Show us your best sculpture: Organizers seeking a dozen sites to display art downtown

By Mark Wineka

mwineka@salisburypost.com

The Public Art Committee continues preparations for a Salisbury Sculpture Show, an outdoor sculpture show that will run for nine months downtown.

The show will be called "Discover What's Outside," a play on the city's new logo and slogan, "Discover What's Inside." It is scheduled to start April 1, 2009, and a call for entries is going out.

A selection committee will choose pieces submitted by sculptors in the Southeast.

Organizers have a Web site (www.salisburysculpture.com) for those seeking more information.

Public Art Committee Chairwoman Barbara Perry said 15 public and private sites in the downtown have been identified, and the committee hopes to choose a dozen as display sites.

This first sculpture show will lay the groundwork for bigger events to come, Perry said. Estimated costs for the show are $41,000. Grants and other sources already have $34,500 available. The committee got a $10,000 matching grant from Ed and Susan Norvell through the Salisbury Community Foundation.

Salisbury City Council gave Perry its consensus this week to proceed.

The show fulfills a goal of the city's Cultural Action Plan (which has been drafted and will be heading to council soon) as a "signature event that may link additional performance activities such as mimes, theatrical acts, poetry and musical acts as sculpture-companion pieces," Senior Planner Lynn Raker said in a memo.

The Cultural Action Plan's consultant, Mary Berryman, said the concepts were "exactly the kind of things that can help Salisbury complement its exceptional commitment to historical preservation with a parallel commitment to contemporary expression."

Perry and Sarah Hensley of Rowan-Salisbury schools also updated council on progress with the Salisbury Cotton Mills pocket park.

It will be in the Wachovia Bank parking lot at South Church and West Fisher streets and include an art installation featuring a brick serpentine wall with an inset of 82 clay tiles produced by art teachers and fourth-grade art students.

Once in place, the corner will become a regular stop for county third-graders who make a downtown walking tour an annual field trip. The tiles being sculpted by the third-graders reflect the city's history connected to textiles.

The city has two grants for the project: $7,540 from the state's Urban and Community Forestry Grant program (for street trees) and $5,000 from the Blanche & Julian Robertson Family Foundation.

Perry said the project has raised enough funds for the wall, trees, benches and trash cans, but items such as a brick sidewalk and sculpture may have to be phased in later.

"I cannot tell you how much I enjoy working with the children," Perry said.

The committee hopes to build the wall next spring.

Kluttz commended the committee's partnership with the schools in an art-related project, one of the council's goals. The student-made tiles will give children a sense of ownership in the downtown, Kluttz predicted. "It's going to be such unique art," she said.

To date, the Public Art Committee has installed 18 plaques that are part of the downtown History and Art Trail.