Imagine your favourite cities. When people visit Paris, London, New York, Toronto, Moscow, Montreal, New Delhi, Tokyo, Edmonton or Calgary, they aren't coming for low taxes or roads without potholes.
People visit the world's great cities for the depth and breadth of their arts and culture, their history, their storehouses of human knowledge — in other words they come to experience the soul of the city. These are the wise words of the late Lois Hole, a St. Albertan who championed many causes that benefited the public good including art in public places. Public art is public good and I agree wholeheartedly with Lois and would further add that it is impossible to have a society that is civil and educated without public art. It lifts up humanity and challenges those who encounter it to think differently about the world.
The mayor and councillors of St. Albert recently unanimously approved the purchase of five stone sculptures and I want to applaud them for sharing this same vision, the vision of creating a community that is rich in its arts and culture and celebrates its heritage. Plenty of nonprofits, federal organizations and private investors believe that public art is something indispensable to city life despite the economic recession, which has proved quite cruel to art institutions, museums and artists alike. The economic benefit of the arts has been well documented and inarguably, public art is one of the ways to bring cultural tourism to St. Albert.
The arts make a huge impact on business and tourism and people come to work, play and do business in St. Albert because of the dynamic cultural energy here. One needs only to spend an hour near the sculptures along the river to appreciate that their value is so far-reaching; from the very young to the aged, people stop to admire, to touch, to reflect, to sketch, to photograph, to write, to ponder, to dream. And so it will be so for generations to come, thanks to the courage and foresight of our mayor and council.
Less than one percent — .0003 per cent to be exact — of the budget is a meagre price to pay to open minds and nourish souls. We need public art because it improves our quality of life, because it makes us stop and open our eyes, because it transforms the everyday to something that ignites conversation, to something sublime. I am proud to live and work in St. Albert, a city with soul.
Nancy Watt, St. Albert
