Art a la downtown
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on October 18, 2015 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Workmen install "Dreamsicle" Friday after the ceremony marking the arrival of the art pieces for downtown Goldsboro. Also placed Friday were "Natural Embrace," "Genesis" and "Flight."
Downtown Goldsboro received several new additions Friday morning, as four new art pieces were each placed along Center Street.
Three of the art pieces -- "Natural Embrace," "Dreamsicle" and "Flight" -- were all selected by the city's Public Art Steering Committee. The fourth, "Genesis," was given to the city as a private donation.
The three pieces leased by the city have a lease life of one year each, and carry a cost of $2,000 per piece. The privately donated piece was leased for $1,000, and also has a lease life of one year.
"Natural Embrace," which is a piece consisting of five Venus' flytraps made of corten steel and "slumped" glass, was placed in the roundabout at the intersection of Center and Mulberry streets.
It was made by Paul Hill. He said he designed it as a way to bring the usually small and fragile plant into the limelight.
"It was about emphasizing the tiny plant that only grows in a small area of Wilmington, making it local to North Carolina," Hill said.
He said making the stems of the piece took one month per stem, meaning the piece placed downtown Friday took him five months total to build.
The actual "traps" of the Venus' flytrap were made of slumped glass, Hill's wife, Mila, said. Hill would make the molds for them, and Stan Harmon in New Bern would create the glass pieces.
"He would take the mold and put the glass in it and then stick it in his kiln, and the glass would slump to fit the mold," Mrs. Hill said.
Hill originally constructed the piece with three stems several years ago so he could enter it into the Cary Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, where it won best of show.
"I'm honored, absolutely," Hill said of the piece being placed in front of city hall. "I just hope everybody likes it. It's relaxing to me. It's a very peaceful piece."
"Dreamsicle" was placed in the roundabout at the opposite end of downtown, where Center Street intersects Chestnut Street.
Nathan Pierce, who designed the piece, said the concept of the piece was meant to convey communication in all of its forms.
"The idea behind it is communication and how it is the abstract thing that it is now," Pierce said. "It's about personal communication and how you relate to people in your world. You're a father, a son, a brother, so it's how you relate to people in that capacity, but you're not just a guy with a beard, either, and that's what it's about. It's about everything a person is and how they communicate that to the world."
He said some people have said "Dreamsicle" looks like an exploding atom or a satellite. The parts of the piece that extend from its center core are meant to represent communication, he said.
Pierce said he likes to be "playful" with his titles, and not be heavy-handed when creating a name.
"With this one, Dreamsicle, it's orange, so it was a play on color because those popsicles, what are they called, the creamsicle popsicles -- they're the same orange color, so it was a riff on that," Pierce said. "And also, it has this long 12-foot appendage thing reaching up into the sky like a sickle, so that helped me name it, too."
Having his art placed in a location where many people would see it was a great thing for Pierce to experience, he said.
"These things are plopped down all the time at exhibits and shows and stuff," Pierce said. "So to get something in prime real estate like this where it was a very thought out location as to where it would go is real nice. It's pretty incredible to have it in a location that draws attention to it."
Phil Hathcock designed "Flight," which was placed at the Center Street entrance to the John Street parking lot. This sculpture was the initially the most popular option, but due to it only being one-sided it was not placed in a roundabout where it would have been viewed all the way around.
It is a sculpture of two birds flying forward, one above the other.
"I wanted to achieve a piece with movement without using moving parts," Hathcock said. "We wanted to create the sensation of movement in a stationary piece."
"Genesis," which was created by Charles Pilkey, was placed in the center median of the 100 block of North Center Street, inside of the newly constructed circle of benches.
It is a stone sculpture of a circle placed atop a rectangular pedestal, and is meant to convey themes of life, birth, growth and fertility.
Pilkey said he named it "Genesis" because he enjoys using biblical metaphors to create titles for his pieces, and that the central theme of the piece and its title was to represent the "cosmic creation of the universe."
"Since I'm from Hillsborough, when I was growing up my family would always drive to the beach and pass by Goldsboro. We never stopped," Pilkey said. "But now I'm here and I'm looking around and this is a beautiful setting for a contemporary sculpture. I really want this to create interest in art and continue bringing art to Goldsboro. There's plenty of good reasons to do so. Having art outside businesses like this will bring people down to look at it and attract attention to businesses."
While Pilkey said he understood that the art stuck out downtown, he said having art downtown provides citizens the opportunity to engage with art in a way they might not always get to do.
"This can be an education for people who have never been introduced to modern art," Pilkey said. "Small towns like Goldsboro don't really have art museums, so this is a chance for people to see art in their community."