Even more intriguing is Melpomene’s setting. It is situated in the Port Warwick neighborhood of Newport News—a mixed-use urban village, with a three-acre town square that typifies the “new urbanism” design concept: a pedestrian-friendly layout including a range of housing, retail and employment opportunities. Chris Garrett, a Port Warwick resident, passes Melpomene on his way to and from work each day. It’s one of five monumental sculptures near his home and eight more throughout Newport News created in the past decade. “[Melpomene] is a steady reminder of life’s beauty in all its forms,” says Garrett, 45, a civil engineer.
Newport News seems an improbable home for public art. Historically, it has been a rough-and-tumble, blue-collar town, anchored by a mammoth shipyard and bisected by railroad tracks over which thousands of tons of coal roll toward shipping terminals daily. It’s hardly the place one would expect to find exclusive art, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise to outsiders that a local group—working outside the purview of the city—has commissioned and erected 13 sculptures along Newport News’ aging city streets and public squares, its modern developments and urban renewal projects. It’s all part of a nearly ten-year effort by the Newport News Public Art Foundation, or NNPAF, to enhance citizens’ lives through art.
According to the NNPAF’s supporters and other people in the community, the group’s art installations have enhanced once-mundane cityscapes, giving citizens a sense of pride and place. And the effort is steadily earning acceptance and recognition throughout the region. Robert L. “Bobby” Freeman Jr., chairman of the NNPAF board of directors, believes that the NNPAF is providing a model for public art, proving that outdoor sculpture is just as fitting in a medium-sized city as anywhere in the world. “Public art can do a lot of things,” he says. “It can inspire, it can enrich. It can provoke and it can educate. It can help revitalize a neighborhood. It can raise awareness and it can even bridge differences between people.”
Latest Comments