Great Place to Bee
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Thursday, September 30, 2021
While not in South Carolina, Gastonia, North Carolina is just a stone’s throw away!
Keep Gastonia Beautiful’s art committee seeks to commission artwork for the downtown area of Gastonia, North Carolina titled “Great Place to Bee” and include interactive smaller art pieces that will weave/waggle their way through Main Street to a larger art piece. The artwork will be sited in a prominent location at a Gateway to the new FUSE Baseball Stadium.
We are currently looking for an artist who could fabricate unique 3-D bees as a creative way for Keep Gastonia Beautiful to showcase its Bee City USA affiliation by educating our community about the importance of bees and pollinators through public art.
This project, titled “Great Place to Bee,” has the potential to create a buzz of excitement and interest for the entire downtown. Custom metal bees will “waggle” (a waggle is a movement performed by a honeybee at the hive or nest, to indicate to other bees the direction and distance of a source of food) through downtown as part of a scavenger/honey hunt. At each stop of the scavenger/honey hunt we would include fun facts about bees, and depending on the location, the historical significance. We envision groups “buzzing” around downtown searching for these bees. The “end” of the hunt will lead groups to a new art installation, envisioned as a kinetic piece where bees will be “swarming” around a hive near the baseball stadium, home of the Honey Hunters.
We are looking for around 8-12 bees to start with the potential to grow, at least 3 inches in length but we are open for interpretation and the ending sculpture should connect and coordinate the bees to their final location. Metal bees should be able to be moved over time to different locations. We believe it’s important to recognize where we came from in order to see where we are headed and encourage you to use the nectar of your imagination when creating this project.
View the RFP here (PDF). The deadline to submit materials is Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021.