The North Village Art Walk prizes both the journey and the destination.
With its creative spaces, businesses and restaurants, the North Village Arts District — nestled into the north edge of downtown Columbia — feels like a second neighborhood to whose who work, eat and create there.
Art Walk organizers want the North Village to feel like your neighborhood too, encouraging this sentiment with an ever-growing series of public-facing sculptures and installations that charm, kickstart conversation and offer common landmarks.
This year, the Art Walk enjoyed marked growth: in 2023, five pieces were installed, raising the number of total artworks to 16. This increased visibility affords the Art Walk greater presence than in its earliest stages.
“You could see (artworks) if you made an effort. But now everywhere you walk, from every vantage point, there is something,” said Lisa Bartlett, a mainstay Columbia artist and member of the Art Walk’s organizing committee.
Art lives here
From music-centered murals that celebrate the North Village’s past, present and future tones to a diverse array of sculptures, Art Walk pieces shift how passersby and inhabitants encounter the neighborhood.
“I look at the area in a different way now,” artist and committee member Tootie Burns said.
Now she gazes out not only at what is, but at what’s to come. Others are catching the vision too — over the past year, more people testified to seeking out the Art Walk and anticipating the next installation, Burns added.
Significant seeds were sown by the Veterans United Foundation, which provided a $231,530 grant for the North Village Art Walk in late 2021.
Committee members balance each other well, bringing a fully-orbed approach to the project. When the grant came through, Bartlett immediately began thinking aloud about artists, colors and dimensions while she thought about accountants and insurance, Burns said with a laugh.
The Art Walk is animated by an “eclectic” visual feel, Bartlett said, rather than working from one narrow aesthetic. “Clashing is fine,” she said.
Columbia has crafted a unique sensibility around public art, with pieces that citizens love and hate — and love to hate. While Art Walk organizers have yet to field a complaint about the look of any installation, they embrace the idea of public artworks as conversation pieces.
“I think any conversation about public art is a good conversation,” Burns said. “Even if it’s somebody saying ‘I don’t like it,’ it makes them think about it and it makes them talk about public art. Starting a conversation is incredibly important, because maybe you don’t like this one but you’ll like the one that you see tomorrow.”
A ‘ripple effect’
Columbia civic leaders’ commitment to public art — with initiatives like the Percent for Art program, which designates 1% of the budget for a city construction project to “site-specific” art — creates a “ripple effect,” Burns said.
Serving on the city’s Standing Committee on Public Art for a decade now cemented her interest; if the city found public art so important, so should she, Burns said. That emphasis has inspired creative motion through the North Village Arts District, and Burns sees it rippling into other areas.
Newer business and entertainment areas such as The Stockyards and Arcade District have prized public-facing art, she said. And individual artists draw inspiration too — to see what’s possible, right before your eyes, recharges the spirit of your own work, Burns added.
Building the Art Walk’s future, piece by piece
Both Burns and Bartlett have brought their hand to bear on the Art Walk in creative ways. Bartlett murals grace the project, while Burns collaborated with several artists this year, fashioning a mural outside Orr Street Studios.
Seeing work go up as an artist was particularly enjoyable, she said.
Organizers find delight in each new piece. Bartlett particularly expressed satisfaction in the work around “Taking Flight,” a sculpture by Joe and Terry Malesky, at Columbia College on the corner of 10th and Rogers. That work comprises “a beautiful Archway full of birds taking to the sky like so many graduates from our fine local educational institutions,” according to an online description.
Columbia College’s enthusiasm for the piece mirrored the sort of collaboration organizers appreciate with property owners around the area.
Burns’ attention can’t help but return to Sparky, artist Vincent Houston’s raptor sculpture perched near Cafe Berlin.
“He makes everyone happy. People love Sparky,” she said.
More possibilities await. Organizers possess another year’s worth of funds for installations, then will consider if and when the Art Walk feels complete, Bartlett said. A dedicated tour of the area is in the works, and the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs is adding Art Walk pieces to its own self-guided tour, she added.
As plans continue for a possible two-acre park and greenspace on Orr Street, organizers see more chances for collaboration waiting around actual corners.
The Art Walk committee also has devoted contingency funds for future repairs to existing pieces. And they are looking at ways lighting and landscaping can set the pieces off even more in the public eye, Burns said.
Both artists see their work on the committee as creative, affectionate labor.
“I’m invested. I love this area,” Burns said.
Bartlett recalled sitting with other stakeholders around a table at what was Perlow Stevens Gallery, breathing aspects of the North Village Arts District into being. She wants to maintain this sustained, years-long momentum, to see this area — something bigger than herself or any one artist — continue to grow in beauty.
Learn more about the Art Walk at https://www.facebook.com/NorthVillageArtWalk or https://northvillageartsdistrict.org/.
The Tribune’s Charles Dunlap contributed to this report.
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. He’s on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.
