SRAC’s icon marks collaborative vision
Like a colorful beacon, the 20-foot exclamation mark positioned on Common Street in front of the Central Artstation reminds pedestrians and Shreveport-Bossier City residents that their city is rife with culture and creative talent.
Shreveport Regional Arts Council installed a towering exclamation mark Sept. 27. The large installation is the council’s icon and the culmination of a collaborative vision, which took root last year.
“I came up with the idea, and they went crazy over it,” said Ryan McCutcheon of JRyan Artist, whose compelling concept won SRAC’s Call to Artists prize last year. “The idea was to have something you could see on both sides and with a cool effect.” The exclamation mark icon originates back to SRAC’s “Imagine That!” Campaign of the 1990s and is now synonymous with all the council’s programs and community outreach.
With the logo well-established, artist JRyan went to work conceptualizing how to best augment the Central Artstation’s new space, creating an attention-grabbing composition, which serves as an invitation to step inside the historic 1922 fire station and explore the works on show from the local arts community.
“I’m new at the fabrication element of public art, and at first, I had some trouble finding a fabricator for such a big piece,” said McCutcheon, owner and creator of JRyan Artist, a multi-faceted art production firm established in 1999, “I went to college for art, but didn’t have the opportunity to take any public art classes.”
The art community in Shreveport is varied but full of talent, and the arts council has stepped up in the last few years to offer opportunity after opportunity with the new Central Artstation and the downtown art district, he added.
“Most people my age have to leave because of lack of opportunities,” said McCutcheon, the 33-year-old artist, who is presently finishing up his latest work on a large portable mural, which will soon be on display in the downtown art district. “I consider Shreveport my home and it’s exciting to see the art community grow.”
Translating JRyan’s logo concept from a dream on paper into a reality, artist Steve Culp joined the project in the later stage. Culp, a Shreveport artist, delivered the skills as a welder and fabricator needed to complete the towering logo.
“A lot of people contact me to build things from a drawing, and I ask them if they’ve you seen my 3,000-story skyscraper,” said Culp, whose portfolio includes building championship race cars, airplanes, motorcycles, as well as a litany of antique restoration projects. “When they ask if that’s possible, my response is ‘no,’ but neither is this the way its drawn. I know what works.”
“Once I saw the concept, I knew what would work and started the engineering on it,” he said of the steel installation and stainless finial, which took two months for him to complete.
Culp, a former firefighter, added his own touch to the proposed logo installation by creating a finial atop the yellow, blue and red artwork. Inspired by an antique hood ornament, the finial is a homage to firefighters’ service to the community and features a figure holding a fire nozzle, reminiscent of the creature icon from the 1927 movie “Metropolis,” Culp said.
“I wanted it to have a connection to the fire department,” Culp said. “The finial is like saying Godspeed to the fireman, and I thought it would be cool.”
With the new sculpture capturing attention, SRAC hopes to bring more support and talent to the Central Artstation, as well as continue to support the growth of the downtown art district. SRAC Public Art Director Josh Porter, said the plan is to dot downtown with more installations and works of art in hopes of bringing attention to Shreveport’s artists.
–Elizabeth Branca
