Public Art is something the USA does only erratically. Well-placed public art can unify and focus a community. The Statue of Liberty is a piece of public art. The Eiffel Tower. Abraham Lincoln in Washington DC. These pieces of art bind us together, and make public space welcoming to each visitor. “Look,” the art says, “we hoped you would be here. Welcome.”
(You can get it wrong. In our Spanish village our station for the bullet trains has a large sculpture outside: a high tower of dirty and broken suitcases. The message the sculpture conveys about their freight handlers is alarming, and the station gets a C- for trying. It is at least a reliable conversation piece.)
Directly above, the tower of decaying luggage. RENFE station, Antequera Santa Ana, Spain
Thirty-three years ago my husband, recent MFA graduate Daud Akhriev from Ingushetia, agreed to emigrate with me to the USA. (How we met is another, wonderful, story.)
Very shortly upon arrival, a Seventh-Day Adventist congregation engaged his services for a large mural in their new community hall. As conservative protestants, Adventists had been against church ornamentation, so this was a real surprise, and a windfall. We were broke.
He completed the painting at exactly the time his family’s home in the former Soviet Union was hit by a shell in a civil war. His salary for the mural paid for their new home. Even though once again we were broke, we were also filled with gratitude for having been able to rescue his family from homelessness. It felt like a miracle.
I really like the painting, as does its congregation. Every time I see or think of that painting I fell blessed.
That’s what I have to say today about public art.
Do you have a favorite piece of public art in your community? I’d love to hear about it.
Daud Akhriev, “Wedding at Cana” 18 x 9 ft, oil on linen, at the Collegedale Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Tennessee.