Members of the Laramie community voiced opinions on the future of public art in the city during an open meeting this week.
Public art consultants Renee Piechocki and Jennifer McGregor provided examples of public art implemented in other cities and spoke with attendees about what they hoped to see.
“Looking around Laramie, the murals that have been done here are really great and the bike racks too,” McGregor said. “But it would be really nice to be able to see more art and a structure to pay for it, so that’s when they came up with this plan.”
The meeting was the next step in a months-long process of formulating a public art plan—a joint effort of the Wyoming Arts Council, the Laramie Beautification Committee and the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund with additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Many of the ideas presented involved pairing artists with engineers to make needed functional improvements that double as art.
Of the examples given during the presentation, some crowd favorites included small changes, like more decorative chain-link fence designs on overpasses and structural interventions like designing city-specific manhole covers rather than covers purchased in a catalogue.
Another favorite that could be enjoyed by children was a hopscotch crosswalk taken from Baltimore,.
Natalia Johnson, owner of Abundance Creative Art Center, came to the meeting to support ideas just like that.
“It’s my purpose to really engage children into an art culture and to see them involved in public art, more than has been done in the past, more than in other places that do have art plans,” Johnson said. “I think children definitely have a place here in Laramie.”
College students, though sparse at the meeting, are not excluded from the discussion.
“The last time we came, the university wasn’t in session so it seemed a little empty,” McGregor said. “This time we’ll have to go back and spend some time there.”
Johnson, a graduate of UW, said Laramie is worth improving, even if most people view themselves as just passing though.
“We have a very transient community,” she said. “I went to the university, then got the heck out of here. I came back because I see a lot of potential in the community.”
