Late last week Newburyport-Today got a message from Geordie Vinning from the Newburyport Planning office. We were happy to have him update us on the progress of the Clipper City Rail Trail. See his note below.
We established the first sculpture installation along the Clipper City Rail Trail last week. The sculpture looks particularly nice in the afternoon winter sun after 2:00 p.m. or so. This stainless steel fish installation is located on the Rail Trail about 50 yards south of Washington Street.
As I think you know, I have been planning to install permanent sculpture at several points along the Rail Trail as part of the Enhancement Project to provide additional layers of interest for people using the corridor and to extend public art in our community. One of the ideas I came up with was installing wall-mounted steel sculptures of local fish species (tuna, striper, cod, herring), since Newburyport is largely defined by its waterfront and maritime heritage and the Rail Trail travels directly to and along the Merrimack River estuary. The old rail corridor’s big granite wall south of Washington Street is a bit stark, and I thought it could serve as a back-drop for something compelling. In fact, it is so big that it seemed like a river or an ocean of stone to me….
I identified several artists who have created durable metal fish sculpture in the past, and found one named Bob Kimball whose work I really liked and whose prices were affordable. After some discussion with Bob, I commissioned him to create 11 fish for us: a 7-foot tuna plus two 3-foot tunas, a 5-foot striper, a 5-foot cod, and a half dozen 1-foot herring. I asked Jay Havighurst (the artist who curates the Somerby’s Landing Sculpture Park at the waterfront and who has been helping me select sculptures for the Rail Trail) to design a lay-out for the fish on the wall. Bob Kimball is also a mason, and after fabricating the fish in the final months of 2009, he flew here after New Year’s as part of his honeymoon with his wife to install the fish on the Rail Trail’s granite wall. I spent much of the day setting up scaffolding, aligning the 11 different fish along with Bob and Jay, and aiding with the drilling of the stone and cementing of the anchors, etc. We chose to install the sculpture at the wall’s corner so that they would not be lost in the sea of granite.
There has been a very positive response to the new sculptures already from people walking the trail, with children taking photographs, and others inviting the artist into their homes when he was on site.
These sculptures were funded partially by Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds dedicated to the Rail Trail project, and partially by donations held by the City Improvement Society from a number of different businesses and charitable foundations supporting the Rail Trail Enhancement Project, including Enpro Services, the Newburyport Five Cents Savings Bank, the Coastal Trails Coalition, New England Development, the H. Patterson Hale Jr. Foundation, and the Mayor Gayden W. Morrill Charitable Foundation.
We are planning on installing about ten or so more sculptures, both figurative and abstract, for permanent installation along the Rail Trail corridor some time this spring. Four of them have already been seen by the public at the waterfront, and the rest are new.
In the future, I would love to install some additional sculptures of marine or riverine species etc. on the big granite wall that is hosting Bob Kimball’s stainless steel fish. The wall is about 200 feet long so there is plenty of room. We will need additional funding to do so, however, and would welcome any sponsorships and assistance along these lines….
Additional contact info:
Bob Kimball
(360) 731-5667
kimballdesigns@earthlink.net
Jay Havighurst
(978) 768-3600
create@artfluence.com
For more information http://www.cityofnewburyport.com/Planning/RailTrailProject.html
