Public artist: desperately seeking love

Syracuse Public Artist in Residence Brendan Rose wants to build a monument to your love. He only requires one favor in return: tell him a story.

Like many of his previous exhibitions, Rose’s love project is a collaboration with the community at large. This time around, Rose is calling on all Syracusans to send in love stories describing public places in Syracuse where they felt love.

According to the SPAR website, “These stories and photographs will form a portrait of Syracuse’s ‘Love Landscape,’ which will be part of an exhibition of public art in Syracuse and will help inspire the form of a sculpture being designed for downtown.”

But sadly, this is no time for love, Dr. Jones. The deadline for submissions is Friday October 7, and as of Thursday afternoon, the project had received little to no love stories, said Francesca Merwin, communications coordinator at Connective Corridor.

“I think we’re going to go to the bus hub downtown with a videocamera to look for stories," said Merwin. "We’re just going to see who we can find.”

The love project’s performance trouble stems in part to lack of press; information about the project appears on the SPAR and Connective Corridor websites—and that’s about it.

Rose’s previous attempt at community involvement, on the other hand, was successful. He built a serpent sculpture, and left it up to the community to decide its name via a naming contest. On one day, the serpent received over 65 name submissions, said Maarten Jacobs, director of the Near Westside Initiative and co-creator of the serpent sculpture. That contest was decided earlier this week—and the winner is: “Loch West Monster.”

While the love stories deadline is ostensibly Friday, Merwin said they will continue to look at submissions afterward, seeing as how apparently no one could find it in their heart to participate this time around.