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October Issue 2004
Charlotte Area Transit System Announces Artists Who will Create Works for South Corridor Light Rail System with Exhibition
The Charlotte Area Transit System's Art-in-Transit
Program announces the commissioning of 19 artists to create public
art for its South Corridor Light Rail Project. To attract qualified
local and non-local artists, CATS issued a nationwide Call to
Artists. A panel of art professionals was appointed by the CATS
Art Advisory Committee to select artists from this call for the
South Corridor. The panelists attended station art community meetings
with business owners and residents in neighborhoods corresponding
to the proposed station areas prior to the selection of the artists.
In Nov, 2003, the selection panel convened to review slide submissions
from over 300 artists. Based on artistic excellence, seventeen
artists were chosen to create art for multiple opportunities as
identified by the two design team artists in the CATS Public Master
Art Plan. The CATS Art-in-Transit Advisory Committee approved
the diverse group of artists from different parts of the country.
"The panelists selected a diverse group
of artists from across the country who will be instrumental in
creating art in Charlotte that will be responsive to the past,
present or future of the communities near the stations,"
said CATS Art-In-Transit Program Manager Pallas Lombardi.
Artists from the Carolinas are Thomas Sayre, Hoss Haley, Tom Thoune
and Shaun Cassidy; from the South are Yuriko Yamaguchi, Nitin
Jayaswal, Leticia Huerta, Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt;
from the North are Dennis Oppenheim, Jody Pinto, R. M. Fischer,
Andrew Leicester and Nancy Blum; and from the West Coast, Carl
Cheng and Richard Elliott.
Ed Carpenter, an artist working with light and glass from Portland,
OR, was selected earlier to create art for the new South Boulevard
Rail Facility, bringing the total number of South Corridor artists
now to nineteen.
Five of the artists will have an impact on the south side of Charlotte by creating large-scale natural phenomena markers. Dennis Oppenheim of New York City brings to the project years of experience in public art. He has had solo exhibitions in most major museums in cities throughout the world. Oppenheim will create work for the Tyvola Plaza site at the Tyvola Road Station and will also address 7th Street Station in Uptown Charlotte.
New York public artist R. M. Fischer will make
a new landmark from an old one near the Scaleybark Road Station.
He will apply his skill to the old "QP" (Queen Park)
Tower located in the former Queen Park Cinema parking lot at Scaleybark
Road. He believes the 1950's tower represents the "cultural
matrix of Charlotte's urban development." Fischer intends
to make sure it continues to resonate as a symbol for the area.
He has also been commissioned to design and construct a clock
for the exterior of the CATS South Tryon Bus Facility.
Carl Cheng, a public artist from Santa Monica, CA, will create
a marker at the Woodlawn Station along Old Pineville Road. Cheng,
who was trained in industrial design, will bring to bear his thirty-five
years of experience working in natural phenomena.
Washington state artist, Richard Elliott, is
noted for his use of color and reflected light. He was asked to
create a Natural Phenomena Marker for the Archdale Station. He
plans to apply a pattern of colored acrylic reflectors that will
respond to light to the elevator tower at the elevated platform
there. The marker for the Arrowood Station will be created by
artist Nitin Jayaswal of Gainsville, FL. He studied fine arts
and has his masters in architecture. Jayaswal and the other artists
will spend time researching the history and culture of the south
corridor communities and the region.
Leticia Huerta, from Helotes, TX, was selected to design elements
of the eleven southernmost stations. Huerta will base her designs
for platform paving, column cladding and windscreens on textile
patterns. She designed platform paving and column cladding for
the Dallas Area Rapid Transit art program.
Nancy Blum's art has incorporated the delicacy
of flowers into cast iron in her City of Seattle's manhole covers.
She will design and fabricate drinking fountain bowls for the
water fountains at each station platform. Blum lives and works
in New York City.
Sculptor Shaun Cassidy, currently lives and teaches in Rock Hill,
SC. He is one of three sculptors contracted to create small metal
sculptures for installation at station platform areas. He is considering
affecting track fencing between the double platforms.
Asheville sculptor Hoss Haley, whose metal work is a part of the
Mint Museum of Craft + Design's collection, will create small
metal sculptures at the Trade Street, Carson Boulevard, New Bern,
Tyvola Road and Sharon Road West Stations. Haley has been an artist-in-residence
at Penland School for Arts and Crafts for several consecutive
years.
Japanese-born Yuriko Yamaguchi, who lives and teaches outside
of Washington, DC, was also selected to produce small-scale sculpture
for five stations. Her public work can be seen at Hart International
Airport in Atlanta. During Yuriko's initial visit to Charlotte,
she learned about area history from Dr. Tom Hanchett at the Levine
Museum of the New South. Yamaguchi also did research at the Carolina
Room of the Mecklenburg Public Library and visited elementary
schools in the south corridor.
Argentine natives, Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt reside
in Miami Beach and are known for their monumental and whimsical
architectural creations in Miami. They will study the Archdale
Drive Light Rail Station area and propose art for that environment.
New York artist, Jody Pinto, who has successfully completed many
collaborative public art sitework projects in various cities,
will address the Uptown station area at 3rd Street. Pinto is known
for her brilliant use of lighting in her works.
Thomas Sayre, of Raleigh, is incorporating sculptural art into
the long Scaleybark Median Strip Landscape. Sayre is experienced
in North Carolina public art, having created site work in Charlotte
as well as for the Exploris Children's Museum in Raleigh.
Charlottean Tom Thoune will create a wall frieze at the East-West
Station in the South End. Thoune's mosaic on Tryon Street at Spirit
Square is familiar to the local public.
The South Corridor loosely follows South Boulevard from I - 485
to Uptown, and is the first of five transit corridors CATS is
developing. One percent of the design and construction budget
is dedicated to the integration of public art into the corridor
at stations, maintenance facilities, and other passenger amenities,
in accordance with FTA guidelines. The incorporation of public
art is intended to enhance the transit experience for both riders
and non-riders throughout the region.
CATS invites the public to an exhibition of
the South Corridor Light Rail Project to view the public art proposals.
The exhibit, My Place, My Choice, My Ride, My Story, will
be on view through Oct. 23, 2004, at the Middleton-McMillan Gallery,
located in Spirit Square in Charlotte.
Artists with works and study materials on exhibit includes: Thomas
Sayre, Tom Thoune, Hoss Haley, Shaun Cassidy, Alice Adams, Ed
Carpenter, R.M. Fischer, Carl Cheng, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard
Elliott, Nitin Jayaswal, Leticia Huerta, Nancy Blum, Yuriko Yamaguchi,
Roberto Behar, Rosario Marquardt, Jody Pinto, and Andrew Leicester.
CATS will also conduct an artist forum at Spirit Square from 6-7:30pm
on Oct. 13, 2004.
CATS encourages all professional artists from
any locale who have been involved in public art, public art-in-transit,
the visual arts, as well as professional artists who are just
becoming interested in public art, to submit current slides and
materials listed on our website to be considered for the CATS'
Art-in-Transit program. The selection process is ongoing.
For more information on CATS' Art-In-Transit program, visit
us on the web at (www.ridetransit.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.