COTTONWOOD PARK - SECREAT DWELLINGS
Salt Lake City artist Lenka Konopasek created 3-cast bronze sculptures using simple, elegant leaf forms from native trees found along the Jordan River as her inspiration for the artwork recently installed in Cottonwood Park. The park, located at 1540 West 300 North, is a beautiful 25-acre multi-use area with a walking path, dog park, open space, playground and the Jordan River running through it.
Nestled in each richly patinaed, over-sized leaf, the sculpture holds dwellings connecting nature and the quaint architecture of the neighboring homes. On the back of each of the leaves, Konopasek etched text, in English and Spanish, which references the community, it’s residents, and the history of the river. Secret Dwellings will engage each viewer and encourage curiosity through the intimacy, scale, and their thoughtful placement in the park.
These two projects were funded through Salt Lake City’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program and managed by the Salt Lake City Arts Council in partnership with Salt Lake City Parks and Open Lands. The funds are specifically designated for public art projects in qualifying parks in Salt Lake City.
THE BIKE STOPS HERE: ARTIST DESIGNED BICYCLE RACKS
In coordination with SLC Transportation, the public art program issued a Request for Proposals in the spring to Utah artists to design bike racks for downtown Salt Lake City. Sixteen written proposals were submitted for consideration, which were reviewed by the Salt Lake Art Design Board and Review Committee.
The Design Board recommended, and the Mayor approved, the following artists for the project: Ethan Barley, Nick Vienneau, Mïa Vollkommer, and the team of Willy Littig and Nate Srok. Each artist/team will create the two unique rack designs they proposed. The eight new racks will be installed at downtown locations later this fall.
We view this initial selection of bike racks as a pilot project to create a series of artist-designed bike racks each year. This is a great opportunity to have more Utah artists, established and emerging, represented on the streets of Salt Lake City through functional, engaging works of art.
MAPPING PUBLIC ART IN SALT LAKE CITY
The public art program, in partnership with Salt Lake City Division of Engineering, will soon have a way for residents, visitors and, anyone really, to tour Salt Lake City’s public art collection in a basic and intuitive way. Using “Story Maps,” an open-source web app, we will combine web maps and a cloud-based interactive mapping system with multimedia content—text, photos, video, and audio—to let us tell stories about our collection. We have over 250 artworks in the collection, including those at the City & County Building that we want to share. This new way (to us!) of encountering artworks is also an incredible opportunity for others to experience the diversity, depth, and quality of the artists that can be found in Utah. We hope to have this new system in place later this fall.
