Published 07/11/02 in issue #23 of The Hook.

Not all public art is sculpture. Architecture and landscape design also make public art statements. Paintings are acquired and shown publicly. Welcome and directional signs in the city convey a sense of our local aesthetics, as do the banners now hanging from poles on major streets and the Downtown Mall.

Banner artist Mary Murray

When banners first waved in the city, they were local products, made by banner artists Randy Bill and Mary Murray. Bill, whom Murray says was "way ahead of her time," first took it upon herself to create and get permission to hang small banners along Main Street, calling attention to the earliest phases of Starr Hill's rebirth in the 1980s.

After Murray founded her business, Making Waves, in 1993, the City asked her to make banners for the Downtown Mall. After that, she created more public banners-- for the ice park, the airport, and the Belmont Bridge. Vivid colors and idiosyncratic designs waved from many a flagpole.

But today the City orders factory-made, generic-design banners from a national company.

"I tried to convince them not to use that crappy stuff," says Murray. "They really should have something better."

But store-bought banners are cheaper, says Huja-- and yet he agrees they are not representative of Charlottesville's character and aesthetics, as the uniquely designed and locally sewn products once were. ­Susan Tyler Hitchcock

#

>> Back to The HooK front page