The city is adding a punch of local color against the gray, rainy skies of Bremerton.
Starting Monday, the city began hanging a series of banners featuring the work of local artists from street lamps, culminating a one-year Bremerton Arts Commission project that aims to spice up the streets. The Public Works and Utilities Department started hanging the banners at Pacific Avenue and Burwell Street.
Thirty artists — all from western Washington and most with Kitsap roots — generated about 70 images for 140 banners that will be displayed along Pacific Avenue and throughout the city, said Pam Bykonen, who coordinated the project for the city Department of Community Development.
The Arts Commission called for local artists to participate in the project a year ago, so it could “do something special” for the city, Bykonen said.
Artist Lisa Stirrett, whose work can be seen throughout city from the conference center to the ferry terminal to Anthony’s Restaurant, is one self-described “local girl” who answered the call to help revitalize her hometown.
“I just think what they’re doing, beautifying the whole downtown area, is amazing,” she said.
Stirrett will have three images hanging above the city’s streets, all nautical-themed, she said, which will feature real salmon imprints.
At least two other artists, on the other hand, incorporated their military backgrounds into their art.
Mark Lubich, a full-time artist and disabled Army veteran whose family is from Kitsap County, said the most meaningful piece for him is a glass sculpture that conveys both the strength and fragility of a soldier, called “Warrior Moon.” The same piece will be shown in the Collective Visions gallery’s 2010 show in downtown Bremerton in February.
Lubich, who will also have a mixed-media sculpture and another glass piece displayed on banners, said the Arts Commission’s selection of his work was an honor.
“It’s a validation of the work you put in as an artist,” he said.
Don Wesley, an Army veteran who lived in Bremerton for eight years and owned the Wesley Art Gallery from 2006 to 2007, will also have three images overlooking the streets, one of which is for a soldier who died in Iraq, he said. Another banner illustrates a gull flying overhead, as one would view it from the Bremerton-to-Seattle ferry.
Wesley moved to Redmond about a year ago and is now a Microsoft software designer.
The banner-hanging starts on Pacific Avenue because that’s where the public art concentration is, Bykonen said. Because there are more banners than can fit on Pacific Avenue, they will be gradually distributed throughout the city.
The Arts Commission paid for the project with a $10,000 grant from the lodging tax fund, which distributes money to agencies and groups that can help bring tourism to Bremerton, Bykonen said. So far, just over $8,000 have been spent on the banners and banner poles.
