A WALKWAY TO SAVOR

The Tennessee Riverwalk and Chattanooga’s public art are undoubtedly two of the area’s jewels.

Sites where the two mix, such as at the riverwalk’s Wheland Foundry Pass, are especially appealing.

What’s not so appealing is graffiti, which vandals have applied in recent weeks to the public art at the pass.

The answer, at least for now, is more public art. Dozens of volunteers worked Saturday to cover over the graffiti with a painted landscape meant to symbolize the mountains of East Tennessee. And the paint will have an anti-graffiti coating, which will make it easier to clean if vandals choose to tag the new art.

What a shame, though, that an asset for people to enjoy on which the state and city have spent millions of dollars, and which other cities can only envy, must be marked up by vandalism. And what a further shame that Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors staff must spend time refurbishing the area and taking time away from other duties in which they might be involved.

On Saturday, at least, they had help.

The walls inside the pass received a stylized landscape of mountains perhaps at sunset or sunrise. Just as area residents are often fortunate to glimpse the real thing, a blue sky fades into pink, then orange, then white over the various layers of blue, purple and grayish mountains, below which are light blue and green foothills.

Outside the pass, the formerly white waist-high walls are now black, with a line of orange, red and white at the bottom representing a nod to the area’s foundry past and the pouring of molten metal.

Additional concrete walls and approach walls now have similar stylized sunrise/sunset mountain vistas, with an additional wall repainted in diagonal black and white stripes.

Brian Smith, communications director with Parks and Outdoors, told WTVC-TV that vandals tagging the area demean the reason the riverwalk exists.

“When folks destroy or use graffiti or any sort of destruction in our parks,” he said, “it really slows down the true meaning of what we are here for, and that is to provide beautiful and safe landscapes for all patrons to use.”

Smith earlier said the department receives “two or three calls a week for vandalism” of some sort at the city’s parks and greenways. Although it might be graffiti, it might be destruction in restrooms or other activity that could result in injury to other users, he said.

We’ve all at one time or another seen graffiti, and undoubtedly many of us on occasion have thought how talented the individual must be to have produced the graffiti. That’s where the city’s public art opportunities might help. Why couldn’t the anonymous, talented graffiti artists use their creativity on projects where their work would be admired and noted?

Public art, after all, is more than sculptures at which one person might roll their eyes and another greatly admire. They are, among other works, temporary and permanent murals on the sides of buildings, on tunnel facings and various walls.

The February minutes of the Chattanooga Public Art Commission, for example, discuss plans for “implementing an artist database that will invite artists within a 50 mile radius of Chattanooga to register” and would be “a resource for agencies and organizations undertaking projects as well as a means to share opportunities with artists.”

They further note a call to artists for work at Lynnbrook Park and contract approval for an artist to work on the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard underpass.

Of course, we’re not naive enough to believe all graffitists are just frustrated artists waiting for their opportunity to shine. But perhaps some are, and perhaps a local opportunity seized would keep one more building, underpass or fence from being tagged.

Since officials with Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors have to be realistic, they’ve also teamed with the Chattanooga Police Department to provide extra patrols where vandalism is frequent. The patrols and ambassadors with the Parks and Outdoors department will attempt to ward off some of the vandalism.

For now, though, the Wheland Foundry Pass — one day to be used by even more people to walk to games of the Chattanooga Lookouts when a new stadium is built near the trail — has a new look showcasing the region’s landscape. We hope it might be admired for its beauty — and art — and not be a repeat subject of graffitists.