Art is for everyone and, in Arlington, the county is taking steps to ensure that more of it reaches residents, not just in museums but in their own neighborhoods.
The county's Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources is compiling a public art master plan that will be submitted Dec. 11 to the County Board. The plan is still being formed, but the guidelines set will help determine what kind of art the county will pay for and encourage.
"Arlington has always been very keen on the notion that art is an important part of a community," said Alberto Gaitán, a conceptual sound artist.
Artists and community leaders met last week to offer input to the future of public art in Arlington.
The eventual plan will be integrated into the county's Open Spaces Master Plan, the document that guides the County Board in its decisions when it comes to public parks and open areas.
ACCORDING TO the current draft of the plan, part of its purpose is to identify themes for up-coming public art projects. Three tentative themes — Arlington history, Federal Arlington, and Arlington's place in the larger global community — are already being considered.
"It's not that we expect artists to pick out these themes," said Angela Adams, staff coordinator for the Parks and Recreation Department. "What we wanted to do, rather, was select things we wanted to communicate about Arlington."
The County Board passed a measure to begin the public art planning process in Sept. 2000. The plan has cost the county approximately $26,000, but is money well spent to shape the future artistic landscape of Arlington, according to art consultant Todd Bressi, who is working with the county on the plan's development.
"Many of the artists that will be used on public art projects will be from the community and so, presumably, they will know what Arlington is all about," Bressi said. "But part of the plan is to use not just local talent but also artists from other states or countries. They will need some guidance to get to know Arlington. These themes are really just starting points to help artists explore the community."
RECENT PUBLIC ARTS projects in Arlington include the new children's rain garden in Powhatan Springs Park, created by artist Jann Rosen-Queralt, and the new sculptures and commemorative brick wall at Hall's Hills Highview Park by Winnie Owens-Hart.
The rain garden was designed to alleviate the environmental impact of the nearby skateboard park.
In Hall's Hills, the project had more of a spiritual intention. Each brick in the park's new wall carries the family names of neighborhood residents, names that in many cases have inhabited Hall's Hills for generations.
Developing the guidelines for the master plan, Bressi said, entailed a long process of liasing with county officials, commissioners and civic groups.
"People really want public art to express Arlington's identity, but how do you decide what that is?" Bressi asked. "No place has only one identity."
Global Arlington emerged as a theme, he said, because of the county's business community.
"We know that much of Arlington's economy is based on entrepreneurs with companies that reach all over the world," he said. "What that really means, in a sense, is that Arlington is a global place."
Federal Arlington, Bressi said, is a theme derived from the county's relationship with Washington, DC. Bressi stressed that most of the projects this plan will be used to evaluate are dependent on the county's capital projects.
"That's an important element to this plan," he said. "Part of it is intended to help the county figure out which capital projects have the best potential for public art, and to determine where public art will have the most impact. In some ways, the artistic projects will be dependent on the county's capital projects."
ARLINGTON COUNTY HAS a long history of supporting public art according to Gaitán, a conceptual sound artist.
"With this kind of plan, Arlington, in a way, is trying to project its identity as something separate from the attention black hole that is Washington, D.C," Gaitán said.
Gaitán has created several temporary installations in Arlington. He helped turn an old farmhouse into a sculpture through a kind of controlled demolition. On Fairfax Drive, he and other artists filled a concrete lined house with water, turning it into a suburban aquarium.
The guidelines being put forth by the county, he said, won't hinder artists at all.
"From my experience in working with Arlington, guidelines are treated like just that, guidelines," Gaitán said. "If an artist wants to deviate from what's been set out or wants to change things there is flexibility."
The themes, he added, will help artists during the creation of their work.
"When you're working on a public project," he said, "you feed off the site for inspiration but you also feed off the community around it and the reasons why the site is important."