And Now, Your Public Art Update

By Robert Wilonsky Tue., Apr. 14 2009 at 9:00 AM

Categories: News

City of Dallas

Countertenor and partner Contralto will, sooner than later, make their returns to Fair Park.

Now here's the offer of a public meeting too good to refuse: today's get-together of the Public Art Committee, which convenes at 4:30 p.m. in the fifth-floor conference room at the Majestic Theatre, nice. (Ooh, note to self: Get David Byrne tickets.) Sounds very artsy: Among the agenda items are three works-in-progress scheduled to make their public debuts in coming months, including sculptor David Newton's recreations of the nine-foot-high Contralto and Countertenor statues set to make their reappearance at Fair Park following their mysterious disappearances long, long ago (though, more than likely, said Louise Elam of the Dallas Park & Recreation Department, the plaster giants "probably just disintegrated due to the temporary nature of the material.") Newton's the same guy who, in 2002, used $66,000 in private donations to recreate Fair Park's adorable "Woofus" statue, which, like Contralto and Countertenor, was originally a Lawrence Tenney Stevens work.

Also on the agenda: Bruce Taylor's seating element installation for Farmers Market. As Taylor wrote on his blog last summer, he's "having fun with some utilitarian pieces now [by] creating two benches for the Dallas Farmers Market area using stainless steel and cast concrete with granite." You can sneak peak this computer-generated rendering. (Though, a question: Is that for sitting or just for looking? Because it looks uncomfy.) The committee will also take a gander at Anitra Blayton's art for the Kidd Springs Recreation Center.

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The benches are a nice amenity to add to the Farmers market. They look fine for a short break but not comfortable enough to sleep on them (good thing, considering how close The Bridge is to the FM). City needs to do more art all over, like Seattle, Chicago, New York, etc., if we really want to improve how our city looks.
It might be painful to seek Amy on these benches, must be why they were chosen. Im with Frank on this, I tried on many call for artists, only to loose out to what I consider poor quality Art. I prefer private assignments.....wonder if the David Byrne concert needs to be covered by a certain artist of the photo persuasion?
It's good to read here on Unfair Park that they're doing something as opposed to getting those depressing 'call for artists' notices in the mail. Perhaps they finally took me off their list as I asked them to do many years ago. I have found submitting for an art gig to be a total waste of time, effort and a set up for a let down, even when come in second out of 100+ entries. The City of Dallas and DART are entities I personally will never succumb to unless it's a straight up one on one commission, which they by law can not offer. Competing w/ fellow artists for the prize only to deal w/ committees, politics and the red tape that follows should never be part of the creative process. If you can handle it and can play their game, more power to you, but for me personally, private underwriting, sponsorship and / or commissions are the only way to go. Then again, in my dream world I'll be laughing six feet under when they buy my stuff for ten times as much once I'm gone... Time will tell.
In the never ending - never fulfilled job of trying to make the Farmer's Market more welcoming to the citizens of Dallas that don't live in The Bridge, they order these ugly benches? WTF! Yeah, benches are going to bring the people down there. What about upgrading the area - a little paint would go a long way, as would fully utilizing the resources they already have there. Give free rent to those "local" and smaller growers that are being driven to smaller neighborhood markets. Fill the Resource Center twice a day with cooking classes, from "How to Cook for Diabetes" to "How to Cook Gluten Free", this place should be turning away groups that want to utilize their kitchen! Pay to bring in some entertainment for the weekends, bounce houses, face painting, anything to draw families down. Break down the enclosed shed into actual rental units, with walls and security so local food producers (I'm thinking cheese, meats, breads that require temperature controls) can be reassured of leaving inventory on-site. And revise the city's Health violations code, they are so all over themselves about safety that nobody wants to play in their sandbox. Another reason that suburban markets are finding smaller sellers of goods eager to leave the DFM. It's an outside, open air market - of course there are going to be food safety issues. Isn't there a peanut plant somewhere nearby they could investigate? Benches?

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