Keeping an Eye on Public Art - Royal Athletic Park
I think that sometimes public art becomes so much a part of our routine that it starts to fade into the background, especially after it has been in place for a long time. It is the same as the green house on a corner or the chickens behind the white picket fence. Something that maybe makes you smile due to familiarity, but also because we like it.
This feeling of familiarity I think, had kind of overtaken me with the four pieces of art along Vancouver Street on the west wall of Royal Athletic Park. I walk by these large paintings on plywood almost every day and while I know them very well, I hadn’t stopped to think about them until I did a couple of weeks ago. I am not sure why I did, maybe it is all the change happening along Vancouver and it made we wonder about what needed to be protected as all the construction was happening. Anyways I did, and was also able to connect with a couple of the artists of the pieces and find out some more about them. I thought I would share a little bit about the installation as a whole; look at each of the pieces; and finally talk about what we need to think about as pieces of art age in our City.
So the original installation was done back in 2004. In part to clean up the large blank wall and make it more interesting and also in part to deter graffiti. When it was first put up, there were five pieces. One piece by Roy Green is no longer at the site. I am still trying to find out what happened to it. One of the first things that you will notice about the space is that the pictures are all along a dark green wall that I would say does not provide the best back drop for the art. The four that remain, have been there for 17 years now and despite being subjected to the weather seem to be doing pretty well. That said, given their size and possible unseen deterioration, they could be just one wind storm away from being blown down. Frances Baskerville, one the artists, told me that the original agreement with the city was for the pieces to be put up for 10 years. Looking at the pieces north to south the first one you would come to would be Park Dreams.
Martin Batchelor & Ken Faulks - Park Dreams
This is such a great painting. It totally evokes the feeling of going to Royal Athletic Park to watch a game while also showing a little bit of the history behind the piece. I spoke with Ken Faulks on the collaboration with Martin Batchelor and he said,
“Martin applied for and got the gig, knowing I was on board for it. He also dealt with any administrative stuff to do with the city and process, as well as doing a to scale collage piece. I tweaked both the composition and sizing of the elements and did the painting of the mural.”
It is interesting to note that this is the only mural of the four that has a rain guard along the top that would prevent long term water damage. Martin Batchelor was the owner of the Martin Batchelor Gallery where I have been to some great openings. Google maps lists this location as now closed. Ken Faulks is an active artist and you can see some of more of his work on his site here.
Tom Kendall - Asymmetric Beauty
I did do some searching to try and contact Tom Kendall for this article, as of now I haven’t heard back. There isn’t too much online about the piece either. The CRD website on art likely has the best information. If someone has some more information I would love to hear about it in the comments. I would say that there is a Dali or Magritte feeling to the painting. I would also agree with the notion of seeing beauty in baseball. Going to see the HarbourCats on a sunny day is one of the things I am looking forward to post-pandemic.
UPDATE: I had a wonderful chat with Tom Kendall about his art piece. In our conversation he brought up that he had recently watched the Ken Burns Documentary ‘Baseball’, where one of the first speakers talked about how the game was 'beautiful' and that was partly attributable to its asymmetry, this led him to recall his painting and do a search that directed him to this blog. According to Mr. Kendall all of the pieces have been sprayed with a coating to protect them which may be why they have lasted so long despite the City only having a 10 year plan to have them up. I asked if there was any other pieces that he had up around the city and he gave me this link to some art that most of us can’t see in person at the Esquimalt Dockyard, I have to say I am very impressed!
Frances Baskerville - Fire in the Belly
I had a chance to speak with Frances about the installation. She told me about the process that she followed and how much fun it was to be a part of the competition. An interesting aspect about her piece is that the sign accompanying it is just slightly different than the other three and this, I found out in my conversation, is because a few years ago a friend told her that it was missing. After trying to find it and coming up with nothing, she hung a new sign that looks similar, but not the same herself. I thought that was wonderful. The painting evokes the romantic painters and always had a Goya feel to me, however she says on the sign Delacroix. The painting is right in line with much of her other works which often have figures in motion. You can see some more of her beautiful art on her site here. You can also see an even larger piece by Frances at the Gordon Head Recreation Centre called In The Moment.
Frank Lewis - A Peanut Vendor’s Memory
I really love this painting. It is energetic and the more you look at it, the more you see. It makes it more powerful when you know that it is actually based on the artist’s own memories of being at Royal Athletic Park selling peanuts. Frank Lewis is the same artist that painted “Bridging”, which is located under Gorge Road and above the Galloping Goose Trail right before you get to the Selkirk Trestle. I would say that is one of my absolute favourite pieces of public art in Victoria. Unfortunately, Frank Lewis passed away in 2013. In my opinion that gives us even more responsibility to ensure that his pieces are protected into the future. For more of an overview on his art, you may wish to read this article.
Roy Green - Scoreboard (Missing)
I got the image of “Scoreboard” from the Waymarking Website. You can see it here. This was perhaps the most playful of the art pieces. It took me awhile to figure out that both one was missing and which one it was, though once I saw the image I remembered it and it still shows up on the current Google Maps Street View which was taken in 2014. If you have any info on where it might be now or what happened to it, I would love to hear down in the comments. It also provides a great segue into the last thing I wanted to talk about and that even in this internet age, things can be ephemeral. There is very little to find out about this piece as it stands on the internet, though I did find this site with a photo of the artist with some more of his work behind him.
UPDATE: Thanks to Ross Crockford I was able to hear from Roy Green. Apparently his piece was damaged at some point and removed by the City. Current whereabouts of the piece are still unknown though.
While it may seem that public art is both ubiquitous and long lasting, it is actually not necessarily either if we don’t take care of them. For these specific pieces, because they so clearly belong as a part of Royal Athletic Park, I wonder if there is a way that we could solidify their place there with some more permanent mounting that would also provide some additional protection. I would also love to see them not sit against a green wall as I said, I don’t think it provides the right back drop for them.
More broadly, public art that is out in the elements needs a long term plan for maintenance and also for those on the sidewalks looking at them to stop and think about them every once and awhile.
Bridging - Frank Lewis