What are Utility Wraps for? Notes on Art and History

Recent walks in downtown have turned up a few new art wraps on utility vaults, and with the history wraps they pose questions about what are they really for.

One of our downtown alleys is named after the "Mayor of Chinatown," George Lai Sun. It runs north and south connecting State and Ferry Streets, parallel to High and Liberty Streets.

George Lai Sun Alley sign on Ferry Street

A few years ago when the City installed a round of history interpretive panels, they installed a wrap on a utility vault on the corner of State and High featuring George Lai Sun.

George Lai Sun quoted at the Patton party
Interpretive sign on State and High

Here's a detail.

George Lai Sun quote featured

It reads:

I like Salem because all people treat me nicely. Then my children all grow up. They can vote but I have been here so long, for fifty-four years next June, I ought to be a citizen. I ought to be voting too. I see some country-man come over to this country; he stay not very long, three or four years; he can vote. Why I be here fifty-four years altogether, why I cannot vote? I ought to be citizen too. They must make mistake, something wrong.

Right at this moment in our history, with the 14th Amendment and the nature of citizenship under attack, this quote, which in our public history we have deemed important and worth featuring, urgently deserves more attention in our public history.

But the quote is not interpreted much, if at all, in the histories. It is merely cited as if its significance were clear and obvious. Without explication and interpretation, it risks being a quaint ornament from a history that is no longer relevant. At worst, because it was rendered by white writers emulating vernacular in a second language, it might come off a little clownish, a kind of self-deprecating humor tailored to the audience, or worse, parody. But there is real pain there. To swerve from this because it might be "political" is to avoid the ways our history and our lives always take place in contexts shaped by policy and politics.

New Art Wraps

On the art wraps, there were several that appeared to be new around downtown. They offer a less clear case for "more" than the history wrap, but overall they are too ornamental and do not convey significance very well.

One is based on "Historic Roman Scene" by Lorenzo Cabaniss and has been hanging in City Hall, maybe in the Mayor or City Manager office.

Lorenzo Cabaniss at Chemeketa and High

It was a little odd since it shows a Roman dome, out of place in Salem. But maybe Cabaniss was local.

This led to an increasingly common instance of Google search fail. "Lorenzo Cabaniss" didn't turn up anything.  Duckduckgo returned very different results. Even searching for "Lorenzo," it made a useful substitution and showed art for a "Larry Cabaniss," whose style and subject matter is obviously the same as what is in our painting.

Our Salem painting must be signed "Lorenzo," but that does not appear to be a meaningful description any more.

And at least by secondary market valuations, which are low, he is not regarded currently as an important artist; since he does not seem to be local, it is reasonable to ask whether this painting actually should be promoted on a wrap. If he deserves a revival, an art wrap is probably not the best place to launch it. If that's not important right now, shouldn't we give that space to someone local or someone more significant? 

Two others were of local artists, and their cases for wraps are much clearer.

Andrew McDuffie Vincent does deserve to be better known.

Andrew McDuffie Vincent, Commercial and Ferry

Vincent is very much local and significant. He has a painting at the Portland Art Museum and one at Hallie Ford. Here in Salem, his WPA-era mural in the second Post Office, now the State Executive Office, "Builders of Salem," might be the most important work, though now it is also largely inaccessible.

The pop of primary colors in "La Croisette, Cannes" also helps this wrap a lot. The original appears to be on the bottom floor of the Library, possibly in work space rather than public space, and it also might be largely inaccessible.

With the Library threatened, the role of public funding for art and culture is worth more attention, and WPA-era art and architecture vital evidence for that.

Our most notable WPA-era creation (1936)

Carl Hall certainly does deserve to be better known, and his landscapes from right around here are lovely, enchanting the landscape and river with what the Oregon Encyclopedia calls his "magic realism."

Carl Hall "Willamette at Floodtide" on left at Library (2021)

The painting "Willamette at Floodtide" is on a west wall on the Library main floor, and mood of the dulled light evokes winter rain, high water, and gloom, but also the approaching lushness of spring. It speaks to our place here.

The wrap downtown uses a different painting. While the color palette is broadly correct, the painting chosen for the wrap is too full of drab green, and the image seemed to be too zoomed in, not giving a full vista and view of a painting. If you wanted to grab attention for a painting by Carl Hall, this does not seem to be the way to do it. There's no magic here!

Carl Hall on State and Church

The choices on some of these wraps are odd. Staff and designers may not take enough time to imagine an ordinary citizen encountering them and then imagine the questions they generate and follow-on actions. It seems as though the reception side of interpretation is not given enough weight. What are the desired "next steps" and how does the wrap express them? Scanning a QR code just keeps things digital and superficial. But if we care about the physicality of things and the real world in which we live, our embodied existence, what are these wraps pointing to?

With both the history wrap on Chinatown and the art wraps in general, any vision and purpose could be sharpened. More could be done with them.

Previously on the first round of art wraps.