LAURINBURG — Scotland County Parks and Recreation is working on what Jeff Maley is calling the Art in the Park Program.
“The first two sculptures for the Art in the Park Program will be permanently displayed at Hammond Park,” said Maley. “The plan is to give park-goers an additional element to their park experience by offering a unique sense of what our county residents have to offer from a cultural standpoint.
“This program actually came to fruition from a message that I thought had fallen on deaf ears, so to speak,” continued Maley. “I was in the Greensboro City Park one day and noticed a piece of metal art along a walkway, inside a mulch bed. I sent the picture to Matt Beane, a gentleman I went to high school with, and told him that if he ever would consider fabricating something of that nature, we could get it displayed in our park system somewhere. Well, about five months later he let me know he had been working on a piece and sent me a picture of the scorpion and I was blown away. About a week ago, he sent me the finished picture of the Infinity Square.”
According to Maley, future plans for this program would be to involve the Arts Council and form a small committee to review and vote on future submissions before installing them into the parks.
“The bar has been set really high by Mr. Beane, so aspiring artists who would like to have their work displayed need to realize that,” said Maley. “We would love for this program to eventually produce two or more pieces at each of our county parks over the next couple of years.
“Residents, or anyone born in Scotland County, because that is really what this program is about, showcasing homegrown talent, should hold fast to the requirements,” added Maley.
Submission requirements
— A written description of the proposed artwork, including dimensions (height x width x depth), weight, installation method and anchoring procedure should be submitted.
— If a person is proposing existing work, photographs or slides of artwork and must include a reference to human scale.
— If proposing a new work, they must provide working drawings or photographs of maquette to scale.
— Include a description of the sponsoring organization or other methods of financing. Include the name, address and phone number of the contact person.
— Proposed duration and exhibition period of the exhibition, if any, should be included as well.
Submissions can be emailed to [email protected]
JJ Melton can be reached at [email protected]. To support the Laurinburg Exchange, subscribe here: https://laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com/subscribe.