With a gallery that includes frequent rotation of art pieces, artists both amateur and professional can play an active role in the City of Moscow’s Public Art Program. First beginning in the 1980s, it has been supported by the 1% for the Arts fund since 2004, bring art to the streets.
Moscow’s Public Art Program includes a variety of art including portable, temporary and permanent pieces within the collection. Arts Program Manager Megan Cherry said that additions to the collection generally start with one of two request forms. The proposals form asks artists to submit potential ideas for a commission. The qualifications form asks artists to submit prior work and training qualification to gauge ability to produce a quality public art project.
Under the city’s most recent public art guidelines, the Moscow Arts Commission, in coordination with the Moscow City Council, can hire an artist to create artwork for a specific spot.
“It really comes down to what fits the project best,” Cherry said.
A significant number of the city’s art collection is centered around transit-related locations including the intermodal transit center, the bus shelters and the eye-catching vinyl-wrapped traffic signal boxes. According to Cherry, the location selection ensures that Moscow’s art is for everyone, both longtime residents and short-term visitors.
“One thing I really love about this collection is the fact that it’s part of our daily visual landscape,” Cherry said. “It’s wonderful to look at art in galleries and museums, of course, but I also really love it when art is part of the public spaces we inhabit on our trips around town. Why not see some art on the way to work or to the grocery store? There’s a bit of beauty everywhere.”
With a diversity of locations and art forms making up the city’s public art scene, it would follow that the artists are similarly diverse, ranging from established artists in the Pacific Northwest to students and faculty at the University of Idaho.
Emma Woolstenhulme, a senior studying studio art and design said that her involvement in the program was encouraged by her sculpture professor Casey Doyle. Her piece, which was added to the Intermodal Transit Center’s sculpture garden in 2021, is entitled Mochella Colorem.
“It is a part of one of the spring sculpture class’s curricula to apply for the intermodal transit center sculpture garden display,” Woolstenhulme said. “So, we design with the parameters set by the application process in mind and if we’re lucky our art gets selected and displayed.”
According to Woolstenhulme, the artistic stipulations for the intermodal transit center were limited. Outside of having “pedestal sizes in mind” the only other limitations related to the exclusion of sexual, profane and other similar content.
“Aside from that we had a full explorative opportunity which is exciting because they select a variety of work to be displayed,” Woolstenhulme said. Part of the city’s temporary collection, Woolstenhulme’s Mochella Colorem will be viewable at the intermodal transit center’s garden for a short while longer as the city refreshes the garden’s art about every twelve months.
“The technical processes and skills that I’ve picked up here at UI helped me design a piece that would be sturdy enough for the outdoors while being true to my love of the biomorphic form coinciding with bright colors,” Woolstenhulme said. “Specifically, the sculpture courses that delve into various mediums of wood, metal, plaster and ceramic help students understand the material aspects of each type of media while giving you the practical knowledge of what you can do with each material and how far you can push them.”
Woolstenhulme, however, is not the only Vandal that’s involved with the city’s public art project. Assistant Professor of the Department of Soil and Water Systems Inna Popova has also taken part in the scene, with her work being added to the collection in 2021. Her piece entitled Cereal and Milk is viewable at the vinyl-wrapped traffic box located on the corner of Perimeter Drive and Highway 8.
Popova said her involvement stemmed simply from following the city’s social media outlets.
“They often post their art and other opportunities that every member of our community can participate in,” Popova said. “I responded to one of the opportunities. It was a pretty straight forward process, that made the submission go very smoothly.”
For Popova, it was not a career path or professional aspirations that drew her to the city’s public art scene, but a desire to explore one’s passions.
“I guess I can describe myself as an occasional artist. I do not have any special training or talent but creating art is just a different way to communicate with people. If whatever I draw makes someone happy, that’s all it matters. I also want to show by example that everyone can pursue whatever their passions are,” she said.
The city’s vinyl-wrapped pieces, including Popova’s Cereal and Milk, will remain for up to five years.
In addition to UI students and faculty, professional artists are also very much involved in making the city’s public art what it is today. Melissa Cole is one such artist, based in Spokane Valley with a career in art that has spanned more than 20 years.
Cole said that her engagement with Moscow’s Public Art stemmed from a call for artists interested in creating a mural for the Moscow Public Library. After the list of potential artists was whittled down through interviews, Cole made it to the proposal stage ultimately coming out on top with what would become a mural entitled Inspiration, which was added to the Moscow Public Library in 2018.
Cole said she is “about half and half” in terms of how she divides her work between galleries or exhibitions and public art. Originally painting with watercolors, Cole said her shift into public art changed her material choice, creating art with durability in mind.
While her work has included the use of sand and clay, Cole said that making art with the environment of the Pacific Northwest in mind has required adjustments in approach.
“We live in crazy environment where there’s a lot of freeze and thaw,” Cole said. “So, I went to Oakland to learn how to do concrete sculptures and glass mosaic because they have a really good institute for mosaic art there. In the beginning, when I started doing work, people said just pursue one medium and try and do lots of different things, but I never really stuck to that.”
For Cole there was far more enjoyment in expanding beyond a singular medium, instead combining a variety of mediums to create something that interested her.
This philosophical approach of compiling different mediums for a singular piece was inspired in no small part by the variety of cultures she has had the chance to experience over the course of her career. After finishing her studies in zoology, Cole volunteered as a Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. According to Cole, it was her travel abroad that has been among the biggest factors in influencing her approach to art and public art especially.
“I was working in a village that actually made baskets and paintings and so that alone, just watching that many people work together on one piece of art really kind of inspired the way that I work in public art with different people,” Cole said. “It’s very cool for me to see public art built into the infrastructure. I’m super interested in having art in the realm of the public in many different cultures because people don’t have to go to a gallery or purchase anything, it’s just out there for people to see.”
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @roycemccandless