COLUMBIA, S.C. — Things are about to get fishy in Columbia thanks to a new public art installation. Right now, local artists are putting finishing touches on human-size trout statues that will be auctioned off and set up around the city.
The Broad, the Saluda and the Congaree River are all key features of the City of Columbia that the Columbia Streams project is trying to represent.
“I think it was a great, great project for us to do and kind of learn and grow as a community,” local artist Carol Brady explained.
Brady is one of the artists chosen to paint a trout statue for the project. Her inspiration? The river.
“I wanted it to look that it was really like being drenched by water. And I wanted to bring in, like, dark colors because, you know, our waterways are beautiful, but they also have a very deep history. And there are several projects right now to clean up our rivers. And so I wanted to show that there's both, you know, things about it that are messy, but also beautiful,” Brady shared. “I think a lot of times, we're kind of driving over the bridges or like, you know, running by the rivers, but we're not really realizing that the rivers really are part of the city. And they run through us and we run through them and that relationship can sometimes be forgotten. But it's such an important part for our ecosystems, our environment.”
Thirty-five other artists are participating in the Columbia Streams project, which Mayor Daniel Rickenmann launched this fall.
“We're capturing art, we're capturing our past, our present and our future. And I think that's what the most important part is,” Rickenmann said.
Growing up, Rickenmann says he remembers seeing similar art projects around different cities.
“Now you've seen Lexington, Kentucky is one they have the horse. Mount Pleasant has the oyster. Henderson, North Carolina has the apple, you know, and so why wouldn’t we try to celebrate with all that we're investing in, really bringing recognition to our riverfront, why would we not take a fish, a trout and use that as a basis as a way to generate not only funding here in in Columbia for the arts program, but a way to bring the community together and have fun?” Rickenmann detailed. “So having high schoolers involved, having the universities and colleges involved, having artists involved. Really at the end of the day, we want these things to be bought by businesses and displayed across our city to draw attention not only to the river but just create a fun, fun kind of game. How many fish have you had your picture made with? Or do things to get the public excited about moving around downtown.”
Rickenmann says when it came to selecting the statue type he wanted to bring to Columbia, he selected fiberglass trout statues to represent the rivers.
“Suddenly you got a group project, you know, where groups come together, artists have come together and a theme that that really people have a big passion for. And you know, we're just now really discovering our river. We're really utilizing it and opening the access that just we haven't had in decades. So I think the timing, the project, the fish is what I call the perfect storm,” Rickenmann shared. “When it’s all said and done, we're gonna have probably 27 miles of trail on the riverfront. And that becomes a regional destination. There's not a lot of places in the US that have that. We're opening up our partnership with Dominion Energy to open up 200 acres that we didn't have access to. Irmo Chapin Recreation Commission who's driving the other piece of bringing all and connected together and then suddenly you've got access, you know, in a city that gets 16 million visitors, this is just another way to promote the natural assets that we have.”
It’s a space that people visit often, like Jnae Lomax and Emory Mack, who brought their daughter Braylen to the riverwalk. After seeing pictures of the completed trout statues, the couple says they’re excited to see the statues officially on display.
“It is nice to have around the city since it’s a river, so it fits the ambiance of the place,” Mack shared.
“I love it! It seems like a great way for Columbia to identify itself and I love the symbolism of the trout being that were made of three rivers. So I think it's beautiful,” West Columbia resident Jenny Harrison added. “It's rare to have a downtown city bordering a river. So yeah, any exposure like that is great.”
In addition to highlighting the river, Rickenmann said beautifying the city with public art has a larger value.
“You can't have a place that people want to visit and feel comfortable in if you don't have parks, art, restaurants, retail, they all go together. It's part of the fabric and it makes you feel good,” Rickenmann explained. “When you're outside walking around, and we're in a place now where 20 years ago we weren't. People walk everywhere now. 20 years ago, everybody's looking for a parking lot. Today, people want to walk. They want to walk from Main Street to the Vista or from the university down or from Benedict down to Five Points. They want to be part of that. What are we seeing, we're seeing murals everywhere, we're seeing public art, people taking pictures and being part of that.”
It’s beautifying the area while uniting the community says Katie Pfrommer, another artist participating in the project.
“I think this is just a cool way to bring everybody together through the arts,” Pfrommer, an art teacher at Dreher High School, smiled. “We wanted to kind of create unity and inclusiveness of every student here, so we had every homeroom fill out a sheet of name scales, and so each student could create their own little mini artwork of their name inside of a scale. And then we took those and painstakingly cut them out and my National Art Honor Society installed them.”
Pfrommer worked with National Art Honor Society students like Quentin Hilley and Sophie Martin for two months on a statue of their own.
“I think it’s really really awesome that not only we got to be a part of the trout, but the whole school’s community did and everybody got to put in their little piece of the whole thing, which I think is very cool,” Hilley shared. “I think it just broadens the amount of people that were touched by this cool experience.”
It’s a benefit of the program that Brady recognizes as well.
“I think that Columbia isn't necessarily known across the state as a big hub for art. But we are,” Brady detailed. “There's so many creatives and artists in this city, and we all know each other. We work hard to get our name out there. But having a public place to really kind of announce ourselves and come together is such an important way for us to establish ourselves as a city of creatives and intellectuals, which we are.”
A trait that Hilley, an 11th grader, says he’s noticed growing up in Columbia.
“I think Columbia is already pretty artsy I’d like to think, just living here all the years I’ve lived here and all the murals and beautiful pieces of art, I feel like it’s just part of the city’s culture and I think it's just very important especially with Soda City and all of the art and clothes and cultures that are here already,” Hilley said. “I feel like it’s very important for bringing us all together.”
Mayor Rickenmann says he’s planning for the community to come together physically for an auction, where the sculptures will be sold. The money raised will go back to the city to fund more public art projects in the future, Rickenmann says.