The Coventry Living Room Project aims to create a public gathering space that strengthens the sense of community in the Coventry neighborhood.
We plan to take inspiration from parklets, pedestrian plazas, and other examples of community-building infrastructure in our and other cities. Throughout the process, we’ll design the space with those who live, work, and play in Coventry. This is a community-led project sponsored by the Coventry Village Special Improvement District.
The Coventry Living Room Project seeks proposals from artists for the design and execution of public art on furniture that will be installed at Pekar Park (Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard) as part of a new outdoor gathering space.
The Art Project
The Coventry Living Room Project is a volunteer-led place-making effort. Our goal is to create a public, outdoor gathering space that strengthens the sense of community in the Coventry Village neighborhood of Cleveland Heights. The installation will include several pieces of wooden furniture, including a small stage, two rectangular picnic tables, an octagonal picnic table, a kid-sized rectangular picnic table, six Adirondack-style chairs, and two side tables.
We are seeking an artist to design and paint the furniture. Given the budget and timeline, we expect designs to be relatively simple. However, we are interested in creating a coherent design across the furniture that, where possible, incorporates aspects that reflect the “living room” theme and/or the history and culture of the Coventry Village commercial district.
Compensation
The artist will be paid $2,500 upon the successful and timely completion of their work. The Coventry Living Room Project will provide a budget for material costs.
Proposal Requirements
A proposal should include:
If selected for an interview, the artist will be asked to bring 2-3 partial proposals (e.g., sketches of proposed design).
ART Timeline
Please review the timeline below to ensure that you have the capacity to meet the deadlines. Artists are welcome to recruit other individuals to assist them in completing the project. However, we cannot provide additional compensation.
Send questions to Cole Ware (ware.cole@gmail.com).
Through a series of community design sessions, residents and local stakeholders collectively came up with the following design principles for the project:
Design Principles
The principles below are a synthesis of themes from both the design session and submissions on the online feedback form:
Our current timeline is below:
November 2022: Work with community members to create design principles for the project.
December 2022: Develop design options based on those principles.
January 2023: Select a draft design based on community feedback.
February-June 2023: Fundraising, permitting, and purchasing materials.
July 2023: Build our new gathering space.
July-October 2023: Maintain our new space for the community.
October 2023: Take down our installation for the cold months.
Contact Cole Ware at ware.cole@gmail.com.
