Here’s how the City of Subdued Excitement remains a vibrant and creative place
Bellingham spent about $325,000 on art last year through various city departments, not counting a combined $6.5 million for the Bellingham Public Library and the city’s share of the Whatcom Museum, or the contributions of nonprofit organizations, neighborhood and civic groups and others who create and promote art.
But the chance to live among people who value artistic expression is priceless, say officials who work to ensure that the City of Subdued Excitement remains a vibrant and creative place.
Art enriches a community — from outdoor murals and sculptures to festivals, neighborhood projects and special events like author talks.
“We’re really fortunate that this community values public art,” said Mason Luvera, communications director of the Downtown Bellingham Partnership.
Downtown Bellingham Partnership, a nonprofit civic group, is part of many local efforts to promote art in the downtown core.
“Our organization is dedicated to the idea of placemaking, which often includes public art,” Luvera said in an interview with The Bellingham Herald. “You can find some kind of public art across the entire span of downtown — that’s what makes downtown great.”
Public-private partnerships
Signature programs organized by Downtown Bellingham include the monthly Art Walk, the summertime Downtown Sounds concerts, pop-up shopping festivals, Halloween trick-or-treating, and spring and winter Wine Walks.
“The important thing is to think about public art in a city as being more than visual,” Luvera said. “All of those things contribute to a creative and dynamic downtown.”
Arts give a city’s residents a sense of place, according to Americans for the Arts, a national organization that advocates for creative expression.
“Whatever the form, public art instills meaning — a greater sense of identity and understandings of where we live, work, and visit — creating memorable experiences for all,” according to the Americans for the Arts website.
Art can boost economic opportunity and enhance cultural identity and understanding, Americans for the Arts said in its 2018 report, “Why Public Art Matters.”
Indeed, several businesses, especially restaurants, coffee shops and cafes, have opened in recent years within the city’s Arts District, focused near Holly and Bay streets.
Vandalism rare
The recent vandalism of the Acid Ball and the theft of blown-glass planets from the “State of the Solar System” installation is a rare event, according to Shannon Taysi, a program specialist in the city’s Planning and Community Development Department.
She said that art usually acts as a deterrent to vandalism.
“It’s very rare that things get damaged. People have respected the art, and that speaks to what the community likes to see,” she said in an interview with The Herald.
Similarly, Taysi said she sometimes fields complaints that money spent for arts should go instead to other city programs.
“I hear the negatives,” she said. “But a world without art — can you imagine what it would be?”
Art adds value
Because art is in the eye of the beholder, it exists in many forms across Bellingham and its neighborhoods — from traditional art to less obvious expressions such as interactive displays, street performers, architecture, writing contests, author visits, and even decorative trash cans, bicycle racks or special lighting.
“Every city has assets of value in the creative world,” Luvera said. “It’s really how you harness them to provide opportunity for them to become part of the city center.”
Channeling that creative vision is Taysi’s job.
She coordinates public art efforts and has a budget of $5,000 for maintenance of existing artwork. An appointed Arts Commission reviews specific art proposals.
“We’re a rich community as far as arts projects,” Taysi said. “(Western Washington University), too, contributes to that.”
Art found everywhere
Although downtown Bellingham is the focus the most visible art, art installations of all sorts are scattered around the city.
“Some neighborhoods are very passionate,” Taysi said. “They recognize the value. It’s showing that the neighbors are saying ‘We want art.’ I think we all know that art enhances the experience for everyone in the community.”
Taysi said funding for public art comes from a variety of city budgets, including the tourism tax and from parks and street construction a program called One Percent for Art, which designates funds to the arts from certain capital improvement projects.
That’s how the historic Acid Ball from the former Georgia-Pacific paper mill became part of the new waterfront Waypoint Park.
Current art projects include wrapping unsightly “traffic boxes” with art and an anamorphic mural on the Commercial Street Garage as part of a beautification effort in the adjoining plaza and alley.
Traditional sculpture
In a more traditional sense, Sculpture Northwest is one organization that helps promote the arts by displaying pieces in parks and city streets in Whatcom, Skagit, Island and San Juan counties, said board member George Drake.
Sculpture Northwest pieces are found in downtown Bellingham, at Boulevard Park, in Big Rock Garden Park, and in the Barkley and Cordata neighborhoods.
“We think (public art) is absolutely essential,” Drake said in an interview with The Herald. “It identifies the city. We’re not going to be known for the biggest Starbucks. It’s how we define our city.”
Drake said he’d like to see the city commit even more funds to public art, including money to clean and maintain sculptures.
Wealth of art in library
Downtown also features Bellingham Public Library, with a per-capita circulation that consistently ranks among the top 10 libraries in the nation.
More than half the city’s 89,000 residents have used a library card in the past three years, and patrons visited its three locations some three-quarters of a million times last year — borrowing 1.6 million items, said Rebecca Judd, library director.
“It’s not just what we have on the walls and the shelves,” Judd said in an interview with The Herald. “It’s a place for those works to live and breathe — we have a place to collaborate.”
Judd said that the library features art in many forms throughout the building and its grounds — without even including its collection of books more than 200,000 books in print and electronic format.
It brims with art enrichment opportunities, including a SkillShare space where patrons can learn crafts such as weaving and musical instruments, and the library works with Village Books and others to bring prominent writers and illustrators for free lectures and demonstrations.
Outside the library are sculptures and plaques that feature winning works from the annual Susan C. Boynton poetry contest.
Whatcom Museum
Whatcom Museum, which is jointly operated by the city and the Whatcom Museum Foundation, offers three locations with galleries that feature art, history and classes and activities for children.
Where library use is free, the museum charges admission and also offers annual memberships that can reduce the cost of visits.
“We supplement people’s lives with experiential learning” that puts art and history into a fun and entertaining context, said Christina Claassen, the museum’s marketing and public relations manager.
“We’re unique in that we’re a multidisciplinary museum,” she said in an interview with The Herald. “We try to be the place that our county thinks of for art and history.”
Claassen said the museum’s 2017 exhibition of “National Geographic’s 50 Greatest Photographs” proved immensely popular.
Some 73,000 people visited the museum in 2017, including school tours and those who used its photo archives. About 1,800 households hold memberships, she said.
Also located downtown are Spark Museum of Electrical Invention, Bellingham Railway Museum, Mount Baker Theatre and the Pickford Film Center, dedicated to independent movies and cinematic history — all grouped around the Arts District.
And at the southern edge of downtown is Western Washington University, which features a wealth of free outdoor and publicly-accessible art — including Western Gallery, Wilson Library, a Tree Tour and an outdoor sculpture collection.
“I I think we all know that art enhances the experience for everyone in the community,” Taysi said.
