The City of Columbia unveils a new urban canvas large scale art tapestry at Todd & Moore Sporting Goods

The City of Columbia unveiled a new large-scale urban canvas art tapestry on the south facing wall of Todd & Moore Sporting Goods on Tuesday, August 20 at 11:30 am. The new urban canvas tapestry, which is a component of the Columbia Streams Art public art program, measures 15 feet wide by 10 feet tall, and is comprised of images and artistic expressions by ten different local visual artists, poets, and jewelry designers.

Further, the City of Columbia honors Todd & Moore Sporting Goods for their 80 year anniversary of continuous retail business in Columbia. The City of Columbia also recognizes the 20’ wide by 15’ tall urban canvas which was recently unfurled in the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, which mirrors the original 10’ by 10’ original canvas first exhibited outside of Art Bar in The Vista in November 2022. Three more urban canvas tapestries are scheduled to be created and displayed in Columbia.

“We are placing urban canvases around the Capital City to increase discussions about public art and give more artists a platform,” said Mayor Daniel Rickenmann. “Columbia Streams Art is the City of Columbia’s avenue to continue fostering new art initiatives and investing in Columbia’s vibrant artists, and the urban canvases are just one stream of the program.”

Mayor Rickenmann discusses the impact of this public art project and public art throughout the City of Columbia

The urban canvas unveiled today is a collaboration from 10 local artists. It represents painted visual art, sculpture, jewelry design, and poetry. The artists are:

• Columbia’s poet laureate Jennifer Bartell Boykin
• Diane Condon
• Wilma King
• Tabitha Ott
• Kristine Hartvigsen
• Michael Cassidy
• Lori Starnes
• Michael Dwyer
• Austin Sheppard
• Anna Redwine

“I would like to take a moment to thank Mayor Rickenmann and the City of Columbia for their support of the arts and for their untiring efforts to bring all forms of art before the eyes of citizens who may not otherwise experience it,” said contributing Urban Canvas poet Kristine Hartvigsen. “I can’t express how lovely it is to be included in a project that many eyes will see. Inclusion, truly, is priceless. It is vital that artists, who toil daily at work that comes from deep in their souls, are seen by a city that benefits from their presence; that acknowledges their value.”

Kristine Hartvigsen, Wilma King, Stephen Chesley, Mayor Rickenmann (left to right)

The urban canvas public art tapestry was championed by Stormwater Studios artist Stephen Chesley, who with the late Columbia artist Wim Roefs, envisioned a series of large-scale, movable wall hangings which he describes as “anti-murals,” which can be hung and exhibited in a variety of citywide public exterior locations to maximize the greatest potential for viewing opportunities for the widest cross section of citizens.

“This unique urban canvas project is the culmination of work by an international group of artist including artists in our sister city Kaiserslautern, Germany through the devastation of the world wide Covid pandemic,” said Stormwater Studios artist Stephen Chesley. “This project is emblematic of good that results from perseverance and creative cooperation using the universal language of art and culture.”