Public Art

The Downtown Boone Public Art Program

The DBDA Public Art Program – An Overview: The DBDA Public Art Program collaborates with local artists and businesses to provide public art for Downtown Boone. Programming includes annual sculpture displays, downtown gateways, partnership in the Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition and Exhibition, street scape improvements and monthly Art Crawls. Downtown Boone advocates have been promoting a thriving arts community for years and care deeply about investing the area’s future; public art is an excellent avenue to emphasize our civic pride and unique culture.

The Public Art Program rotates sculptures on display from local and regional artists on two concrete pads beside Town Hall. Currently, the program is displaying Now What? by Charlie Brouwer and Evening Bloom by Charlie Lecka until August 2010. Funds from the program have been donated to the Town of Boone for the creation of a sitting area behind the sculpture displays.

Downtown Boone’s first gateway has been created in front of the Watauga County Health Department on West King Street. The gateway includes a small landscaped area and three benches, each with unique designs relative to the local area, created by Tim Salt and members of the Black Valley Design Collective. Later this year, a welcoming sign is scheduled to be installed to complete the project.

Beginning in 2009, the Public Art Program is proud to partner with the 23rd Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition and Exhibition to offer two additional sculptors a chance to display their work in Downtown Boone through the Community Choice Award. The Rosen Sculpture Program is a well-established program that has proven its effectiveness through its outstanding staff, the program’s popularity as part of An Appalachian Summer Festival and the talented artists who participate in the annual competition. This new addition to the program has been made possible with to the continued generosity of Martin and Doris Rosen, which provided support for this partnership. This year, Jon Howson’s Ascension is on display on the front lawn of Melanie’s Food Fantasy, at the corner of King and Depot streets, and Douglas M. Gruizenga’s Trinity is on display in the King Street Garden of ASU’s main visual arts gallery.

The Public Art Committee has collaborated with the Town of Boone’s Community Appearance Commission during the past year to help create a Street scape Plan for Downtown Boone. The downtown plan will include new benches, street trees, seasonal banners, pedestrian signs and street lights with pedestrian lighting. The Public Art Committee is proud to be a stakeholder in this process and is enthusiastic about adding more artistic components into the emerging Street scape Plan.

Please click on our Art Crawl link for more information regarding our Art Crawl events taking place on the first Friday of each month. Event hours are 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. with galleries and shops open until 7:30 p.m., restaurants and bars open until 10 p.m. or 2 a.m. and two late-night galleries, open on Art Crawl nights only, from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. Also, check out Art Crawl Presents… a music event featuring one of our great local bands, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., at a new downtown location each month. Art Crawl: Food, Music, Shopping, Art & Spirits.

Why Have Public Art in Downtown Boone? The impact of public art in our community is a priceless educational and personal experience as well as a bold statement of the economic vitality of our civic and business center. Public art energizes public spaces, awakens our thoughts and transforms the places where we live, work and play into more welcoming and interactive environments. It enhances our quality of life by cultivating a sense of place that is a symbol of our town’s maturity. It increases our community’s assets and positively expresses our sense of identity and values. Public art helps our green space thrive and enhances our roadsides, pedestrian corridors and community gateways; it demonstrates unquestionable civic pride in citizenship and affirms a culturally rich environment. A town with public art is a town that thinks, learns and feels.