April 29, 2022 |
The Wyoming Business Council has awarded $2,500 to the Platte Valley Arts Council (PVAC) for this year’s Public Art Project. The WBC appropriated the money from its Rural Development Program. The funding will help underwrite the creation of six new murals and sculptures to be installed this summer and revealed on September 3.
Arts Council Director Stacy Crimmins said the installations will be placed throughout the Platte Valley. One is slated for the new hospital set to open late this summer, and another in the Platte Valley Community Center. A mural will be painted on the side of the Sage and Sand Motel on First Street. Another mural will be placed in front of Firewater Public House.
Perhaps the largest installation will be the one destined for the Never Forget Memorial Park near Veterans Island. Crimmins said it will be visible from any approach to the proposed park.
The Platte Valley Arts Council is a nonprofit organization serving Saratoga, Encampment and Riverside with arts, cultural events and programs.
The way Crimmins describes it, the PVAC sees art as a user-friendly vehicle for reflecting and celebrating local life and culture, not some highbrow artifact set aside in a museum cordoned off by velvet ropes.
The artists who have been selected for this year’s Public Art Project will be paid for their time and materials. Crimmins said the budget for the six pieces is over $104,000. She said about half of that amount has been raised so far. With more than $50,000 left to go, fundraisers are planned to generate more project funding.
The artists chosen for the public works project are all local to the valley. Crimmins said the public art project is designed in part to recreate a bit of the “artist vibe” that existed in the valley 10 or 15 years ago and to produce cool, positive things for residents and visitors to enjoy at their leisure.
Given the double-edged mission of supporting and enhancing the economic and cultural life of the valley, the public arts project was a perfect fit for the Wyoming Business Council’s rural development grant program. All of the money raised for the project so far have been through grants, Crimmins said. Donations also are being accepted online at PlatteValleyArts.com and at the organization’s Facebook page. In the meantime, Crimmins is working to secure other grant opportunities.
Related: Platte Valley Arts Council awarded $50K grant for public arts project
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