Arts Intranet

Through the public art process and with input from the community, the monument to Maggie Walker would be a reality at last. We’d build on the work of those who came before and follow the path for a project that was long overdue. It would be done by the 150th anniversary of her birth. Easy and uncontroversial, right? However, when I truly reflect, the path to that day was longer and rougher than any of us on the Public Art Site Selection Team anticipated. Many, many times we found ourselves turning to Walker’s quote about determination and perseverance: “Have faith, have hope, have courage and carry on.”

If robots are plotting to take over the world, they’re starting with Pittsburgh International Airport. And they’re succeeding.

In May of 1919, National Geographic magazine brandished Erie industry as being among the finest in the U.S., even likening it to that of Chicago. Nearly a century has passed since then, but that does not mean the city has lost its luster of yore. In fact, it would seem that the Gem City has instead embarked on a renaissance of both art and industry. The industrial buildings that were once the epicenter of Erie’s gritty core are undergoing a complete makeover. They have been revitalized and transformed into distinctive microbreweries, upscale urban housing, and, most recently, ideal sites for public art installations.

Under Magnitude is a two-story tall permanent structure suspended in the atrium of Orlando's Orange County Convention Center that carves a three-dimensional impact into an otherwise vast space. The story behind the design and construction of the project is that it further evolves my invention of “Structural Stripes”: the fundamental premise of the studio to unite surface, skin, and space into a holistic and never-before-seen system.

Creative placemaking has been an ongoing discussion in cities and towns across the country for several years, but where do planners sit in this dialogue? What role does a planner have in the development of a creative placemaking strategy? How can planners incorporate creative placemaking ideas into their projects? Or encourage communities to implement these kinds of projects? Americans for the Arts has partnered with the American Planning Association, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Area Planning Council and The Townscape Institute, on a National Endowment for the Arts funded project to develop a suite of curated resources to assist planners in understanding how arts and culture can impact their work. The tools developed in this project will live as a Knowledgebase on APA’s website, accessible to all who are interested in implementing creative placemaking projects.

The “Lost & Found Factory” tapped into our personal memories of singular connections we have to special things. These objects may be small or large or abstract and unwieldy, and yet somehow they all have been etched onto our minds. They act as symbols for relationships, relics of important moments, or as souvenirs that take use back to places we have experienced.