Creative Sonoma, Sonoma County’s creative arts branch, is seeking artists interested in creating a memorial to honor victims of the 2017 North Bay firestorm and commemorate the county’s resilience in the disaster’s aftermath.
The selected artist will be awarded up to $320,000 to cover all costs associated with design, fabrication, installation and community-engagement efforts associated with the project.
The art installation will live at Santa Rosa’s Nagasawa Community Park in the Fountaingrove neighborhood. The park is off Fountaingrove Parkway, a thoroughfare leading into the hilly, upscale neighborhood that lost nearly 1,600 homes to the flames.
Twenty-four people died in Sonoma County in the Tubbs and Nuns fires, which destroyed more than 5,300 homes in the county. Altogether, 40 people lost their lives in fires that raged across Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino and Lake counties starting on the night of Oct. 8, 2017.
“The 2017 wildfires forever changed Sonoma County,” said Board of Supervisors Chair David Rabbitt. “This memorial will serve as a lasting tribute to those who lost their lives, a testament to the enduring spirit of our community, and a space for reflection and healing.”
A memorial task force will be responsible for choosing an artist who can “create and lead a thoughtful community engagement campaign that will eventually lead to the design of the memorial,” Creative Sonoma director Tara Thompson said.
The selection process will happen in stages. All artist submissions will be reviewed for eligibility and completeness, with preference going to local artists. The task force will select finalists based on artistic excellence, experience with public art and community engagement, and sensitivity to the project’s purpose.
Finalists will be invited to present their qualifications and proposed approached to completing project to the task force.
Thompson, who came from the city of Santa Rosa’s public arts department, led a similar process in Coffey Park that led to the creation of “The Water Droplet,” which commemorates the resiliency and rebuilding of the Santa Rosa neighborhood razed by the Tubbs Fire.
“There’s no one formula and it needs to be a flexible process,” Thompson said. “I think a lot of artists who engage in this type of process think of themselves as sponges. They can listen to the concerns, desire, emotions and ideas of the public and synthesize it into a design.”
The deadline to submit qualifications is July 19. Complete submission details are available online at creativesonoma.org/opportunities/.
Amie Windsor is the Community Journalism Team Lead with The Press Democrat. She can be reached at amie.windsor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5218.
