Blink

You can count on one hand the number of living, local artists who can command $40,000 for a single work of art. So, heads up, all the rest of you. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority is requesting statements of qualifications, including résumé, slides, and supportive materials, from artists who are interested in taking a crack at a $40,000 commission for an installation in downtown Fort Worth at the "T"'s new Intermodal Transportation Center. Frank Staton, rep on the T's executive committee, says the art should recognize the origins of the new center's site. "The intersection of Jones and 9th streets in downtown Fort Worth was the commercial hub for banks, hotels, doctors, lawyers, and other establishments catering to the black community in the early 1900s," he says.

The installation will cover a 54-foot-long wall that connects the railway platforms to a covered walkway to the main terminal. The facility will feature rail service between Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as bus services. It will be open as a public marketplace on the weekends. Deadline for submission of qualifications is March 30, with up to five finalists being selected by April 6. Finalists will then make a site visit and submit a specific proposal for the installation in the form of photographs, murals, mosaics, sculpture, etc. "Finalists will be paid a $1,000 honorarium for their proposals," Staton says.

For complete information on what to submit, artists and designers can contact Janice Crow at (817) 215-8733. DART started it, commissioning artists such as Dallas' Celia Munoz to create art for DART stations, but Fort Worth is tuning up the public art bandwagon when the facility opens in summer 2001.

Another opportunity offers much lower pay -- zip -- but still plenty of exposure for artists who celebrate ethnicity in their work. Deborah Anglin, International Art Exhibition chair at Collin County Community College, is soliciting artists for the college's ninth annual Celebration of Cultures Week. "What I need for the art show," Anglin says, "are artists whose work is indigenous to their culture or somehow reflects their ethnicity or cultural heritage." She says interested artists can contact her office at (972) 377-1781 for complete information for the April 19, one-day-only show. Deadline for submitting the fee-free application with slides is March 24. The art exhibit will hang at the college's Plano campus in the central campus atrium. Hey, you have to start somewhere.

— Annabelle Massey Helber