I just love public art, don’t you?

Public art is a reflection of the city. With strip malls and chain businesses lots of cities are starting to look the same. Public art adds character and uniqueness. Public art also has the ability to educate a community. Earlier this year the City of Bend put out a call for proposals for storm drain art. They had selected various sites around the city with storm drains and they asked artists to submit proposals around the theme, “It’s All Connected.” Here is what I submitted:

My concept for the storm drain is to convey the connection between the aquatic animals in our area and the storm drainage. My idea is to use illustrations of local fish and frogs (Oregon Spotted Frog, Foskett Speckled Dace, Warner Sucker and Bull Trout) to make up the shape of a drop of water. The water drop is directly above the storm drain to show that anything that goes into the storm drain ends up with our local wild life.

When the city contacted me to let me know my proposal was accepted I was so excited! This is my first public art project! The finished piece is on the corner of Galveston and Columbia in Bend, Oregon.

Here are photos so you can see the process of creating the storm drain art from start to finish:

Here is a little behind the scenes on the project. I spent 8 hours brainstorming and putting the initial proposal together for the City of Bend, 6 hours creating my custom stencil for the project and 3 days or about 15 hours of painting the sidewalk on site. I wanted to share this with you because often we see art that looks simple but that doesn’t mean it didn’t take a lot of time to create.

Watch my interview with KTVZ:

The finished storm drain art is on the corner of Galveston and Columbia in Bend, Oregon.