Buffalo’s "Walkabout Gallery" offers public art in unexpected places
Uncategorized | September 7, 2011
Artist Louise Anderson is shown working on her landscape painting of Elgin Park located at Buffalo’s Holistic Health Center. Louise’s painting is part of the Walkabout Gallery co-sponsored by the Buffalo Downtown Association and the Johnson County Arts & Humanities Council. Vikki Chenette, vice president of the JCAHC, says that the “Walkabout Gallery” is a bit different than most traditional public art projects. “We think that people will be surprised and delighted to find these little things” around town, she said.
David Romtvedt’s poem “Falling Asleep” is affixed to the brick wall outside of his wife Margo Brown’s pottery shop. David, who recently stepped down from his position as Wyoming Poet Laureate, told the Buffalo Bulletin that “it is neat to see it where people wouldn’t necessarily go hunting for poems.”
Becky Spencer’s mosaic, “Majestic Wyoming Wildlife,” hangs outside of the Sol DeVallarta restaurant in downtown Buffalo. It is the most recent addition to the “Walkabout Gallery” project.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2014, there were 11,451 jobs devoted to our state’s creative sector, which is 30% above the national average and second only to New York.
ARTS COUNCIL FACT
The Arts contributed $763.6 billion to the U.S. economy in 2015, 4.2 percent of GDP and counted 4.9 million workers, who earned $372 billion in total compensation.