Saranac Lake Arts and Culture Board Chair Kirk Sullivan and village Trustee Sean Ryan hold a rendering of the metal mountain mural local artist Dan King is designing for Ward Plumadore Park, at the corner of Broadway and Bloomingdale Avenue.
(Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)
SARANAC LAKE — The village Community Enhancement Fund is commissioning a local blacksmith artist to create mountainous metallic art for Ward Plumadore Park, bringing light and life to a park which planners feel needs work.
Tupper Lake-based blacksmith Dan King will craft a steel mural-sculpture hybrid to be installed on the back wall of the park’s ground floor, which will be lit up at night.
Village Arts and Culture Advisory Board Chair Kirk Sullivan announced the plans for what he’s calling a “mountainscape mural” at the village’s July 22 meeting.
“Nobody’s extremely happy with the park at the moment,” he said.
That’s why members of the Community Enhancement Fund — a volunteer subcommittee made up of two members from each of village’s three advisory boards — chose to focus their efforts on the park this year.
“We all agreed that that park could use some thoughtful consideration as to how to make it more inviting, appealing and useful for the public,” Sullivan said. “It kind of had a feeling like it’s unfinished.”
As it stands, Ward Plumadore Park, located at the intersection of Broadway and Bloomingdale Avenue, has a concrete and wood seating area with built-in planters for flowers. The subcommittee members racked their brains with plans to beautify the park and find a purpose for the land. The park is sort of a new creation, he said.
“Why does it exist?” That was the question asked by subcommittee members, Sullivan said.
He said the art installation will give the park a theme as a “mini-mountain” and turn the “ugly concrete slab” into a symbol of the beautiful landscape around the village.
The CEF is putting $10,000 into the project. King will fabricate the mountains at his new shop in Tupper Lake. His previous workshop and home at the former Wheel Inn in Tupper Lake burned in a fire in June and he’s been rebuilding his workspace at another location ever since. Sullivan said they hope to install the art before winter.
Ward Plumadore Park was redeveloped as part of the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant the state awarded the village of Saranac Lake in 2018.
In all, the village received $4.3 million through the DRI for seven public projects, one of which was Ward Plumadore Park. The park upgrades was expected to cost $276,942. The park ended up costing more than expected because diesel fuel was discovered in its soil, which triggered a state-mandated cleanup.
King’s Saranac Lake friends, Peter Seward and Ren Davidson Seward, provided him with a painted mural design and suggested he reformat it into a metal structure.
King said he will use corten steel for the art — material used in embankments to support bridges and seawater retention walls.
“It’s a type of material that creates an intentional corrosion on the surface,” King said.
The mountains’ appearance will change over time as the metal rusts over several months to create an earthy look. When all of the electrons on the surface are bonded with oxygen, the alloys form a stable, crystalline chain and prevents further oxygen bonding below the surface — stopping the inside from corroding.
CEF members asked if King could include recognizable mountain chains and King said he could. Some of the mountains will be the outlines of the Saranac Lake 6er peaks — an Easter egg for “discerning eyes,” King said.
The mountains are a point of pride for the community, he added. He wants to show how their timeless strength impacts the people who live among them.
“We draw strength from the mountains, we draw inspiration from the mountains, we get nourished in our souls from the mountains,” King said.
Sullivan said the Arts and Culture Advisory board members are excited to finish the park, describing it as a “blank canvas,” with plans to do more with it in the future.
The Bitters and Bones brewery next to the park, which is co-owned in part by village Mayor Jimmy Williams and his brother town Councilman Johnny Williams, has been hosting concerts in the upper area of the park on Saturdays.
Sullivan said there’s also a plan to install a new insect as part of the Saranac Lake Bug Crawl of metallic bug sculptures around the village.