Last Monday, the 11-member advisory board approved the “30% design concept” for three pieces of public art to be installed on the west bank of the river, south of Douglas Avenue and directly in front of Riverfront Stadium. The total art budget for the project is $700,000.

Artists from around the U.S. presented their designs during the meeting. While many of the details are yet to be determined, their renderings give a sense of the direction of each artwork.

Scott Hocking, a Detroit-based artist, will create a sculpture that will be installed near electrical systems. Part of the purpose of the artwork is to conceal or distract from the utility infrastructure. 

Hocking, who often uses found and recycled materials in his work, will repurpose one of his own sculptures for the piece: “Arkansas Traveler,” which he created for an exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The sculpture is made from an antique galvanized steel windmill that appears to be in repose.

Hocking’s riverbank sculpture will lean against a 50-foot utility pole. 

“Coming into Wichita, there's only one thing I knew, and that's the song ‘Wichita Lineman,’” Hocking said on Monday. “I found myself coming back to that again and again. It just made so much sense. I'm designing an artwork around, about, integrated with, distracting from electrical infrastructure … I thought (the song is) almost too perfectly connected to this site, so I went with it.”

Ivan Depeña, of Charlotte, North Carolina, presented renderings for “Ebb/Flow,” “a series of sculptural arches inspired by the river’s natural flow and the dynamic rhythm of the water.”

Chris Pappan will create an artwork that will add visual interest to the the concrete and limestone walls on the site. A Chicago-based artist who works within the tradition of ledger art, Pappan was in Wichita in 2022 for an artist talk at Wichita State’ Ulrich Museum of Art in conjunction with the exhibition “Myths of the West.” 

Jeff Best, director of landscape architecture for Baughman Company, and art consultant Courtney Lederer of Chicago firm CNL Projects serve as the design team for the west bank project. The City of Wichita received 159 responses to its request for qualifications for public art. An eight-member committee reviewed the applications and asked nine finalists to submit proposals. 

On Monday, the Design Council also approved a request for qualifications for a bust of A. Price Woodard, Wichita’s first Black mayor, for whom the park on the east bank of the Arkansas River was named. In December 2022, the city sold 14,496 square feet of parkland to the Hyatt hotel and designated the $195,310 it received from the sale to make improvements to the park. The city set a $40,000 budget for the sculpture. Requests for qualifications are due September 5.

Emily Christensen is a freelance journalist and one of the co-founders of the SHOUT. She is a past fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and a recipient of an Arts Writing Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation.

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