UI student, faculty artists leaving their mark on 10 Iowa communities

The Office of Outreach and Engagement at the University of Iowa partners with Iowa communities on dozens of projects each year. One of the most popular requests: public art. In fact, the office often receives more requests for public art than resources can provide.

Thanks in part to a new residency program to train students in the intricacies of creating public art, boarded-up windows, concrete walls, and fertilizer bins will become canvases for large-scale public art projects in 10 Iowa communities this summer. One city also will welcome a large-scale, solar-powered sculpture to its downtown plaza.

"Public art has been positioned as a driver of economic reinvestment," says Vero Rose Smith, associate curator at the UI Stanley Museum of Art and one of two faculty members working on the inaugural Grant Wood Public Art Residency. "It's hard to document; it's obliquely provable. But it does at the very least demonstrate a renewed sense of value and investment on an emotional level in the fabric of a place."