Lots of public art news on the horizon this week. First, Rounding the Curve by Boise artist Susan Latta is now installed at the entrance to the City Centre Parking Garage on 8th Street at Front. The piece, an abstract steel sculpture is a "Temporary Public Art Project" funded by the Capital City Development Corporation. Says the artist, "Rounding the Curve is a literal reference to driving the circle to the top of the parking garage." The piece is made mostly of recycled steel, including real car parts.
The same neck of the woods--that certain "no man's land" at Grove and 9th is the site of another public art project-to-be. A local jury organized by Boise City Arts Commission chose Boise artist Amy Westover to design a new city-owned piece to enhance the area. The plan is to reduce traffic lanes from four to two, creating a pedestrian area (and art site) across from the Boise Convention Center. The area, though it's a bit nondescript at the moment, is rich with history. Grove Street was an epicenter of Victorian high life, and also saw its share of boarding house and ethnic cultures (Basque and Chinese). These themes may ... or may not ... appear in Westover's finished work.
Finally, another public jury has chosen Boisean Elizabeth Wolf to design a terrazzo floor medallion for the remodeled airport's main terminal. Wolf's design (shown here) features a regional map, compass points, water imagery and syringas, the state flower.
Old words ... With help from an Idaho Humanities Council grant, author and Nez Perce elder Horace Axtell and writer/producer Margo Aragon have completed the translation of Nez Perces First Book: Designed for Children and New Beginners. The book is considered the oldest book in the Pacific Northwest. It was printed in 1839 on a press provided by the Presbyterian Hawaiian Island Mission and sent to Henry Spalding's Lapwai Mission in (what is now) northern Idaho. The text, religious in content, was written in an early "spelled" form of the Nez Perce language. It followed resolutions passed by missionaries to "apply ourselves to the study of the native language and reduce it to writing." If you'd like to know more about the book, plan ahead: The Idaho Historical Museum hosts a lecture on the book at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 11.
Cowboys on film ... John Rogers a Meridian photographer, recently won the Kodak Gallery Award, created by the company's "professional division" to recognize excellence in photography. Rogers' winning photograph, No Escape (shown below) also won fans among the BW staff. Everyone who saw it, agreed it was quite wonderful. Rogers can be found at Shadow West Photography in Meridian.
Photograph (Terrazzo floor medallion)
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