Beauty, Benches and Art

Six people at the planning meeting combined discussions about public art, a limestone bench contest, and community beautification efforts.

Current interest in public art is coming from several people in town. The owner of the building at Sale and Vine Street would like to have a large, professionally-done mural on the north side of his 2-story building. This would be seen by traffic stopping at the stoplight at Sale & Main. He would also like to have some eclectic art in the front windows of his building. Also, a group of local art teachers, would like to see murals and public art.

What are good locations for public art? In front of Smithville Telephone? around the log cabin? near the library? What type of public art? Sculptures, totems. One EMS member has contacted two local companies regarding limestone benches to make Ellettsville the "Limestone Bench Capitol of the World". Bybee has agreed to make 3 demo benches.

If interest is high and resources are found, it might be possible to have 12 benches a year by 12 carvers. Perhaps the benches could be memorial benches with the name of who designed it & who carved it. Limestone as well as wood and metal could be used. Somehow this could be done in connection with the Limestone Symposium and/or be done during the Fall Festival. The Waldron Art Center will be a good resource for these ideas. Also, the art teachers know about grants that could be obtained to pay for the public art.

One problem may be vandalism from the youth who "hang out" in the downtown area. A possible solution would be surveillance cameras. Another way to use limestone would be to create planters and let youth help create/design them. Hanging baskets of flowers might be used downtown instead of banners providing they could be maintained.