Athens city administration, in collaboration with the Athens Municipal Arts Commission, is bringing more art to the city through a sculpture walk experience.
The experience will contain six permanent pieces from local artists, located on the new fire station headquarters campus near the Stimson Avenue roundabout.
Deputy City Service-Safety Director Andrew Chiki said the city allocates 1% of the cost of the new construction project toward art and city beautification.
Mayor Steve Patterson said the cost of the entire installation is included in the cost of the new fire station headquarters, and the artists will be awarded $7,500 each for their work.
The art and artists were chosen through a selection process in which artists would submit proposals to a committee within the Athens Municipal Arts Commission. The submissions were then judged by members of the committee and the Athens mayor.
“Through the Athens Municipal Arts Commission an ad hoc committee was formed to develop ideas for what kind of art could be created as part of the new fire station project,” Chiki wrote in an email.
Chiki said the firehouse campus was chosen for the project because of its high visibility to those visiting Athens, as well as those passing through the U.S. Route 33.
“(The placement) was determined that because of the prominent location in the city and a desire to showcase multiple local artists that a sculpture park would be a great way to use the percent for art allocation,” Chiki wrote in an email.
Holly Ittel is the vice-commissioner of the Athens Municipal Arts Commission and said the space was chosen because it is highly accessible for visitors.
“The ad hoc committee consisted of visual artists and musical artists, and we had a concern for accessibility,” Ittel said. “So the paths will be paved, there will be…no step pad, the artwork is graded to the ground to enhance accessibility.”
Patterson said accessibility is necessary because of the substantial size of each piece of artwork that will be on display, which may require different types of foundations.
“One piece in particular is 20-feet-tall,“ Patterson said. "Now it won't be from grade, from ground. It won't go up 20 feet. It'll go up probably 16 feet up in the air, and then there's some others that are fairly tall that require some different types of foundations for them.”
Patterson said the committee received nearly a dozen artists' submissions and an excess of 45 individual pieces or concepts of artwork.
“We started with seven, and then we put out a call for artists,“ Patterson said. "It was a request for proposals that went through the Athens Municipal Arts Commission. They managed what art would be in space. I asked to be one of the jurors because I wanted to see the art.”
Ittel said in addition to the six permanent pieces of artwork selected by the committee, there are plans to put some platforms in the area to showcase artwork from students and other local artists that would rotate regularly.
“We are installing additional concrete pads where temporary artworks will exist, and that will probably be a future project between us and the local colleges and universities like Ohio University and Hocking (College) to get their student artwork publicly displayed,” Ittel said.
Patterson said he thinks this would be a great way for students to showcase their artwork off campus and is a way to bring more artwork into the city for residents and visitors to see.
“I've always thought we don't have enough sculptures in the city of Athens, and I've said that to my staff in the past, I've said it for years,” Patterson said. “We just need to step up our game when it comes to sculptures that are open that the public can experience, and other people have said that too.”
The immersive sculpture walk experience was originally expected to open on Wednesday with its own ribbon cutting, but it is now set to open along with the fire headquarters complex on Oct. 29.
