Tag: public art

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News The Fly-By

Q&A: Lauren Kennedy of the UrbanArt Commission

Lauren Kennedy, executive director of the UrbanArt Commission (UAC), says although the coronavirus pandemic has hit artists hard, the organization has more than a dozen projects in the works.

Kennedy, who says public art is a critical asset for communities — especially Memphis because of its “rich culture” — discusses how the pandemic has affected the UAC and artists and how the organization is moving forward. — Maya Smith

Lauren Kennedy, executive director of the UrbanArt Commission

Memphis Flyer: How has the pandemic affected the UAC as an organization?


Lauren Kennedy: Nonprofits all across the country are hurting badly. We were fortunate though, as we were in a better place than a lot of folks at the end of the fiscal year. Looking ahead is a little different though. This will probably be a really hard year for fundraising.

MF: How has the pandemic affected UAC’s commissioning of artists?


LK: The work has really taken off in a more intense way. Everything feels more urgent right now. As soon as the pandemic hit, we knew the biggest priority was keeping projects moving along to keep payments going to artists.

Artists are among a number of folks being hit hardest by coronavirus. A recent report said nationally 62 percent of artists are unemployed and 95 percent have lost income. That’s really significant. So we moved some timelines up and reallocated some funding to create more opportunities to get money to artists. Public art is one vehicle to take care of these folks.

Art is often the first thing on the chopping block. But art is critical for any place to thrive and be vibrant. I think it’s easier for people to say that art is valuable and forget that artists are the reason that the art exists. We talk about art as an abstract concept apart from the artist doing the work. We need to reorient our conversations around art to put the priority on the people making it.

MF: Has the pandemic changed the way the UAC engages the community?


LK: In March, we were pushing ourselves to engage the community where two projects would go: Whitehaven and Raleigh. We were planning to have public meetings before the artists were selected to bring the public in sooner and let them vote on proposals. When we first all went into quarantine, we knew we couldn’t do that as we intended so we turned it into a virtual thing.

We look forward to engaging people in person again, but in the meantime we are thinking about how virtual spaces open up more opportunities to participate for those who can’t attend meetings in person.

MF: Why is it important for public art to continue?


LK: Art is something we pass down to future generations. Memphis has always been a culturally rich place, and I think art is a big part of that. And public art is even more valuable right now since people can’t go and experience other forms of art. But public art has always been important because it’s accessible. People don’t have to walk through a marble entranceway to see it. Hopefully, now public art means more to people since COVID has changed the way we experience art.

MF: What projects does UAC have in the works?


LK: We have over 20 projects in the works. We just commissioned five artists for a new project at the airport. They’ll be in the new Concourse B. They’re all local artists, so we’re excited about that. The artists commissioned to do projects at the new convention center are in fabrication mode, and one of the murals will be installed before the end of the month. We’ve also got a mural project in Gooch Park through the Neighborhood Art Initiative program.

MF: What are some of the UAC’s priorities moving forward?


LK: One thing we are thinking about is how do we push ourselves to be responsive to whatever happens in front of us. This not only applies to COVID but also the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. How do we pay more attention to what’s happening around us? We want to create platforms for artists to respond to these things. How does justice show up in our work in a way it hasn’t in the past? That’s something we, as a team, will spend some time thinking about in the coming months.

MF: Anything else you’d like to add?


LK: We’re going to get through this together. And we want to be a part of this togetherness.

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Art Art Feature

Metal Sculptor Lewis Body Sets up Shop in Memphis

Lewis Body was a “misfit artist” during his teen years in Michigan.”I wasn’t interested in school,” he says.

Except art. His art teacher let him spend as much time as he wanted in the art department. “She gave me confidence because she saw something in me.”

Now the owner of L. B. Metal Design in Memphis, metal sculptor/blacksmith Body, 27, recently completed two bus shelters for Athens, Georgia. He takes commissions for furniture, sculpture, and architectural metalwork. But, he says, “Public art is the main thing we’re pushing.”

Lewis Body

Body began working with metal when he was 12. “I would find old Schwinn bikes in dumpsters, and I would chop them up and put long forks on them,” he says. “And make goofy art bikes.”

When he was 14, he got a job in a body shop, where he learned the basics of fabrication and how to weld.

His first metal sculpture was a 3-foot tree made of rebar, which he took to Metal Inc., an art fabrication studio. He was told, “It looks good, but what you need to do is spend time. Really look at a tree and study it. Study each part and what it does.”

Body continued working on his tree, which he wanted to taper. “Working out how I was going to make it taper was what made me realize blacksmithing was even a thing,” he says.

A man at Metal Inc. gave Body an old forge — and, eventually, a job.

Eva Langsdon sits under “Synergy,” a bus shelter by metalsmith Lewis Body.

A year later, Body began apprenticing with master blacksmith Scott Lankton at Lankton Metal Design. “All the forging, blacksmithing techniques in the beginning were learned from him,” he says.

That’s when Body knew his career path. “As soon as I saw what blacksmithing could produce, it was over.” He created a table and then progressed to more contemporary furniture and sculpture.

Body got numerous commissions, but after a year in business, he decided to sell his anvil, buy a plane ticket, and move to Hawaii, where he helped restore a 150-year-old Chinese temple.

After returning, almost a year later, to the mainland, Body began working at Bondi Metal Designs in Oakland, California. While there, he got an apprenticeship at the Metal Museum, which was “maybe the most important thing” he’s done for his career. “It gave me the time and resources to develop my own style,” which he describes as “minimalist” and “volumetric.”

“It’s not flat,” he says. “Every dimension takes up space.”

While at the museum, Body was chosen to do a public arts commission for a guard rail for Johnson City, Tennessee. “I’m grateful to the museum for that experience because they really let me take the reins on it,” he says. “I did all the design work and coordinated with the builders and kind of led the fabrication in the museum shop.”

He decided long ago to stay here. “I fell in love with Memphis through my time here,” he says. “It’s got a real charm to it.”

Body moved all the machinery he’d collected over the years to a warehouse, which he converted to his blacksmith shop. He and his girlfriend, painter/metalsmith Eva Langsdon, who works with him, live in Midtown.

After the move, he got commissions for the Georgia bus shelters. “Synergy” is a contemporary minimalist design with a cantilever roof and a stainless steel bench. “Civic Sprout” is “inspired by a sprouting plant, but the forms are still pretty contemporary in nature,” he says.

Body feels he’s in a good place. “I couldn’t ask for too much more.”

As for Memphis, Body says, “I don’t plan on leaving any time soon.” But, he adds, “I’d like to retire to Hawaii.”

L. B. Metal Design is at 309 West Olive Avenue; (248) 410-0765.

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Music Music Blog

Ceremony To Celebrate Johnny Cash Statue By Mike McCarthy

CREDIT: Dan Ball

Dan Ball

Mike McCarthy with his clay sculpture of Johnny Cash, before casting.

Wednesday, June 12 at 5:00, Memphis will finally behold the culmination of years of planning and painstaking work, with the unveiling of a statue of a young Johnny Cash. The larger-than-life likeness at 999 South Cooper will stand only a few feet from where Cash played his first paid performance at Galloway Church with Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant in December, 1954.

I spoke with Mike McCarthy, better known for his underground comics and films, about the process of making his original vision a reality, and his experience with working in the new medium of sculpted clay.

Memphis Flyer: How did this all come about? Many people don’t even realize that Johnny Cash played at what was then called Galloway Church.

Mike McCarthy:  So seven years ago, I thought to myself, ‘Cooper-Young needs a Johnny Cash statue. And Galloway Church needs to be saved.’ Then I met this strange cast of characters that took me on this journey that, seven years later, amounts to a statue.  I’m extremely happy. And maybe I’m amazed, to quote Paul McCartney. Because I can’t believe that it actually happened. These things take time. At one point, we were in a moment of crisis where, if I didn’t do the sculpture myself, it wasn’t gonna happen. And frankly it was an honor and a privilege, and I would have done it for free. Many people don’t even know I did it. They think I’m affiliated with it, but they don’t understand that I actually sculpted it. At the end of the conversation, they’re like ‘Wait a second, you actually sculpted it?’

I have said that Memphis is under-statued. And it’s becoming more under-statued. So why don’t we replace these statues or create new statues that are rockabilly-oriented, blues-oriented, 70s rock-oriented. Create an entire milieu of Memphis music history with statues, so American Dream Safari, say, can drive by that. We need more statues of historical musical legends in Memphis. That’s why I helped start Legacy Memphis. Then, when I became the sculptor, I stepped down from that nonprofit. From the beginning, our motto was ‘Every neighborhood has a hero.’

You usually work in other media. How did you rise to the challenge of sculpting?

Thirty-five years ago, I had a sculpture class at the [then] Academy of Art with John McIntire, and you can read about him in Robert Gordon’s It Came From Memphis. After I read that book, it all made sense to me, the beauty of the man who is John McIntire. When you move here from Mississippi to do your thing, you’d be best off just being quiet and soaking it all in, and go ahead and do whatever someone like McIntire says.

So I had that experience, and I knew I was up to the task of this project. I sculpted it in oil-based clay in my living room for about ten months. It was here in my house over Christmas. We strung Christmas lights on it. For me, having a piece of public artwork that supersedes anything I thought I would ever be able to accomplish, after coming from film and comics and other underground things I’ve done, is very gratifying.

I tend to be very philosophical about these things. Having something that was spawned out of my living room, that my kids were around and watched take shape, and can still go see after I’m gone, is wonderful. They’ll always be able to drive by that statue, and that means a lot.

How did things proceed once you finished the clay sculpture?

Then it was cast into bronze at the Lugar Foundry. One of the nicest things to occur out of all this is my friendship with the Lugar family, with Andrea and Larry. I’m sure the Flyer readership is very familiar with their statues: Chief Seattle at the zoo, Bobby Blue Bland downtown by the Chisca Hotel, Elvis on Beale Street. When I went out to see the statue at the foundry in Eads the other day, I was extremely gratified. I’m very happy to have worked with all these people to have made this happen.

Johnny Cash Statue & Historic Marker Unveiling, Wednesday, June 12, 5:00-7:00 pm, 999 South Cooper; with refreshments and music by Roy Cash and Thomas Gabriel (Johnny Cash’s oldest grandson).

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News News Blog

City Council Revives Public Art Discussion, Considers Set of Guidelines

CREDIT: Facebook- Paint Memphis

Facebook- Paint Memphis

A Paint Memphis mural

The Memphis City Council is looking to streamline the public art process here, ending what one councilman calls a “public art debacle.”

Tuesday, a council committee recommended approval of a set of guidelines that would place regulations on the art projects that go up in the city on public property.

The effort, spearheaded by Councilman Berlin Boyd, city officials, and the UrbanArts Commission (UAC), has been in the works for about a year.

There has been a moratorium on public art projects since March of last year. The city council voted then to place a 120-day moratorium on art projects going up on public right-of-ways, and then re-approved that measure again late last year.

The moratorium exempted projects funded by the city’s Percent-for-Art program, as well as certain ongoing projects by the Downtown Memphis Commission and the Memphis Medical District Collaborative.

Paint Memphis

Controversial Elvis Presley mural by a Paint Memphis-commissioned artist

It was first put in place after the council publicly criticized one organization’s murals. The council deemed a handful of murals sanctioned by the nonprofit Paint Memphis as offensive and, in some cases, “satanic.”

Some of the less popular murals featured Elvis Presley with a snake coming from his orifices, a cow skull, a dancing skeleton, and a zombie.

Tuesday, the council discussed extending that moratorium for another 120 days until the council is able to finalize and approve the new guidelines.

The draft of the new rules includes guidelines such as no political or religious images, as well as no profanity, obscenity, sexual imagery, nudity, or violence.

“One-of-a-kind artwork” with themes that promote community, civic pride, or other “general positive messages are preferred.”

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Additionally, notifications about projects must be posted at the proposed sites, as well as given to adjacent property owners and churches or schools within 500 feet or a 250-foot radius of the site.

Proposed artwork will be evaluated based on its context, structural soundness, public safety, diversity, feasibility, and community support.

A five-member review committee, consisting of a representative from the city’s legal, Public Works, engineering, and parks divisions, as well as a legislative representative, will make the final decision on all new projects.

The committee will hold monthly meetings at which applicants can present project proposals and members of the public can give feedback.

Lauren Kennedy, director of the UAC, said she supports the council’s efforts to get the public more involved in the public art process.

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News News Blog

UrbanArt to Fund Community Projects Through New Initiative

CREDIT: UrbanArt Commission

UrbanArt Commission

An art installation on Broad Avenue


The UrbanArt Commission (UAC) is looking to make three community groups’ neighborhood art project ideas come to life.

Through the Neighborhood Art Initiative, three public art projects will be awarded a total of $120,000. The idea is for community organizations to incorporate public art into their current initiatives.

“We believe that creative expression has the power to unlock opportunity and transform communities,” the UAC said.

The UAC is looking for project proposals from neighborhood associations, community groups, art organizations, and nonprofits that are already engaged in a specific community.

The proposed projects should support an ongoing project or initiative in a neighborhood. The UAC suggests projects such as a mural in an existing community garden, a sculpture in a greenspace, and creative signage.

The UAC, along with a six-member selection committee, will ultimately choose projects that “enliven public spaces, highlight neighborhood identify and history, and address the needs of residents.”

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Finalists will also be selected based on the level of support they garner from their community, the strength of their application, and the potential value of adding public art to its ongoing initiatives.

The commission notes that it is especially interested in applications from neighborhoods which have not recently received public art projects: “People of color, differently-abled persons, indigenous peoples, youth, LGBTQ+, seniors, and women are strongly encouraged to apply.”

Groups have until Wednesday, May 8th, to send in a proposal. More details on how to do that can be found here.

This initiative is funded largely by the Assisi Foundation, a nonprofit that financially assists other nonprofit organizations in the city.

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News News Blog

Sculpture Honoring Historic Orange Mound to Go Up

Future site of scuplture


A sculpture honoring the history of Orange Mound is slated to go up at Dunbar Elementary School sometime in the spring.

Memphis-based artist Desmond Lewis was commissioned by the UrbanArt Commission (UAC) in partnership with the city of Memphis to complete the project.

The goal of the piece is to enhance the street and crosswalk improvements near Dunbar, while creating art that will “inspire youth to stride for new educational heights” and “reflect the pride and togetherness of the community.”

The project will include seating and a sculpture with handprints of students. The idea “stems from the need to recognize the rich culture of the Orange Mound Community, as well as acknowledging the important hand that the children of Dunbar Elementary have in becoming the next leaders of Orange Mound, the city of Memphis, the United States, and our World,” according to the UAC.

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The project is in step with UAC’s new mission of looking for new ways for artists and neighborhoods to collaborate to “shape and create public art together.”


Lewis with a previous sculpture he created

Before the project goes up, Lewis will conduct an “extensive” period of public engagement with Orange Mound residents, Dunbar Elementary students, and community organizations. Lewis hopes to get 300 handprints for the project, as well as a group of nominated residents who will be featured in the sculpture.

The project is funded through the city’s percent-for-art program in partnership with the UAC — an effort to create public art projects across Memphis.

Lewis was selected to complete the sculpture by an artist selection committee consisting of members of the Orange Mound Arts Council, representatives from the city’s Traffic Engineering division and Shelby County Schools, an architect, and two Memphis-based artists.

Lewis, who received a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Memphis in 2017, has had work exhibited in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Vermont, South Dakota, and Massachusetts.

Here, Lewis has done work in South Memphis, including signage and seating near Soulsville.

Lewis has been known to use mild steel in his work, as he correlates the invisible appearance of steel in buildings with the concealed structural importance of African Americans in the United States. Through the creation of fabricated and forged sculptures, he attempts to address race and equality, while uplifting the community.

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News News Blog

DMC Calls for Artists to Enhance Downtown Alleys

CREDIT: DMC

DMC

Site of future installations


The Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) is looking for artists to install “interesting and high-quality” art projects in a series of alleys Downtown.

The project, dubbed The Artery: Stereo to Escape, is named for the alleys the DMC is focusing on. The installations will begin in Stereo Alley, continue down Maggie H. Isabel Street to Rendezvous Alley, and end at Escape Alley.

The DMC wants to establish the alleys as a destination with “visually interesting and memorable artwork,” while also improving the pedestrian experience.

The idea is to curate a diverse collection of public art, according to the DMC. Eligible types of projects include sculptures, artistic lighting, murals, video projections, and interactive and kinetic pieces. All projects have to be suitable for outdoor display for at least three years.

DMC

Overview of project site

Interested artists can apply online by Monday, October 8th. The three-part application asks for information about the artists, relevant work experience, and the proposed project, including a description, sketch, and proposed budget.

The DMC plans to select projects of varying medium, scale, and cost, commissioning at least four murals costing anywhere from $500 to $10,000 each and one sculpture costing between $20,000 and $30,000. Selected artists will be notified by early December, and the installations will begin soon after, wrapping up before mid-April.

Ahead of the projects going up, the DMC plans to repave the alleys with stamped asphalt and install string lights.


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Music Music Blog

Flyer Exclusive: First Look at New Johnny Cash Statue

CREDIT: Dan Ball

Dan Ball

Artist Mike McCarthy contemplates sharing his Cash with the world.

Mark Lovell, who has partnered with Darrin Hillis in running the Delta Fair since it began in 2007, has a soft spot for Johnny Cash. This year, the fair will host a Johnny Cash Family Reunion. But that’s not the half of it: Lovell is also the current owner of the former Galloway United Methodist Church on Cooper and Walker. The fact that the building witnessed Cash’s first ever performance with band mates Marshall Grant and Luther Perkins, in 1954, is not lost on him.

Indeed, since early 2017, preparations have been made for a larger-than-life statue of Cash to be erected on or near the church grounds. Local auteur Mike McCarthy, who is as adept with clay as he is with paper, pen, and celluloid, has recently completed the work, which occupied a place of honor in his living room as he worked on it for over a year.

Leigh Wiener

Johnny Cash

“While I am no longer involved in the daily goings-on of Legacy Memphis (the non-profit I co-founded),” says McCarthy, “I believe there is an effort to unveil the statue, perhaps as early as November, in front of the new apartment building between Stone Soup and Galloway United Methodist Church.”

Most of Midtown has been abuzz about the work since McCarthy was contracted to create the work last June. Here, at long last, the Memphis Flyer presents an exclusive preview of McCarthy’s work: the clay form from which a bronze statue has already been cast by the local Lugar Foundry. The work is based on a period-appropriate photo of Cash, from early in his career. Of course, the bronze version won’t sport those red buttons, which McCarthy lovingly lifted from one of his late mother’s dresses.

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News News Blog

Group Calls Reasons for Removing Civil Rights Mural “Shallow,” Mural to Remain

A local group calls the city’s reasons for planning to scrub a civil rights mural “shallow” and “mystifying.”

The Downtown mural, painted on a garage at the corner of Main and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, depicts a civil rights timeline with historical figures like Ida B. Wells.

After the city received complaints over the historical accuracy of the mural, as well as its inclusion of the phrase “Black lives matter,” city officials made tentative plans to scrub the mural.

But, groups like the Midtown Action Coalition expressed concern over the justification for removing the mural.

In a letter to Paul Young, director of the city’s Housing and Community Development division, Gordon Alexander, organizer of the coalition, said the reasons given are “downright mystifying.”

The full letter reads, in part:

“This mural is quite popular and the reasons given for its possible removal seem shallow, and downright mystifying. You state that some persons have expressed concern about the ‘facial expressions’? What does that mean exactly? In response to the concerns for its ‘historical accuracy,’ let’s not forget this is a mural on a garage, not a statue in a civic plaza or a bronze reproduction of a famous event in Memphis history. We believe the pressure is coming from those citizens who took offense at the ‘Black Lives Matter’ inscription. What is their viewpoint? That black lives don’t matter?

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“We may have misinterpreted your comments and if so, you have the opportunity to set the record straight. This has all the signs of a miscarriage of justice based on a few, dare I say it, white people who live outside the Parkways.”

After more concerns like this emerged, Ursula Madden, the city’s chief communications officer said Monday that the mayor decided against scrubbing the artwork: “After this issue was brought to Mayor Strickland’s attention, he quickly decided that we are not removing the mural.“

Commissioned to a part of the Memphis Heritage Trail, the mural was created by Michael Roy and Derrick Dent in 2016.

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Editorial Opinion

Art Attack

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

City Council Chair Berlin Boyd has described UrbanArt as a “quasi governmental” and failed organization. It’s a harsh, and not entirely accurate, assessment of a 20-year-old independently managed not-for-profit group that made Memphis a “percent for art” city, transforming the landscape and public expectations in ways that can only be understood by juxtaposing what was with what is now so ubiquitous it’s easily taken for granted.

Greg Cravens

Twenty years ago, public art in Memphis meant statues. More specifically, it meant bronze statues of “great men” like slave trader and KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. There were other, not entirely regrettable examples, of course. Elvis Presley and W.C. Handy were both immortalized on Beale Street. Overton Park had its Doughboy, and the downtown waterfront had an obelisk dedicated to the selfless heroism of Tom Lee, “a worthy negro.” There were even a couple of modern works isolated on the North end of an entirely desolate Main Street mall, hidden from a majority of Memphians who’d been fleeing the decaying urban core for decades. But once you accounted for the musicians, heroes, war memorials, and idols to white supremacy, there wasn’t much else to brag about. Today, by comparison, a drive down James Road includes painter Jeffrey Unthank’s impressive, epically scaled history of Frayser. A visit to Overton Square brings drinkers, diners, and shoppers into contact with multimedia artist Kong Wee Pang’s sparkling bird mural and sculptures by Yvonne Bobo, in addition to all the actors and musicians populating Memphis’ once-empty, now-prospering music and theater district. The Benjamin L. Hooks branch of Memphis’ public library is an enchanted forest of ideas. Kindergarten students entering Downtown Elementary are greeted by Lurlynn Franklyn’s fine mosaic floor. These are just a few examples of what a “failed” organization has accomplished in two decades. The successful revitalization of abandoned neighborhoods like South Main, Broad, and Crosstown, are almost impossible to imagine uncoupled from the influence of UrbanArt and work by local, regional, and international artists.

UrbanArt, which is funded in part by ArtsMemphis, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and by private donations, developed Memphis’ Percent for Art program with a complete awareness of just how easy it has always been for politicians to look serious and frugal by cutting apparent luxuries like art. That’s why percent for art funding was tied to a mere 1 percent of money already budgeted for capital improvements — money that would have been spent anyway, and without the transparency, community access, and public monitoring UrbanArt already brings to the table. Whether or not one loves every piece of public art that gets installed, the organization has repeatedly made its motivating point that artists are creative problem solvers and that makes public art a tremendous bargain.

In every case, public art requires political will because everybody’s a critic. And, to give Boyd his due, more can always be done to create opportunities for local and minority artists while hedging against provincialism and cultivating a healthy mix of national and international influences. But in a relatively short amount of time UrbanArt has made Memphis better. That’s no fail.