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Is it a bench or is it, as Bob Johnson
calls it, “sitting art?”
By whatever name, it appears
downtown Wake Forest – now being renamed
the arts and entertainment district –
will soon have up to a dozen
one-of-a-kind benches made by Joe Dumas
of Alabama from polished stone and metal
farm objects he finds in the
Pennsylvania Dutch country.
“We’re buying sitting art to
bring art to downtown,” Johnson said
this week. He and his wife, Elizabeth,
own The Cotton Company and several other
downtown buildings.
By defining the benches as
art – and they certainly are – Johnson
and the others interested in the project
avoid requirements that ordinary benches
meet federal standards.
Also, by asking for private
donations for the benches, which can
cost up to $800 each, Johnson and the
others are avoiding the objection Mayor
Vivian Jones raised about the difficulty
of selecting public art.
There is another
consideration. Since the Dumas benches
are made of stone and metal and are
designed for those of Brobdinagian
proportions, they truly are a visual
rather than a tactile delight. Anyone
who rests on them will soon want to be
up and shopping again in the arts and
entertainment district.
“They require at most one
spraying per year to keep them in
pristine condition, they are heavy so
someone can’t pick them up and run away,
but they are still very sturdy and
durable,” Johnson said. “Most
importantly, they truly are one of a
kind, very unusual and made of antique
pieces,” fitting into the opportunity
Johnson and others are stressing, that
the town can draw on its history to
attract heritage tourism, the
fastest-growing segment of the tourism
industry.
Johnson already has four
people who want to buy a bench each and
is hoping to sign up eight more.
“If we get more than twelve
[buyers], we’ll look at more
conventional art,” he said.
The bench project was
sparked by Speed and Barbara
Massenburg’s recent suggestion to Town
Manager Mark Williams that the town
invest in public art, setting aside 1
percent of the $4.7 million cost of the
future town hall for art.
It led to a discussion by
Johnson, Barbara Massenburg and Jean
McCamy, a well-known local artist, and
they recalled Tom Iversen, outgoing
chairman of the Downtown Revitalization
Corporation, remarking how nice and how
unique the Dumas benches are.
Dumas has exhibited them and
other stone and metal artworks at the
last two HerbFests. Given the large
order, Johnson said, “Dumas has offered
to transport them up here for us and to
install them for us, which amounts to a
forty percent discount.” |
