This installation on the river along South Water Street honors the longfin squid, a commercially significant resource in the state. These sculptures, created by Canvus a privately-owned company who are “repurposing wind turbine blades into sustainable community furniture,” have been fabricated from retired wind turbine the blades. Canvus operates under Waste Advantage out of Cleveland, Ohio. While I appreciate their goals, I do not care for this “furniture.”
Apparently this project stemmed from a grant to the city, but then the process gets a little confusing. The ProJo writes:
The design for the bench was part of an internal competition at the city, where employees submitted what they thought the outside of the turbine should look like.
Internal competition? The pool of talent was limited to city employees? We need to have good art in this beautiful setting.
[Parks Superintendent Wendy] Nilsson said she was incredibly proud that the design came from within the city. Landscape designs are themselves works of art, even if they aren’t normally framed as such. The contest for the design gave the artists in her office a chance to show their chops.
Artist Addie Newbold won the “internal competition” for this piece, as well as the tub-like bench adjacent to it. In the ProJo article, she is only identified as a landscape designer, but her position with the city is not made clear. She is not listed in the design department in the Parks Staff Directory. I can find only this one professional link where it seems she works out of Georgia.
I would not have a problem with the squid piece — the artwork is proficient and has its charm — but this is not the only Canvus product in the park.
There is an additional item further north along the river that is quite awful (see below). It was delivered here by mistake — it was meant for California and that is where it needs to go. And whatever California got, they can keep as far as I’m concerned. The blades have been fashioned into a throne-shaped bench and covered with the type of vapid sentiments one might find on a tween girl’s trapper keeper: “Choose Happy,” “You Be You,” and most puzzling, the chasing arrows symbol of the totally discredited recycling campaign created by the plastics industry in the 1980s. (So either the Canvus people know nothing about that recycling scam, or they are cool with it?)
The ProJo piece ends:
The turbines, received as part of a grant, are just a part of the work the city and parks department are doing to beautify the corridor along the Providence River.
If beauty is the goal, then no more grants from Canvus. Their product line is dire. And this landscape is already beautiful — I often rave about the plantings up and down the river and on the pedestrian bridge. The bridge and railings and light fixtures are wonderful. I like the large metal sculptures further up the river, but we can’t just start plugging up all the empty spaces with whimsical doodads. And we can’t have banners saying “The Creative Capital” next to the thing pictured below.
And I would like to learn more about these grants and the internal competitions.
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Here is the “daily affirmations” throne destined for California. This is mere yards from the Rhode Island School of Design.
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The object below is next to the squid piece. Was this actually . . . designed?
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For perspective. If it was just this squid bench, I wouldn’t mind . . . I like it. But we have to nip this Canvus thing in the bud.
Agree. Blight, not beautification.