A Rockford initiative created to beautify the city has added 18 more works of art across the city.
The CRE8IV: transformative art sculpture program now has 33 pieces throughout the city.
Kristen Paul, the executive vice president of GoRockford, said this year’s goal was to add sculptures to areas that had minimal or no public art at all.
“Some of them are along Perryville, which is a really busy road, but there's a really popular path,” she said. “So, there's three pieces along there. Some of them are on West State Street, which is kind of one of the corridors coming into the downtown. There's some on Harrison Avenue, which is more of a business district.”
She said she was able to experience some of the community’s reaction in real time.
“I was with the artists for probably half hour, an hour,” she said, when we're installing on West State Street, and five or 10 cars drove by and, like, rolled down their window and were honking, saying, 'thank you' to the artists. So, it was really fun to see. When we were installing in the neighborhood, we actually had a whole daycare that came out and watched the install.”
In addition to the added sculptures, a change was made to the Rockford letters that were housed at Davis Park. The park is now under construction, so the letters were moved to the riverfront at 127 N. Wyman. This location is right by the Rockford Public Library’s main branch.
Paul said now the community can get double satisfaction when looking at the letters since they also reflect on the water.
