Public Art for North Carolina’s African American Music Trail
All-America City Park, Kinston, North Carolina
BUDGET: $100,000
DEADLINE: Tuesday, September 7, 2010, at 5:00PM EST
Online RFQ and Project Resources: http://www.ncarts.org/projectspecs
The North Carolina Arts Council seeks to commission an artist or artist team to create site-specific, outdoor public artwork which interprets, commemorates, and celebrates the African American musical history, heritage, and culture of Eastern North Carolina. This public art project will be a prominent component of the African American Music Trail (AAMT), an initiative of the NC Arts Council, an agency of the NC Department of Cultural Resources.
The commissioned artist will design and produce artwork for a proposed three-acre public park in downtown Kinston, NC, near the historic Sugar Hill neighborhood. An important music center of Eastern North Carolina and a hub of the AAMT, Kinston has fostered a deep and diverse African American cultural heritage of musical tradition-bearers and innovators. Among many other notable achievements, the city has been home to five members of James Brown’s classic 1960’s and 1970’s bands, including Maceo and Melvin Parker and Nat Jones¬.
This is a design team project: the All-America City Park will be designed by landscape architects Kofi Boone and Fernando Magallanes, with whom the selected artist will be expected to collaborate in order to develop an artwork concept which can be integrated into the context of the park design.
Public Art for North Carolina’s Historic Happy Valley Byway
Yadkin River Greenway Trail, Patterson, North Carolina
BUDGET: $60,000
DEADLINE: Tuesday, September 7, 2010, at 5:00PM EST
Online RFQ and Project Resources: http://www.ncarts.org/projectspecs
The North Carolina Arts Council seeks to commission an artist or artist team to create site-specific, outdoor artwork which offers seating for greenway trail users and interprets, commemorates, and celebrates the history, heritage, culture, and landscape of Happy Valley, a picturesque rural region of the Yadkin River Valley spanning Caldwell and Wilkes Counties in Northwestern North Carolina.
Rich in history, folkways, and arts, Happy Valley is the setting of the ballad “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley,” which recounts the alleged 1867 murder of Laura Foster by local Civil War veteran Thomas Dula. The annual Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention celebrates the Valley’s vibrant local music, and Mow Day and Plow Day continue longstanding agricultural traditions. Neighboring town Lenoir boasts the largest collection of public art per capita of any community of similar size in the U.S.
The commissioned artist will design and produce one or more artworks or artful design enhancements incorporating seating features, to be installed along the Yadkin River Greenway Trail, a new public pathway and park that runs along the Yadkin River in Patterson, NC. This public art and design project will be a prominent component of the Historic Happy Valley Byway (HHVB), an initiative of the NC Arts Council, an agency of the NC Department of Cultural Resources.
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