Via The Phipps Center for the Arts:

An artist, landscape architect or designer from the St. Croix Valley region of Minnesota and Wisconsin is being sought by The Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin, to facilitate the creation of a community art project in Houlton, Wisconsin. The participants in this project will include elementary school students, their teachers and parents, representatives from local businesses and non-profit organizations, and other community leaders.

The work to design and construct the project will take place during the 2018 – 19 school year, with planning meetings and a community event to take place during summer 2018. Completion of the project is planned for Spring 2019. The facilitating artist will receive an honorarium of $5,000 for their participation.

This new project will be created for the Trailhead Park on the Loop Trail, which is currently under construction by St. Croix County. The Loop Trail will go through Stillwater, Minnesota, and Houlton, over both the new St. Croix Crossing bridge and the historic Stillwater Bridge. The community art project for the Trailhead Park is envisioned as a gathering place for community members and an outdoor learning space for students from Houlton Elementary School, which is directly across the street.

It will be the tenth community art project on the Art Bench Trail, www.artbenchtrail.org, and will serve as the Trail’s keystone project. As such, it will be larger than the other projects. The vision for this project is to incorporate natural materials and landscaping to create a gathering place for up to 30 people.

The creation of each Art Bench Project, including this one, is intended to build social relationships among an engaged group of participants using the arts as a vehicle. The resulting projects attract both local residents and visitors to the rich natural and cultural offerings in the St. Croix Valley. Active engagement by local community groups to design, create, locate, and care for a unique bench is at the heart of this project.

To apply, e-mail a resume with three professional references, jpeg images or links to images of previous community art projects completed, brief written description of each of these projects and a cover letter by Friday, June 29, 2018, to ashartin@thephipps.org.

For further information, contact Anastasia Shartin, visual arts director, at 715-386-2305, ext. 103.