others will go home with Top Hog sponsors. The Ozark Literacy Council has sold 24 pigs, and 21 of them had been placed as of Dec. 20, Poole says. The organization has raised more than $100,000 from sponsors for the actual sculptures, and she adds Ozark Literacy spent at least $45,000 on stipends for the artists out of the $100,000 raised. A lot of the money went back into the community, “which is what an art project really is about.”

She says this has been incredible for the community.

“I know that Ozark Literacy will do another art project because it’s been so profound,” Poole says.

Functional public art is also in place in Fayetteville.

Hannah Withers, president of the Block Street Business Association, says five bicycle racks sculpted by Eugene Sargent were installed along Block Avenue about a month ago. The association used funds from the block party it hosted in May to hire the local artist, and the city helped with installation.

The racks all have different designs. There is a green Dowsymbol rack next to a bank, a “purple-ish blue-ish” guitar, a yellow pair of scissors to represent the salons, a red hanger to embody the retail on the street and an orange coffee cup to pay tribute the restaurants, Withers says.

“We wanted to do something that was a little bit different and colorful and unique that stood out.”

Withers thinks there should be more public art in Northwest Arkansas.

“I think it’s a really interesting and creative way to promote your district or your neighborhood and also engage an artist to participate in helping build it,” Withers says.

Some other public art displays in Fayetteville include an art installationby “stickwork artist” Patrick Dougherty at the Walton Arts Center and “18 Verticals, 70 Horizontals,” created by Robert Lemming and Adam Crosson and located on the lawn on the southeast corner of the Fine Arts Building at the University of Arkansas.

The sculpture “features 18 curved wooden beams jutting up from the ground. Running between the beams, whicharc in different directions, are a series of 70 lines of horizontal poplar wood slats that enclose the sculpture in a semicircle that is modeled after seed pods,” according to a June 15 article in What’s Up!

The artists received funding from several sources to create the project, and it will be on display for five years.

Dougherty created a sitespecific art installation at the Walton Arts Center in May during Artosphere. He gathered saplings and guided volunteers through the construction process to create a semi-permanent, large-scale installation that fits and reacts to the space, according to a Walton Arts Center press release.

In Bentonville, public art includes the Bentonville Community Create public art project hosted by Art=Story creative arts group. Art=Story partnered with artist andgallery owner Thomas B.

Merritt to develop a project where members of the community were invited to tell their story and the story of Bentonville by writing and drawing on five largescale panels, according to an Art=Story news release.

Snails also crept into Bentonville this summer.

Eleven snails were put on display downtown from late May through the end of June, according to a May 24 article in the Benton County Daily Record. The 21c Museum Hotel sponsored the outdoor contemporary art exhibit to coordinate with the ArtsFest in June. The snails were created by Cracking Art, which created the 21c Museum Hotel’s penguins, coming next year to Bentonville. After the hotel opens in early 2013, this location will have “its own color of signature hotel penguins.”