Revitalizing Syracuse Through Public Art
By Sarah Lamar
In a clean pocket of grass that used to blend with the railroad tracks and red brick warehouses surrounding the area, a small group of onlookers await a spectacle. A man in brown slacks and a beige sport coat turns to the woman closely linked in his arm, “Do you realize how strange this is? We’re attending the unveiling of a fake of a fake.” The people gather here at Lipe Art Park in Syracuse’s Near Westside to see the debut of a petrified giant, similar to the one that piqued the interest of the city 142 years ago. This day has become an ode to that original Cardiff Giant, a hoax from 19th century Syracuse, attributed as one of the greatest in United States history.
Among trips to the tent where the Cardiff Giant rests and quarters given as payment for viewing, conversations begin. While community members discuss the history of the event, they unearth their own. Their attention becomes evenly divided between curiosity in the fake statue and real interest in each other. Old friends reform connections and comment on how much each other’s children have grown. The event has morphed into an example, on the smallest scale, of community celebration and dialogue. If only this energy would spread past Lipe Art Park and across the entire city.
Syracuse is no longer in the golden age of industry. The days of salt bushels and farm equipment floating down the Erie Canal on ships ended decades ago. Without these economic staples, the city struggles to find a lasting identity—one that will define and attach people to Syracuse. Local artists and their allies believe they have found a solution to the city’s soul searching. Through seemingly small additions to the city’s aesthetic, like statues on street corners, they hope to bring back celebration of Syracuse. By sparking interest and discussion within the community, public art can help the city gain a new, urban-rich identity. Suddenly, the neglected and downtrodden spaces house possibility instead of just vacancy. Syracuse’s frontier has become a land of opportunity.
Brendan Rose shifts in his chair. You can tell he is an artist—from the long-sleeved red thermal shirt with a small tatter in the sleeve and a blue wired necklace peeking over the neckline, to the paint spatters on his jeans. Or maybe he’s a builder—he wears brown work boots, and a bucket of tools constantly occupies the backseat of his car. Catching his architectural side takes a seasoned eye, more easily noticed on the wall of his Syracuse Public Artist in Residence (SPAR) studio where a computer-aided design drawing of a large dragon-like creature hangs. In reality, the Serpent—Rose’s first major project under the official SPAR title—weaves itself above and below ground in Armory Square. “This is my residence in a way; if there is such thing as a residence to the artist in residence.” From the chaos inside, someone might accuse Rose of squatting this storefront in the State Building, but he has a key just like the doctors and the lawyers in the building. A cardboard cut-out reading “SPAR” hangs above the door, and a wooden desk and models overwhelm the display windows. Inside sketches, models from past projects, and illustrated facial outlines on acetate cover several walls. “People tell me I should live here,” he says as he points to the loft above the whole space. He admits, however, that he would probably have to shower at the YMCA if this was his actual home. The space came along with the SPAR title, and the title came after a project for his Master’s thesis at the Syracuse School of Architecture from which he graduated in 2010. Since receiving the title and the space, Rose has taken a very organic approach to art and his position within the confines of bureaucracy.
A few streets away within city hall, a picture of one of Rose’s pieces, Tectonic Structure 01, Hand hangs on the wall above the desk of Kate Auwaerter. Like professionals who display their diplomas upon their wall, this picture is a testament to her pride and responsibility as Syracuse public arts coordinator and preservation planner for the past three years. She knows the ins-and-outs of the system. As she delves into long explanations of the process of moving a piece of public art through the system, she interrupts the conversation with quick observations. Someone coughs. Her response: Do you need a cup of water? It’s hot in the room. She opens a window.
That small beep every so often comes from her cell phone, which she religiously checks.
In the public art world, her job, essentially, is guiding artists through the bureaucracy of the city structure. If they want their art displayed on public property, it has to be approved. She’s the guide artists need to navigate departmental approvals, complete applications, and undergo reviews by the 11-member Commission, comprised of artists, non-artists, art administrators, and representatives from neighborhood planning councils. “Fortunately, I would say pretty much everyone who works in these various departments gets the whole thing.” She flips through an amended copy of the 2007 Public Art Ordinance, listing rules and regulations with each page turn. Then she switches to the names of the current members of the Commission. These are the people who decide if a piece follows the seven criteria necessary for public construction: artistic merit, intentionality of the artist, significance, and other safety and lasting issues. “It’s not what you would call plop art—art that has no bearing on this community or location at all. If you just plop the artwork down, it doesn’t make any sense at all,” she says.
That’s what makes the decisions in shaping the physical fabric of Syracuse so difficult. Who chooses what art goes where must do so carefully if Syracuse wants the same kind of hot realty and development spaces like the Chicagos and the New Yorks. But that’s the dream says Auwaerter, though she admits that Syracuse’s strive to resemble these has been a little slower. “We’re a few years behind folks but certainly catching up,” she says. The speed of this catch-up depends primarily on funds. The city had some money budgeted under a special projects line for works of public art, but the money is no longer there. The last of it was welded, painted, and sculpted into seven different pieces in seven Syracuse neighborhoods this past summer. Current projects must find other sources of funding through foundations and corporate sponsorship. But, the support exists, and even first time public artists are encouraged to submit applications.
Together with Rose, Stasya Erickson runs the Public Art Task Force at 40 Below, a group dedicated to bringing public art to the forefront of the city and giving individuals an outlet to collaborate on public art projects. Co-chairing the 40 Below Public Arts Task force is a volunteer position alongside her jobs as the arts and culture coordinator of Northside UP, teaching at Syracuse University, and being an artist herself. Answering her phone from work, she moves a quieter room. “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” She talks about a project the Task Force completed this summer that commemorates a piece of Syracuse history. She speaks passionately, almost as if her enthusiasm can motivate others to support and believe in public art as a way to transform the city.
The project appears on Erie Boulevard as thick blue stripes running along two blocks of the street. Some stripes lead right to the back of the area behind the State Building where Rose has his SPAR office. The strokes of vibrant blue paint have a stark resemblance to a bar code as if the path appears on Google Earth. Erickson created the concept for “arterie,” an installation tracing a small section where the Erie Canal once flowed on the now paved streets. The Task Force and the Erie Canal Museum decided to pursue the project, requiring gallons of paint and closing down the section of Erie Boulevard for five days this past summer. After completion, the project added itself to the everyman’s art museum. The Task Force projects have received mostly positive reactions thus far, but not everyone loves everything. Not every resident thinks every piece uses the space or resources in the best way, regardless of the intent. “Mixed is good because it inspires a dialogue. If everyone loves what you’re doing, then you’re doing something wrong,” says Erickson. At some point though, the community has to own the piece. It no longer belongs to the artist.
As the art community’s poster boy, Rose embodies the hope that public art can revitalize the community, but he has had difficulty trying to make art that meets everyone’s expectations. He remembers the bad feelings that spurred from the creation of his serpent piece; he rushed to get the piece approved so he could collaborate with SU students, all the while wondering if the Commission and community would like his work. While he recognizes he will never have complete approval, he is still pursuing his current project a little more politically. “That means a slower process,” he says. The piece has no name and no solid concept; it exists in the exploratory phase with only Rose’s intent to guide him. “I want to build connections between people through some piece of public art. That’s basically it.”
As he speaks about the possibilities, he remains firm in his belief that public art can truly create change for Syracuse, though his high timbre laugh follows several of his musings. “It’s beyond us trying to get jobs. We’re trying to raise a family. We’re trying to get the trash collected. How do we actually show we care about a place?” Rose believes public art can provide the reason to care for many by giving them parts of the city to remember and carry with them. “As much as there’s something that’s very superficial about that, it’s so important for working cities and places,” says Rose.
Dennis Earle looks down where he cut his thumb, where the steel peeled it back like a tangerine rind. He rubs his finger right below his hairline and across his nose where the steel swiped back and cut him, leaving scars that are fading now. The adjunct professor in the department of design at SU moves and shapes his hands as he speaks about the steel sculpture, Rising, he made for Finnegan Park. These are novice’s cuts, the kind that come from never having created a 12-foot-tall steel sculpture but doing it anyway. “If you’re going to give them something, give them something substantial,” says Earle. Initially, Earle did have help. He hired welders from the Mack Brothers Boiler Works, and when the money ran out, he finished the piece himself. Earle moves his hands when he speaks, as if he’s creating Rising right in front of you. He stops, when he realizes another problem he reached. He should have painted the sculpture before installation. Instead, he ended up painting on site. “While I was there on this giant ladder with tarps all over the place and stuff, people would come by and talk to me, and I got this sense of what people in the neighborhood thought about it. And they were very excited,” says Earle.
Had the sculpture been Earle’s own piece in a gallery, he might have said thank you after each comment of approval, but Earle made the sculpture solely for the community. Any time someone said they liked the piece, he responded, “I’m glad you like it.” Earle, like many other players in the public art arena, don’t want to create art for the sake of creating art. The pieces they make must help redefine Syracuse and unify the people and the city through this new identity. Revitalizing the city in this way begins with ideas like Earle’s. “It’s not mine it’s theirs. I’ve given it up to them. What I wanted to say was not ‘well thank you for giving me a personal pat on the back." I’m not really interested in that," says Earle. But rather I think it’s great that you like it because it’s yours.
Photos by Taylor Miller