BANGOR, Maine — A 10-foot-tall “monumental fiberglass buoy-like floating sculpture” could be anchored in the Kenduskeag Stream in downtown Bangor this summer.
The buoy “will appear and disappear from ground level, with the rising and falling 16-foot tides,” according to the artist, Anna Hepler of Eastport.
Bangor’s Business and Economic Development Committee approved a $1,000 Individual Artist Grant — the maximum amount allowed and the first such grant issued by the city — during a meeting Tuesday night. The grant awards are recommended by the city’s Commission for Cultural Development. Hepler said in her application with the city that she’ll work to raise another $5,000 toward the project on her own.
That grant will be up for approval by the full council during a meeting Monday, Jan. 12.
Hepler will have a solo exhibition on display from June through September at the University of Maine Museum of Art, which flanks the Kenduskeag Stream between Central and State streets. The piece will be part of that display, and Hepler said she hopes it will draw people to the museum.
Her work has appeared in galleries across Maine, as well as nationally — including the National Gallery of Art and Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. — and internationally — at Tate Gallery in London.
“Waterways are rarely used as sites for artwork, though we revel in the dark mystery of them and the romance of floating upon them,” Hepler wrote in her application.
The intricately shaped pale orange buoy will “have a life of its own; shifting position with the tide, and shifting its presence with the changing atmospheric conditions,” she added.
Once her exhibition at the University of Maine Museum of Art wraps up, Hepler plans to move her work to another site in Passamaquoddy Bay near Eastport.
“It is my hope that this buoy can appear in several locations in Maine during its lifetime,” Helper said.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter @nmccrea213.