Artists don’t usually like people trampling all over their work but when it comes to a new creative idea for the streets of Bowen, they’d be thrilled.
The Bowen Island Municipality is inviting artists to submit designs for new painted crosswalks in Snug Cove. The timing is perfect with the paving of Bowen Island Trunk Road this month.
The Bowen Island Arts Council has teamed up with BIM to ensure that the new crossings will not only be practical and effective in helping pedestrians get across the street safely, but they’ll have the bonus of being public art as well.
Here are the criteria:
• Creative, original, and reflective of Bowen Island
• Simple and replicable at multiple crosswalk sites
• Must be suitable for reproduction in white only
• Additional design option: a limited palette of colours
• Easy to maintain every year
The designs submitted will be blind-ranked by a three-person committee representing Public Works, Bowen Island Arts Council, and Bowen Island Municipal Council.
Members of the public will vote top-ranked designs when the road is being paved.
The artist whose design(s) are chosen will receive a commission of $2,500 once the crosswalks are installed. They must provide stencil(s) and paint the crosswalk under the supervision of BIM staff in the last week of September.
Only Bowen Island artists can submit proposals by the Friday, September 11 deadline. For more information, design criteria and how to enter go to BIMBC.ca.
Here are some ideas from the Undercurrent's cartoonist, Ron Woodall, to get the creative ideas flowing.