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PHOTO: A rendering of “Ledgers,” the new Lewiston public art installation that will be unveiled Friday. (Submitted photo)
LEWISTON — A ribbon cutting will be held at 7:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 17, for an original work of art by nationally recognized Auburn native Andy Rosen.
The ribbon-cutting for “Ledgers,” which features seven life-like foxes, will be adjacent to the canal between Baxter Brewing and Bates Mill 5. The public is invited to attend.
The Lewiston City Council earlier this year approved the installation. Rosen is best known in Maine for two installations in Casco Bay: “Unpack,” seven life-like dogs that Rosen created in 2015 and placed on the pier on Portland’s eastern waterfront, and in 2018, “Tread” was installed, a pair of deer emerging from the rising sea near the Ocean Gateway marine complex. In 2020, Rosen’s first permanent piece in Lewiston, “LOOM,” a sculputure of a bear, was installed in Fountain Park.
“In terms of the evolution of my work, Ledgers brings together my interest in how materials, architecture, site-specificity and narrative can come together to re-activate a location,” Rose said. “It’s also been a delight to work with a material with a rich local history. That historical aspect (that I get to be a part of) grounds these gargolye-inspired foxes to the area in a way that brought them to life. It was easy to imagine these foxes, lounging about the river bank and then to know that the sculptural recreations were derived from the sediment of this same area. In that they are made of the same material as the mill buildings, they become a kind of family member of the architecture while still being anchored in the world of animals. Like the canals, they bridge the gap between industrial structures and the natural world.”
Lewiston’s new public art piece resulted from a collaboration by the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, LA Arts, the local Public Art Working Group and the cities of Lewiston and Auburn.
It began with the Feb. 19, 2019, announcement that the Maine Arts Commission had awarded a Creative Communities = Economic Development Phase 2 Grant of $75,000 for implementation of Cultural Plan LA. In-kind support was committed by the Chamber, LA Arts, and Lewiston and Auburn. The Maine Arts Commission is an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. At the end of the grant’s first year in December 2019, the Lewiston City Council adopted a Public Art Plan that was drafted by the Public Art Working Group, which included the process to select and install art on public sites.
