SIOUX CITY | Anchored to sidewalks and concrete paths throughout downtown Sioux City, is a towering giraffe made of stainless steel forks and other utensils and two bronze boys playing football, as well as sculptures that are geometric and abstract in form.
Eight new sculptures are on display during Sculpt Siouxland, a year-long exhibition that seeks to promote public art and increase downtown foot traffic.
Sioux City Art Center curator Todd Behrens said stainless steel is a favorite medium for outdoor sculptures because of its ability to withstand the elements.
"If we bring in a large number of pieces of stainless steel, it starts to become kind of dull with everything having the same finish. What's kind of fun this year is that within those steel pieces, there's a lot of variety," said Behrens, who thinks the 10-and-a-half-foot-tall giraffe, "Out of Africa," which was sculpted by Dale Lewis, of Hastings, Minnesota, will be a favorite of onlookers.
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Some of the steel sculptures are painted. "Bird #4" by artist William Lieb, of Spirit Lake, Iowa, has a component that spins. "Duo Forward," a 12-foot-tall sculpture by Leslie Bruning, of Omaha, Nebraska, is part of "Vector Series,"pieces which use four carefully defined linear forms that fit in a rectangular format, two which have straight edge architectural qualities and two that have curved organic qualities. Behrens said the sculpture required a machine to raise it up vertically and safely put it into place in front of the Art Center's entrance.
Breandan Donahue, Sculpt Siouxland president, said he hopes residents and visitors alike take the time to view the sculptures and appreciate what downtown Sioux City has to offer.
"There's some really nice artwork down there that will give you an excuse to walk around and see what we're doing in the area and what the area's also doing with new businesses coming in," he said. "We want to keep drawing high-quality works of art into the area. Hopefully it expands as the downtown area does."
Al Harris-Fernandez, Art Center director, said the feedback he has received from the project has been very positive. He said the sculptures are larger and more visible than ever.
"I think any downtown that has a lot of public artworks is a more interesting place to visit and walk around in," he said.
Bigger and better
Members of the Sioux City Growth Organization (SCGO), a community of young professionals, founded Sculpt Siouxland in 2005 after recognizing the need for diverse attractions downtown.
The project's goal was to increase foot traffic through the downtown area, as well educate and promote interactive art. That first year, the exhibit included 13 sculptures, eight of which were sold.
"There's a lot of studies that show that having public art in downtown gets people out of their cars and walking around and then they end up spending more money in the area," Harris-Fernandez said. "There's more of an attraction to go downtown in the first place."
Eventually, Harris-Fernandez said SCGO members decided to make the project a nonprofit of its own. The Sioux City Art Center first became involved as a consultant and then as a board member of the new nonprofit. Three years ago, the Art Center became a partner in Sculpt Siouxland, handling the artistic-administrative part of the project.
"(Sculpt Siouxland) started off by attracting a lot of small figurative sculptures," Harris-Fernandez said. "When we got involved, we thought, 'Let's go after larger sculptures that have higher visibility so that not only walking, but just driving through you'd notice a lot more sculptures.'"
Each year, Harris-Fernandez said calls for submissions are sent to a large mailing list of area artists and to college and university art departments. He said information about the project is also posted on the Art Center's website.
A jury composed of Sculpt Siouxland, Art Center board members and outside artists selects the artists who will display their works for a one-year period. Donahue said the jury is looking for high-quality work that is diverse.
"There are structural components like, 'Is it going to hold up outside? Are they going to have an ability to place this somewhere safely?'" he said. "General aesthetic appeal kind of changes from one jury member to the next."
Harris-Fernandez said the jury also invites an invitational artist to submit a sculpture that has been pre-selected, with the goal of Sculpt Siouxland purchasing that work of art with the money the nonprofit and other foundations have raised.
"Sometimes we get less, but we get higher quality (submissions). Sometimes we get more and also higher quality. It depends on each year," said Harris-Fernandez, who said the artist honorarium was recently raised from $1,000 to $1,500. "There's a lot of other communities that do similar projects, so we have to be competitive with them."
