On Sept. 9, the Woodstock Art Gallery launched the first ever public sculpture commission call to artists on behalf of the City of Woodstock. This is a significant undertaking for the gallery and for the city at large. Until now, public art in Woodstock has been sporadic and project-focused one-offs. Normally, these initiatives are responding to community needs and desires, such as highlighting crosswalks for safety and awareness.
Due to a growing request from members of our community for the creation of public art, I was charged in 2017 with responsibility for developing the City of Woodstock’s first public art policy. In 2018, respected artist and educator Bruce Flowers left a significant portion of his estate to the Woodstock Art Gallery with the directive to create a figurative sculpture garden.
The first step in any public art commission is determining the location of the site. I am very thankful to my colleague, Chris Kern, parks supervisor, for identifying the west side of Vansittart Park at Ingersoll Avenue as a potential space. Given that this park is split between Vansittart Avenue and that the west side offers a wonderfully contemplative experience, it was the perfect suggestion.
As the park already had a name, however, we activated the process to change the name of the west side to reflect the park’s new identity. After two presentations to city council and a public consultation process, I was delighted that on Aug. 12, 2021, council approved the renaming of the west side of Vansittart Park to Florence Carlyle Park, with a portion designated as the Bruce Flowers Sculpture Garden.
While this was taking place, I was working behind the scenes with the public art committee to draft the call to artists, as well as a helpful guide to artists for public art projects. It is important to note that this is not a call for proposals but a call for qualifications. The gallery highly respects artists’ time and the creative process and is asking only for submissions of interest to be received by Oct. 26.
In addition to demonstrating their skill and expertise, artists should also emphasizes in their application their interest in employing the human form to address the following themes which were central to Bruce Flowers’ values:
These applications will be vetted by the public art committee, which will come up with a shortlist of artists who will be invited to submit fully developed proposals.
Public art is not just the job of the gallery, and I am thankful for the assistance provided by Reta Horan, parks supervisor, and Haylee Hallema, GIS parks student, for assisting with the site plans and conceptual mock ups of this old-new park. Thank you as well to Harold de Haan, city engineer, and Brian Connors, director of parks and recreation, for troubleshooting some of the installation implications.
The call to artists and other supporting documents can be found at www.woodstockartgallery.ca.
The gallery will keep the citizens of Woodstock updated on the progress of this significant public art commission as it moves forward. And it goes without saying that we all should be very thankful to Bruce Flowers for providing the City of Woodstock with this lasting legacy of enjoyment and inspiration.
Mary Reid is the director-curator of the Woodstock Art Gallery. She is also a former member of the City of Winnipeg’s public art committee.
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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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