Art and public placemaking in Jackson Hole

June 19, 2:02 PMJackson Hole Fine Arts ExaminerTammy Christel

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Courtesy Denver Office Cultural Affairs

Teton County, Wyoming is Jackson Hole, and here in Jackson Hole we are considering a newly drafted Teton County Comprehensive Plan.  The plan is a gargantuan effort to find ways to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable goals:  preserving open space and migratory corridors, improving transportation, creating the appropriate amount of affordable housing, and bolstering an economy largely reliant on development and tourism. 

Public art and placemaking have yet to be incorporated into the Plan--which was, in the face of relentless public criticism, essentially corked and sent back to planning staff for revisions.  Let's hope the efforts of Teton County's arts community result in codifying a place for public art. 
 

Public art encourages environmental stewardship through curiosity and creating a sense of ownership, and by enhancing public space. It is a significant community tool that promotes tourism and regional appreciation.

Public art is great marketing.  In most urban areas, the quest to design for relevant public art is old hat. Public art installations define cities, and we are a small city. Our planning process needs to include space for public plazas, parks and sculpture.

Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park combines places to eat, shop and walk with nine acres overlooking Puget Sound. The project “…brings together the best of (the) city: art and recreation….21 sculptures take center stage, representing such artists as Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Richard Serra, and Ellsworth Kelly.”

Contemporary Seattle mixes traditional Inuit art with contemporary masters. Walkways and ‘paths’ of connected galleries connect sites. We can conjure a similar urban art potion.

The arts community envisions growth, but growth that incorporates landscaping, parks, arts and grace of space. Let’s create space both sacred and fundamental. Without these provocative elements, we forfeit a higher level of urban vibrancy.

Define the Town of Jackson as a business, educational, and cultural center. Jackson presents a great case study, and this is our opportunity.

Public Art and Placemaking are, as many of us in the arts community have been saying, inextricable from contemporary, smart, even green, urban growth. Quality urban growth must include public urban spaces and public art.

Preserving environment and quality of place, managing growth, and creating a viable, broad-based economy are Jackson’s great challenges. Most crucial is ensuring we promote and protect our wildlife, its habitat and other environmentally sensitive areas. In our region, the arts are a keystone in preserving place. Although our Town Square’s monument, various land art and myriad creative educational projects provide continual reminders of our inherent love for the arts, we’ve so far not included researching and moving towards making the arts a part of our “constitution,” as it were. We can remind ourselves, and all visitors, of this history by including beautiful and lasting public place making in our Comprehensive Plan. Such planning aids in building tourism and strong market values.

Think logo.

Art captures the essence of the places dear to our hearts. Successful public art resonates on a national level. Our traditional themes may be translated traditionally; they may also be translated using contemporary aesthetics and materials.

We must not only include the words. We must decide upon a logical process of implementation. Without implementation any plan is simply an exercise.