Springfield doubles down on public art

In 2019, the city of Springfield extended its now almost-decade long push to enrich its face with art through 2023.

In the early 2000s, area residents may have seemingly written off Eugene’s sister city across the river. Almost 20 years later, however, once empty storefronts and shadowy alleys have turned into a bustling downtown Springfield.

This evolution is evident not only in foot traffic and new businesses, but also in the visual art that’s accompanied commercial growth. In 2013, with approval and funding granted by the Springfield City Council, the City Manager’s Office embarked on a five-year plan to bring fallow streets to life with art. Six years later, in 2019 all manner of visual art adorns vital corridors. This visual blossoming will continue into the immediate future with the City Council approving renewal of the five-year art plan.

The 125th anniversary of Springfield’s 1885 official municipal incorporation was marked in 2010. After planning, preparation and execution of this celebratory event, city officials expressed a desire to make this commemoration more permanent — a way to show off the city in a more lasting manner. This began with a new sign greeting visitors to town.

“As part of (the 125th anniversary preparation), the council wanted a new entryway sign into Springfield,” Interim Assistant City Manager Niel Laudati said. “We had the old wooden one at the Glenwood Bridge and they wanted to see something more.”

In response, Springfield reached out to University of Oregon-educated artist Devin Laurence Field. Appreciating Field’s design work that modernized Lane Transit District bus stops, the counsel proposed collaborating with the artist on a sign that celebrated the city’s historic roots.

Since Springfield adopted the McKenzie drift boat as its municipal symbol in 1985, Field went about creating a welcome sign that showed off the sturdy craft riding out a river wave. Mounted across from Springfield’s Chamber of Commerce (the old historic depot building), the intention was that the sign would breathe a new artistic wave into town. The the idea was to bookend new drift boat signage just outside of Glenwood on the city’s west side with a new representation for visitors from the east. This — in addition to the 125th anniversary mural by Alison McNair, Karen Perkins, Shelley Albrich and students from A3, Springfield and Gateway high schools wrapping around Banner Bank — would accomplish the goal, but not without challenges.

“The goal was: We’ll do one for each entryway to Springfield, but the budget didn’t allow it at the time,” Laudati said.
What the sign did, though, was kick off a five-year partnership between city residents, the City Council and the City Manager’s Office with local artists such as Field, Rip Caswell and Portland’s Old City Artists, recognizable locals like Sunshine Kesey and cultural luminaries such as Matt Groening and a cadre of Fox broadcasting executives. Even the artists themselves recognized the significance of such public tributes.

“They’re such rewarding projects and so much more rewarding than the normal advertising stuff that pays the bills,” said Erik Nicolaisen, founder of Old City Artists.

The result: New city-backed public works of art that look to instill civic pride and catalyze a creative urban aesthetic. Accomplishing its artistic aspirations, the city wanted to take the effort one step further to make the art available to its citizens. Hence, they reached out to a graphic designer they’d worked with before, Chloe Bradford, to commission a retro poster series that showed off new public art with an old school approach.

“When I originally met with (city managers) about the flame poster, they showed me an example,” Bradford said. “They didn’t come out and say old WPA (Works Progress Administration) national parks posters, but that’s really what they were wanting with a modern twist.”

Bradford’s design was met with such enthusiasm that Springfield officials plan to possibly create more city swag with the artist down the road.

As such massive co-operations go, though, the road wasn’t always easy. It took Springfield and Caswell more than 18 months of discussions with local veterans, the Springfield Women Veterans Committee and townspeople to develop, “The Lionesses,” a bronze sculpture that honors all women who have served in the U.S. military with three bronze lionesses perched on a rock emblazoned with symbols representing each of the military’s five branches. One of only a handful of memorials in the entire nation dedicated to women in the military, the State of Oregon Veterans & War Memorials grant and a municipal transient room tax funded the project.

Instead of resting on its expressive laurels, the City Manager’s Office received approval to double down for another five-year art plan that began at the beginning of 2019.

A new round of public art installations are planned to be launched through 2023. New art initiatives include decorative crosswalks, colorful designs that bring life to city drains, a “Welcome to Downtown Springfield” mural on the Fry and Rankin Building at 307 Main St. as well as a redesign of existing city landscaping.

First on the docket are two new Springfield city welcome plaques, one an east-end entryway sign and west-end timber heritage sculpture along with a Steve Prefontaine Memorial Statue recognizing the one-time Glenwood resident.

“Right now, we’re working with Urban Lumber, a Springfield company, to use wood harvested here in Springfield,” Laudati said. “They get all the wood from trees or logs from the Mill Race and reuse them to make furniture.”

Laudati is happy to have worked during such a fruitful time.

“Like any public commission, we go through cycles where you get some people on the commission that are so talented and so good at what they do that you can do more and we happen to be in one of those,” Laudati said.

The assistant city manager only wants to take advantage of this fortuitous phase to bring more art across Springfield’s urban core.

“I think we’re in one of those times where we have such great people on that arts commission,” Laudati said, “we need to make sure that they’re out there doing the things that they can do well.”