Conference looks at how Florida public art connects communities

On May 11th, people from around the state convened in Orlando for the 25th annual conference of the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals. Formed in 1998, this organization, which goes by the acronym FAPAP, has been working to elevate the character and quality of public art in cities, towns and communities across Florida. FAPAP President Oaklianna Caraballo explains.

“The FAPAP organization is a wonderful resource for public art administrators, for public artists, for periphery fields - our conservators, our fabricators, our elected officials. In part, our mission is education. So we come together in our annual conference. We share ideas. We help each other. We have the same concerns, the same values, we’re doing the same jobs, but our colleagues happen to be a city over, a town over, a county over. So coming together to really elevate the quality of art and administration is really important.”

In 2001, host city Orlando did not even have a public art program. Today it’s a model that other cities aspire to emulate. According to Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs Administrator Terry Olson, FAPAP played an instrumental role in giving him the tools he needed to build his program from scratch.

“When I started my position in 2001 with Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs - I was hired to create that office - I didn’t know that much about public art,” Terry recounts. “So the first thing I wanted to do was go to the statewide association conference, where I met other people. I could ask questions. I learned a lot. And that helped me shape our program, which was just being developed, since it hadn’t existed before, into one that used best practices as opposed to whatever process we could figure out.”

While many locals take the sculptures and murals they see for granted, public artworks are typically the first thing that travelers, notice when they arrive in airports or at downtown destinations. It is no coincidence that the biggest and most impressive public art collections in Florida are maintained by tourist meccas like Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa-St. Pete and Orlando. That realization motivates Executive Director of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts Elizabeth Young in her tenacious effort to build her program into a statewide leader.

“Now that I’ve been coming to conferences for 15 years and working with my other colleagues from around the state, I look at public art differently no matter where I am in the United States or out of the country,” says Liz. “In Florida I think about our public art projects that are seen by people from all over the world because so many people visit Florida.”

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Just as “The Bean” has become synonymous with Chicago, many tourists associate Tampa with the 21-foot flamingo sculpture at Tampa International Airport and Miami with Michele Oka Doner’s mile-and-a-quarter long bronze and terrazzo concourse, A Walk on the Beach, at Miami International Airport.

But residents have also come to adopt the artwork in their communities as their brand, such as John Henry’s sculptural installation, Alachua, on the campus of the University of Florida. When it was installed, that piece was actually ridiculed by students and faculty alike. Today it is revered, as FAPAP President Oaklianna Caraballo notes.

“It really is iconic. It’s a symbol of our university. It shows up on websites, in fliers, and it really is beloved by the community now despite its rocky beginnings.”

Going forward, expect to see larger and more whimsical pieces. According to a survey taken by FAPAP, that’s what the general public tends to favor most.

Second, expect to find more art in local neighborhoods and communities. Here’s Liz Young with the rationale:

“I think the trend is accessibility and I think the trend is diversity in our art world, and that we are moving more into communities than we ever have. That art is, like we heard actually today, one of our speakers talked about museums without walls. Art is not just for someone who can pay the entrance fee and go into a museum and view art. Our art is on our streets and in our squares and in our parks and in our government buildings more and more.”

Finally, expect to see much more technology built into public art in the future. Oaklianna Caraballo makes this observation:

“It’s an exciting moment when we see technologies really delving into the digital world. It’s a way to connect with our younger generation. We learned about Web3 and NFTs and most importantly ways that institutions are incorporating these new technologies into art.”

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Whatever its size, color, shape or location, public art is most about improving our overall enjoyment of, and connection, to our lived-in environment. On this topic, Terry Olson gets the last word:

“Public art adds quality to our lives. It gives variety, brings beauty. These are things that are necessary for the human soul.

MORE INFORMATION:

• In addition to serving as President of the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals, Oaklianna Caraballo is the Art in State Buildings Specialist for the University of Florida in Gainesville. House in the College of Arts, the administration of the Art in State Buildings Program at UF focuses on the mission of being part of a transformative community, responding to and generating paradigmatic shifts in the arts and beyond. 
• The public art program at the University of Florida seeks to participate in the ever-evolving field of contemporary public art discourse with a focus on advancing the field for both artists and institutions. 
• Oaklianna Caraballo received her bachelor’s degree from Florida State University and her masters degree in Museology from the University of Florida. She has been a member of the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals since 2006 and has been a FAPAP Board member since 2009. 
• With a background in theatre and the visual arts, Terry Olson has headed the Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs office since 2001 and has overseen the development of its public art program. In that capacity, he has developed several audience awareness campaigns such as the “Public Art Treasure Cache” program. He created and is known as the “Chief Instigator” for FusionFest, an annual celebration of Central Florida’s many diverse global cultures. Terry brought the National Arts Program to Orange County and several venues in Florida, is one of the founders of the Orlando Theatre Project, the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts, the Orlando International Fringe Festival, the Creative Gift Foundation and the Central Florida Performing Arts Alliance. 
• Elizabeth S. Young is the Executive Director of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts and Past President of the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals. Liz has an extensive background in both the performing and visual arts. Her experience working with non-profit organizations spans program development, board relations, fund development and marketing. She earned her B.A. in Art History and Theater from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.  
• After spending nearly a decade in New York City as a casting director for film, television and theater, Ms. Young moved to the Florida Keys in 1987. Her professional life in the Keys includes being the business manager of Island Wellness and working in all aspects of the business of the fine art and photography gallery of Alan S. Maltz. 
• As Executive Director of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts since 2008, Liz serves all the arts, all the Keys, all the time. Recently, she was a grant panelist for the State’s Division of Cultural Affairs and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, presented at the City of Key West’s Ambassador and Leadership Monroe programs and for the Board of the Tourist Development Council. She has served as the Public Art Administrator of the City of Key West’s 1%-for-public-art program since 2017, and the County’s program since 2008.  
• Liz also co-curated the Florida Keys Sculpture Trail with Susann D’Antonio on behalf of benefactors John Padget and the late Jacob Dekker. 
• The actual name for “The Bean” in Chicago is Cloud Gate. The 100-ton sculpture’s seamless aluminum body reflects and distorts the skyline and lake in unimaginable ways.  
• Tampa International Airport’s 21-foot floor-to-ceiling flamingo was created by public artist Matthew Mazzotta as a meeting point and photo destination for tourists and locals alike. His design was chosen from more than 700 proposals. Until just a few months ago, she had no actual name. But after 37,000 votes cast in Tampa International’s “Name the Flamingo” contest, she was named Phoebe, a contraction of the flamingo’s scientific name of Phoenicopterus Roseus.    
• Michele Oka Doner’s A Walk on the Beach (1995, 1999) and its extension, A Walk on the Beach: Tropical Gardens (1996-2010) is composed of more than 9,000 bronzes embedded in terrazzo with mother-of-pearl. Oka Doner told attendees at the FAPAP annual conference that workers in the Philippines stripped the one ton of the mother-of-pearl she needed for the artwork from old buttons. 
• You can view a 7-minute film about Michele Oka Donner’s 1.25 mile-long concourse at Miami International here.  
• During the first day of the 3-day FAPAP conference, attendees viewed a survey of the most popular and best known public artworks in Florida. While no pieces from Southwest Florida were included, some of this area’s best artworks include the Jim Sanborn light sculpture known as Caloosahatchee Manuscripts that sits on the sidewalk outside the Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center, David Black’s Fire Dance in Fort Myers’ Centennial Park West, two sculptures by Rochester, New York monumental artist Albert Paley (one at the Riviera-St. Tropez Condominiums in Fort Myers and the other on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University) and Mark Fuller’s Cambier Quilt in downtown Naples. 
• While Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs Director Terry Olson finds cityscapes to be all-too-often “dehumanizing,” especially when they are huge and out-of-scale, even the smallest artworks can transform such places into creative oases. That’s precisely what happened when Orange County added a sculpture garden outside the Administration Center building. “I’ll see somebody looking at a sculpture, taking a picture of it, pointing it out to their child, reading the sign, in some way stopping and engaging. Before we put sculptures on the lawn there, it was a blank space and people just walked to get to the building like zombies. The art has caused people to stop and go ‘Oh, look at that’ or ‘Hey, did you see that’ or ‘I didn’t know that’ or ‘Look there.’” 
• Even if you’re not an art lover, public artworks engage a community, make public spaces seem more welcoming, create a deeper interaction with a place and improve the overall quality of life of both residents and workers. These are important factors to companies, talented young workers, professionals and retirees when they are looking for a place to relocate or settle. This was the conclusion of a survey conducted between 2008 and 2011 by the Knight Foundation and Gallup of 43,000 people in 26 cities about what they wanted most from their communities. To the surveyors’ surprise, the respondents stated that “the aesthetics of a place – its art, parks and green spaces” ranked higher than education, safety and the local economy as “drivers of attachment.” 

Interrelated benefits

Urban planners, economists and public art professionals have identified thirty-eight (38) interrelated benefits that are derived by the people who live, work in and visit a community from a vibrant public art program. According to these and other sources, public art: 

• boosts/strengthens civic pride; 
• enhances and defines a city’s identity; 
• reflects the unique character and history of the city; 
• burnishes the city’s image to the outside world; 
• creates an important positive impression for visitors; 
• encourages/increases tourism; 
•  enables the community to attain recognition as a regional and national leader in the visual arts; 
• symbolizes a community’s maturity; 
• expresses the vision of community leaders; 
• makes a statement about the community’s values and culture; 
• elevates the image of proximately-located corporate enterprises; 
• spurs economic development in the community; 
• creates visual and aesthetic landmarks; 
• creates positive mental images; 
• imparts a more aesthetic, cohesive visual and physical appearance; 
• enriches the public environment visually; 
•  makes the beautification of the city a matter of the highest priority; 
• enhances the climate for artistic creativity in the community; 
• brings art and art education to the entire community; 
• creates public art community partnerships linking individuals of all  races, ethnicities, age, genders, professions, and economic levels; 
• stimulates our imagination; 
• promotes excellence and diversity through a variety of artists and media; 
•  provides tangible outlets for creative ingenuity; 
• increases property values; 
• enriches the cultural climate of the city; 
• reflects and enhances the city’s  diversity, character and heritage through the integration of artworks and designs  in the architecture, infrastructure and landscape on public and private property; 
• makes a space seem more welcoming; 
• creates a deeper interaction with the place one is visiting or working in; 
• increases awareness of how surroundings impact experience; 
•  expresses shared ideals and concepts; 
• enhances the quality of life for residents and property owners; 
• adds to the visual quality of life; 
• engages the community; 
• draws people together and induces strangers to talk to each other; 
• raises the level of citizen awareness to the importance of aesthetic and intellectual experiences in everyday life; 
• promotes understanding and awareness of visual arts in the public realm; 
•  makes a commitment to future generations; and creates “human scaling” of open areas by framing the space with various forms of public art structures. 

To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.