On left “Art Shark” a concrete mural wall with steel and fabric canopy. On right: “Hand, an 11-foot-tall concrete and wood statue near City Hall (Brandon Rose)
“Having art in the urban fabric is critical,” says Rose, “for having a healthy, functioning urban environment.”
Rose, 35, an adjunct industrial design professor at Syracuse University, is Syracuse’s first Public Artist in Residence. That’s a special position for which he and other art supporters have won a state grant. His job is to create sculptures this year along the Connective Corridor route between downtown and SU. For Rose, it is also the fifth time his artwork will adorn the Syracuse streets.
The Public Artist in Residence program is funded with $30,000 by a one-year grant from the state-run Empire State Development Corp. and SU’s Connective Corridor. It will be reviewed in the fall to decide if and how the position will be continue to be funded. For now, the project has the support of City Hall and is part of a burgeoning public art movement in Syracuse.
“The key,” said the city’s public art coordinator, Kate Auwaerter, “is that the art work needs to be grounded in Syracuse. When it really has that connection to the city, it helps us grow our community identity.”
As part of city revitalization efforts, Syracuse also has hired Auwaerter as public art coordinator and created a public art commission in 2007. Since then, the commission has approved several projects throughout the city. For example, last year it gathered input at Tomorrow’s Neighborhood Today meetings to put sculptures in six Syracuse neighborhoods. Each sculpture cost $6,000. Also, the commission approved the “Love Letters to Syracuse” project, which put murals on three train bridges that separate Armory Square from the Near West Side.
To create the new Public Artist in Residence program, SU adjunct professor Rose collaborated with two community group directors: Dominic Robinson of Northside UP and Maarten Jacobs of the Near West Side Initiative. They joined him in putting together the proposal that won the state funding for the position.
Rose is still negotiating the terms of his contract with the Empire State Development Corp. and Connective Corridor.
Rose’s artwork already appears throughout the city. In the Lipe Art Park at the corner of West Fayette Street and South Geddes Street, his “Art Shark” combines a concrete mural wall with a steel and fabric canopy. Auburn artist Justin Moshaty painted the mural, “Rebirth of Syracuse,” which includes a seascape and the image of his pregnant wife. In May, a new mural will replace it. Downtown, Rose’s 11-foot-tall concrete and wood “Hand” statue reaches up from the sidewalk at City Hall Commons on East Washington Street. And on the East Side, he paid out of his own pocket to build what he calls a “guerilla” bus stop shelter with an arching canopy at the corner of East Fayette Street and Westmoreland Avenue.
For the Connective Corridor project as Public Artist in Residence, his sculptures will take whatever shape the public wants them to, he says. The first piece will flank the creek side on Walton Street in Armory Square and the second will be in a yet-undetermined location closer to SU. Before designing them, he says, he will invite the public to walk through the sites and share whatever “memories, history, hopes, or connections” they have about the area.
Rose says the public involvement is what makes public art worth funding. “There’s something valuable about it,” he says, “because people talk about it.”
(Jessica Palombo is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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