WOLFVILLE, N.S. — Time to give a big shout out to Terry Drahos and those who contributed to 12 years of Uncommon Common Art (UCA) in Kings County. With the removal of this year's five installations, we ought to mark the end of amazing public art in unexpected places and art education in Kings County's public schools.
“Over the course of our tenure, UCA has presented over 150 public art installations and over 300 art education visits in the area schools,” Drahos says. “We have taught thousands of children visual art and exposed the entire community to topical contemporary artist and their work.”
Uncommon Common Art not only changed the face of Kings County with murals and sculptures, but it inspired new visual art maps and public art projects. Every year 15 to 20 works were created.
“We are thrilled to have made this impact and now it is time for us to move on to new creative adventures,” Drahos stated last week.
The outdoor exhibits sitting in nature could have been viewed an art scavenger hunt, or hiking meets art. Always interesting, my mind goes back to some of the really nifty ones, like the wooden horse at the Wolfville library.
After the season ended, Halifax artist and woodworker Veronica Post allowed library staff to adopt the wooden horse that stood on the rail bed. The horse was a homage to painter Alex Colville.
Branch manager Lisa Rice took the horse to dry barn, where it is in a stall until some repairs can be made. Staff enjoyed having the horse outside and Rice said, “I feel like there’s been 50 photos a day taken of him.”
Another favourite of mine was Mermaid by Marie Jardine, who rested at the Delhaven wharf. A jaunty, beautiful piece creature, she was made of recycling using broken brake lights and rubber gloves. Pat Farrell and Nicole Evans in North Grand Pre and Twila Robar DeCoste in Aylesford always installed art worth checking out.
Some people weren’t so into the art though. I remember Drahos stating, “Art is nothing without controversy.” Sometimes the mantra she repeated was, “it’s only temporary.”
An art project that hung from the bridge leading to the Miner’s Marsh in Kentville got critiqued. In fact, some folks were downright mean spirited. But that’s the way of art. We can’t all like everything.
By in large, Drahos says, the idea and game of public art was “whole heartedly embraced by our community which says something about the people who live here. That we all share a sense of fun, adventure and creativity. These are the reasons our community is growing and people that can choose to live anywhere, choose to live here.”
The Wolfville artist said that the notion of making artwork free and completely accessible for five months of the year, was “an attempt to engage the entire community, the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the physically fit and physically impaired. Our goal is to reach them all.”
It was the ‘Twig People’ in Wolfville, a series of tree parts turned into street art, that spawned Uncommon Common Art. Drahos says she remains amazed that the public art program “grew out of a crazy game of art hide and seek that Pat Farrell, Nicole Evans and I played with the Town of Wolfville.”
The twig people prompted a conversation, she added, about public art in rural communities and “the idea that public art did not have to be monumental or permanent and that it could be fun.”
Two years ago on the tenth anniversary, Kings South MLA Keith Irving read congratulations aloud at the Legislature. He noted, “for the past 10 years, Uncommon Common Art has added whimsical and thought-provoking visual art pieces to the landscape of Kings County, providing residents and visitors alike the rare opportunity to experience public art in the natural beauty of rural Nova Scotia.”
According to Drahos, a major goal of the program was public art education. Often it is only city dwellers who get to experience public art.
The community-wide art exhibit highlighted two of the county’s greatest assets - the natural beauty of the Minas Basin Valley and the abundance of creative people who live in the area. The innovative idea to take visual art out of institutions and galleries and share it directly with the community allowed art to be accessible to everyone. That’s why I hope the art classes will continue.
Drahos believes that while we are inundated with news and information about mankind's negative impact on our natural surroundings, the Uncommon Art project promoted and recognized creative and beautiful touches in nature. Well done!
