:: Roster

ARTIST ROSTER

Background: Much as a mural or a sculpture can change and enhance the appearance of a neighborhood, so can the artist's involvement in small-scale improvement projects help make our common places more effective and pleasing. To encourage artists' involvement in such projects, where tight timelines and budget restrictions make a full-scale public art commission difficult, CAC created a Roster of pre-approved artists in 1997. Periodically, an independent jury selects a pool of thirty artists from the slide registry to be considered for design consultations. When an opportunity arises, the commissioning group selects artist(s) from the Roster based on the artists' slides and subsequent interviews.

How to apply: Artists interested in being considered for the Artist Roster should submit slides of recent work, along with a resume and other support materials to: Public Art Slide Registry, Cambridge Arts Council, 344 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139.

Deadline for slides: Ongoing

The first Roster project was commissioned to address a problem: people were mistaking the City's new recycling containers for trash barrels. Four artists were invited to propose solutions. The selected proposal by artist John Tagiuri addresses the problem in a simple and creative way. By covering the containers with colorful images of bottles and cans, it is clear from the outside what the recycling containers should contain.

Other projects followed. For Longfellow Elementary School in Mid Cambridge, artist Ellen Driscoll involved students in the design of three fifteen-foot banners that are displayed, one at a time, from a flagpole in front of the school to identify the formal brick building as a friendly place for kids.

For a small plaza created by traffic-calming measures in Sheridan Square in North Cambridge, artist Jane Goldman designed quilt patterns around five tree pits, using only prefabricated concrete pavers and tree grades.

Other projects followed: For Larch Road Playground in West Cambridge, artist Gail Boyajian designed a cut-steel railing in the form of sea otters that transformed a catalogue variety fence into an appropriately playful enclosure for the tot lot.

© Cambridge Arts Council 2002-2003