Columbia unveils large-scale ‘urban canvas’ downtown

A new art feature graces a building in downtown Columbia.

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. 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 10 different local visual artists, poets, and jewelry designers, according to a news release.

City of Columbia also recognized the 20-foot wide by 15-tall tall urban canvas which was recently unfurled in the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, which mirrors the original 10-foot by 10-foot original canvas first exhibited outside of Art Bar in The Vista in November 2022, the release stated.

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 in the release. “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.”

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

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, the release stated.

“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.”

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