Bainbridge council to consider expanding public art program

By Brian Kelly • March 5, 2019 8:30 am
Three pieces were installed on bases in downtown Winslow last summer in the pilot year for the “Something New” public art project. (Photo courtesy of the city of Bainbridge Island)
Three pieces were installed on bases in downtown Winslow last summer in the pilot year for the “Something New” public art project. (Photo courtesy of the city of Bainbridge Island)

Arts and Humanities Bainbridge is asking city officials to expand Bainbridge Island’s public art project “Something New” from three sites for the sculptures to five or six this year.

Supporters also hope to get the council’s OK to extend the project for another five years, through 2023.

Something New began as a pilot project last year, and the city paid for three bases in Winslow that are used to display artwork on a one-year rotating schedule.

The project has been shepherded by Arts and Humanities Bainbridge and its board’s Public Art Committee. Artists were chosen and the committee, through a juried process, searched for and selected the three pieces that were installed last summer.

Arts and Humanities Bainbridge is asking the city for additional funding for the project to continue into a Phase Two.

AHB has identified three locations for new pieces — two at Waterfront Park and one in front of city hall.

The piece at city hall would replace part of the Gayle Bard artwork on the outside of Bainbridge Island City Hall that the city bought in 1998. Another site is next to the playground area at Waterfront Park, with the third on the main lawn hillside near the existing “Hand in Hand” sculpture by Will Robinson, one of the three artworks installed last year for Something New.

The city approved $26,000 of funding for Something New in its pilot year, plus the city’s costs for project construction management and installation of the bases. Three permanent bases (called plinths) were set; across from the entrance of Waterfront Park Community Center in Waterfront Park, on the south side of Winslow Way at Ericksen Avenue, and at the southern end of Madison Avenue.

The expanded “Something New” project has a proposed budget of $26,000. The actual costs of the project are higher, however, as the city covers the cost of project management and construction time from public works employees and executive staff; the city’s costs for engineering for the first year totaled $15,500.

If approved by the city council for expansion in 2019, the AHB’s Public Art Committee would post a call for new art later this month. New pieces of art would be selected in April, and the art selections presented to the city council in May.

Then, in June, the sculptures currently installed on the bases would be removed, and the new pieces installed. A celebration would follow during the First Friday Art Walk in July.

The Bainbridge council will get a presentation for Phase Two of Something New at its meeting Tuesday, March 5 at city hall.

Also up for discussion with the council is a potential purchase of “Hand in Hand” for $13,000.