Evans Parkway Park Gets Three Art Choices

is long grassy park with a playground and tennis courts that borders a residential neighborhood off Dennis Avenue. Now, the park’s time for renovation has come up on the MNCPPC’s capital improvement program list.  While the process started in 2007, and new construction plans for the park are almost complete, there’s one more finishing touch to put on the project.

The Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County held a nationwide competition to decide on a public art installation for the renovated park. There was an initial rough start. Project manager Parviz Izadjoo said the community involved in the planning process wasn’t thrilled with the initial artist chosen throught the call for submissions.

“It’s a subjective thing,” Izadjoo said, “so we went back to the original pool of people,” Parviz said. They chose three applications - all with very different styles - to be presented in a community meeting on March 21st.

The finalists this time around? Michael McLaughlin, a bronze sculptor from northwestern Connecticut, Madeline Weiner, a stone sculptor from Colorado and the artist team of Ali Della Bitta and Drew Goerlitz, from New York

McLaughlin, like the other finalists, found out about the project through a public artists listserv. 

"In most public art projects I‘ve have the privilege of being involved in in the past, the idea is to visit the community and ask lots and lots questions.” McLaughlin said.

Talking with the community is important, McLaughlin said, especially as he works with bronze.

"Bronze is probably one of the most permanent mediums, I want to make sure the message has longevity," he said.

Della Bitta and Goerlitz, who have done a earthworks park installation in Minnesota, were drawn to the sustainable aim of the project.

Sustainable Site Initiative, a LEED-esque classification label that promotes sustainable landscapes, chose Evans Parkway as a pilot study for their certification system.

"It was the interactive nature and looking at the site and the community around it," Della Bitta said, "to have an educational component to it, and we're both university professors, so it's always something we think about."

Della Bitta and Goerlitz's project is made up of large rectangular stones (about four to five foot wide and eight feet tall) etched with drawings of animals and plants with an aperture hole that directs a visitor's sight to where its habitat is or could be.

Interactivity is also a part of Madeline Weiner's work - large abstract human-style sculptures that double as seats and benches. 

"Every time I do a sculpture it's site specific ," Weiner said, adding that in previous public art installations she has visited the site and noted what activity is common. In one park, filled with runners and dogs when she arrived, she made an giant dog sculpture followed by a runner with a leash. 

For Evans Parkway, she focused on the sustainability idea to create a three sculpture set - a family of three, one shoveling, one planting and a child playing and helping. The idea came out of the park being a "family park" within a neighborhood.

Parviz said that Parks is close to deciding on the artist, “Today [Tuesday] we have a follow-up interview to see how flexible one of the finalists is.”

Construction on the artistic and renovation portions of the Parks - including, replacing a concrete lined channel with a natural stream, adding a boardwalk, a bridge and new landscaping - begins this summer.