Lenoir -- Where sculpture reigns

CALDWELL COUNTY IS DOTTED WITH NEARLY 50 OUTDOOR WORKS OF ART

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

New York. Paris. Lenoir?

Major cities boasting public art collections have a rival in Caldwell County, now officially one of the nation's premier areas for public outdoor sculpture.

Nearly 50 works of art, including Mike Roig's prominent West Wind Sentinel on U.S. 321, are scattered around the county, putting it among the largest outdoor public sculpture collections, per capita, in the U.S.
Residents of Caldwell County knew the collection was one of the nation's most extensive, said Caldwell Arts Council executive director Carol Lee Giduz, but it was something the arts council had never officially confirmed.

The Smithsonian in Washington, however, had been tracking the county's collection as part of its Save Outdoor Sculpture initiative, said art council member Norma Suddreth.

"They (told us) that we had a large number of sculpture for a town our size," she said, "but the number they credited us with was lower than what we actually had."

A study by the mathematics department of Appalachian State University and graduate student Jane Robertson confirmed that the county ranked No. 1 for communities its size, and in the top 2 percent in the U.S.

"No one of a similar population even came close to the collection size," Robertson said.

The statistics were confirmed by the N.C. secretary of cultural resources.

Said Giduz: "There's sculpture gardens and sculpture parks, but we have a sculpture county."



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