Charley Harper project is latest effort to give area an arts identity

Since 2013, Springfield Township has been positioning itself as an arts hot spot after officials created a nonprofit to attract residents and professionals from throughout the area to its sponsored large-scale art projects and its arts center.

Oct. 8, the township will honor one of its favorite sons, Charley Harper, an American Modernist artist whose stylized wildlife artworks became advertisement, magazine and book illustrations, and prints and posters. ArtsConnect will unveil a sculpture, The Many Sides of Charley Harper, at the intersection of Winton and Galbraith roads.

Sculpture Dedication
What: The Many Sides of Charley Harper sculpture project.
When: 10:30-11:30 a.m. Oct. 8.
Where: Shopping plaza at the corner of Winton and Galbraith roads, Springfield Township.
What to expect: In addition to the unveiling, sculpture artist Micah Landers will share his process and intent of the 360-degree sculpture. A keepsake gift will be presented to the first 75 guests at the dedication. Community members can enjoy a cup of custom-created Charley Harper-inspired coffee, cider or hot chocolate by Carabello Coffee.
Additional info: theartsconnect.us

“The way ArtsConnect came about is just a unique partnership with the township that makes the arts sustainable in our community, and it really, really works,” Kimberlee Flamm, executive director of ArtsConnect, says. Other communities have approached the township to see how it came together.

Township trustees passed a resolution in September 2012 to create a nonprofit—the Arts and Enrichment Council—then a board was established to launch the nonprofit in support of the township the next year. In 2014, the effort was rebranded as ArtsConnect.

Flamm, who is also township marketing and communications director, has worked for the township since 2008. She took on the additional role of executive director of ArtsConnect in 2015.

The first big community art project was the Brentwood Bowl “Creatress” mural, depicting Mother Nature on the side of the building, in June 2018. ArtsConnect received a grant and led the design process for the mural. The board then began discussing the next project that would fulfill its mission “to create an engaged and vibrant community through the arts and events.”

ArtsConnect received a $15,000 Ohio Arts Council grant after the onset of the COVID-19 coronavirus in a funding program designed to help sustain the arts through the pandemic.

The board decided on a Charley Harper legacy project. Already, the township had been putting up banners on Winton Road featuring Harper’s artwork each spring and fall. The Harper project was a no-brainer.

Harper was born Aug. 4, 1922, in West Virginia. He moved to the area to attend the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where he met his wife, Edie, whom he married after he served in World War II. They had a son, Brett, and settled in Springfield Township, where they lived for almost 50 years. Harper died June 10, 2007.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Harper’s birth, Wild Life: The Life and Work of Charley Harper, a 336-page coffee-table-style hardback, was published this year, with son Brett and Margaret Rhodes serving as co-editors. Harper’s many works appeared in such publications as The Giant Golden Book of Biology, Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two and Ford Motor Co.’s Ford Times magazine through his five-plus decades as an artist.

The ArtsConnect board advertised early this year for proposals from artists, with no parameters, except “that it had to be a Charley Harper-inspired art piece,” including weather-resistance, Flamm says. An art review committee, consisting of local residents and township employees, examined the proposals and narrowed the field down to two artists and interviewed them. Brett Harper also was part of the process of selecting the artist and artwork.

“It was something that none of us had envisioned,” Flamm says. “This artist came to us with a really unique concept, and I’m super excited about this.”

That artist is Micah Landers, whose vision for the sculpture captured the committee. Another artist, Andy Finn, is assisting Landers.

The sculpture will feature four of Harper’s artworks, selected by residents in a vote on selected images: “Ladybug”; the deer featured in Animals in America’s National Parks, a children’s activity book; “Cardinal Closeup”; and the “Cool Carnivore” tiger. The sculpture is about 8 feet tall and 8 feet wide. A digital component—with facts about Harper, a QR code for more information and interactive components—also will be part of the display.

Flamm says “a lot of people don’t know where Springfield Township is; they know where Finneytown is”—where many of the township’s retail businesses are located. With parts of seven school districts in the township, there’s not a dominant school system that helps identify the township. That’s why the focus on the arts became an identity driver.

“It makes place-making really important for us,” Flamm says. “When we did the mural at Brentwood Bowl, people started connecting Springfield Township as this arts community.”

The intersection of Winton and Galbraith roads is one of the most-trafficked intersections in Southwest Ohio with more than 50,000 vehicles a day and is a major community gateway into Springfield Township, Flamm says. “Putting a beacon, or some kind of a marker, there really makes sense.”

Brentwood Bowl, which opened in 1960, didn’t survive the pandemic, closing in September 2020. The township was concerned about the fate of the mural. But a craft-beer brewery was attracted by the mural in particular and the push to make Springfield Township an arts-centric community in general, Flamm says. It currently is seeking financing to open in the former Brentwood Bowl building.

The Charley Harper sculpture project is expected to brighten the spotlight on the arts in Springfield Township. The township is providing landscaping funding, while ArtsConnect is in charge of the project.

“Our township board of trustees has made it part of their strategic plan that the arts are in this community, and it helps with economic development, and it helps with recruitment of bringing in a new community member,” Flamm says.

Springfield Township Arts Center, behind the township administration building, opened in 2020 and provides classes for everyone from preschoolers to senior adults. More than 50 artists are contracted as instructors in “pottery, blacksmithing, drawing, painting—if it’s arts, we’ve got it,” Flamm says.

The center originally was a senior center that provided some classes and, after renovation to an arts center, activity has grown by 300% from 2020 to 2022, she says.

“It has been a dream in the making for so long,” she says. “It’s so amazing to see it all take place. We see every room being filled with people doing all of these activities that are arts related. It’s kind of like their happy place. It’s so positive.”