Sandpoint approves roundabout artwork
This screenshot from the May 16 Sandpoint City Council meeting shows the approved art, designed by Seattle artist Troy Pillow, for the Schweitzer Cutoff Road roundabout.
SANDPOINT — “Beautiful in its simplicity.”
These are the words used by Sandpoint City Councilman Joel Aispuro to describe the artwork chosen for the Schweitzer Cutoff roundabout during the May 16 council meeting.
Following an extensive selection process, the artwork chosen by the Sandpoint Arts Commission for recommendation to council is titled, “Celestial Sierra,” created by Seattle artist Troy Pillow.
“(Pillow) demonstrated a lot of the qualities we were looking for with this project,” said commission member Megan Cherry. “... The specific points that really attracted the jury and the arts commission to this project, probably at the top of the list, is this is an artwork that offers a really broad range for interpretation.
“This is a piece that the viewer can inhabit individually and understand it based on their own understanding of the work, in that it’s beautifully abstract in its quality and it could evoke ideas about sailboats or water, or trees or mountains — those elements that really guide us to think about the natural world.”
The geometric form also adds an industrial quality in combination with the recreational elements, Cherry said.
Some of the criteria used to choose the finalist artwork included artistic quality and structural integrity of the design, quality of the artist’s past work on public projects of a similar scale, and the feasibility and convincing evidence of the artist’s ability to successfully complete the work as proposed using the submitted materials.
Cherry said Pillow has done “a lot” of public artwork, so his qualifications were in line with the criteria. Another aspect they looked at was maintenance of the artwork, she said, and the jury chose the work, in part, because it would be “relatively” low maintenance.
The commission utilized CaFE, a call for entry website that allows project administrators to streamline the application and review process. With a total budget of $113,000, the CaFE fee is $500, the three finalists will receive a design fee of $1,000 each, the final artist will have a $90,000 budget, and landscaping and infrastructure is budgeted at $20,000. The project is funded by the Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency.
Council members voted unanimously in favor of the artwork, and Pillow is scheduled to begin constructing the project in July, with installation to complete by June 2019.
Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.