Fifteen years after the Squaw Peak Pots debacle, the Phoenix art community rallies around a public-art project

Even more important has been the flowering of arts advocacy groups — Phoenix Artlink, Voices Downtown Coalition, and Arizona Action for the Arts, in particular — and the maturation of the Phoenix arts community, which has learned how to organize, petition, lobby, and push the political process to its advantage and for whom there are more public art commission opportunities. Most important, a political process exists through which the mayor, City Council, city manager, and citizenry have active roles in choosing what they want to see in their city.

One thing hasn't changed. E.J. Montini is still stirring the pot (or, in this case, mucking with the net), though I consider his opinion on public art projects about as informed and insightful as supermodel Naomi Campbell's recent interview of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In a recent column, attempting to kill the Echelman piece, he told his readers that "a large, difficult-to-understand sculpture is exactly what a piece of public art should be. But not in Phoenix. Not in Arizona."

courtesy of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture

Artist's rendering of the as yet untitled Janet Echelman sculpture.

courtesy of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture

The Echelman sculpture up-close.

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More About

• Phoenix (Arizona)
• Janet Echelman
• Phoenix Arts Commission
• Politics
• Local Politics

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Well, guess what, bubba? It's going to happen in Phoenix, Arizona. And you can stick that in your pot.