Art on the Move: Burlington Selects Temporary Home for Sculptures

The Burlington Sculpture Park will be spreading out along Center Street while the police station is being renovated.

The Sculpture Park, currently located in the field between the Burlington Police Station and Grandview Farm, opened in 2020 and hosts three sculptural benches and 11 sculptures, two of which sit on the corner of the Town Common across from the Sculpture Park. The town owns six of the sculptures and leases the other five, said Jonathan Sachs, the park’s founder.

Three of the sculptures were purchased and three were donated, and most of the sculptors are from Massachusetts or New England. L’Heureux said the total value of the sculptures is $123,500, but they cost the town much less: The committee purchased one for $9,000 using funds allocated by the Town Meeting and another for $7,000 using funds raised from last summer’s Pigs on Parade event.

The sculpture Global Warming, a pair of yellow cherries with a map of the world etched into them, was made and leased to Burlington by a Ukrainian artist but could not be returned once the war broke out, Sachs said. The committee raised $14,000 in donations to buy the sculpture and sent the money to the artist in Ukraine.

One work, depicting two cardinals on top of a heart, was commissioned and donated by Maureen Wall in honor of her parents.

Other pieces in the park take the shapes of a dragonfly, a dragon, a dog, a woman with a child, and more abstract designs. The sculptures are of varying sizes and made of different materials, though most of them are made of steel. 

Pigs on Parade Brought Visibility and Whimsy to the Burlington Public Arts Scene

Many Burlington residents do not know the Sculpture Park exists, because it feels tucked away, L’Heureux said, but everyone she talks to knows about the Pigs on Parade project last summer.

The committee purchased 16 white resin pigs, and Burlington companies and residents sponsored and painted them, Sachs said. The pigs stayed on the Town Common for the summer and have since moved to locations around Burlington.

The pigs project had multiple goals, such as raising money for the park, providing fun for the community and enlivening the area, L’Heureux said. The town also tested whether any problems would arise, such as damage to the sculptures, she said.

“It was incredibly successful because we had crowds of people for the event when we first unveiled them,” L’Heureux said. “But then afterwards, every time I drove by the Common I saw people there, people with their kids, people with their grandparents, people having their dogs pose with the pigs.”

Making Way for a New Police Station

The pigs have found their forever homes, but the rest of Burlington’s  sculptures will need a temporary location for two years while the police station is demolished and rebuilt. 

The Public Arts Committee, formerly known as the Sculpture Park Committee, presented two options at the February 10 Select Board meeting. Barbara L’Heureux, chair of the Public Arts Committee and Planning Board member, said one option is to put four sculptures on the Town Common — two on the Cambridge Street side and two on the Center Street side — and five sculptures across the street in front of the municipal buildings. Another option would place all nine sculptures along the edges of the Town Common. The committee has also considered putting the sculptures at 61 Center Street, where the Senior Center and Recreation Department are located, but does not prefer this location because it is even more “out of the way,” L’Heureux said.

At a follow-up meeting on March 10, several more potential layouts were presented, including the east side of the Common near the bandstand and various walkway configurations. L’Heureux expressed the committee's flexibility, saying they'd be satisfied with any of the options and are ready to implement whatever the board decides.

Board members had differing views on the best approach. Nick Priest worried about clustering the sculptures, saying it might decrease usability of public space. Sarah Cawley and Jim Tigges say they’ve heard strong community support for moving the sculptures to the Common, citing 75-85% of communication they’ve received has been in support of the move.

Mike Espejo, however, said he prefers to keep the Common as is. “Some people are very protective of our Common and want to keep it the same and keep it as a kind of sacred space,” Espejo said on February 10. “And with the pigs, the difference was that it was a few months. We’re talking a few years here.” Joe Morandi agreed, adding that most people who reached out to him said they didn’t want the sculptures moving to the Common.

In a 3-2 vote, the board approved a temporary move to an area near the Center Street-Bedford Street intersection, potentially extending to both sides of Center Street. The final placement will be decided in collaboration with the Recreation Department at a future meeting, with an eye toward ensuring pedestrian safety and the maneuverability of equipment around the sculptures.

Expanding Public Art in Burlington

The Public Arts Committee recently decided to change its name to reflect the broader goals of the committee to include other art projects beyond sculptures, L’Heureux said.

“We intend to continue with the Sculpture Park and put just as much effort in it as we always have,” L’Heureux said. “But we'd like to expand outside of that, and some of the things that we'd like to consider doing in the future are things like murals and painting painted electrical boxes.”

The committee has collaborated with the New England Sculpture Association, which helped guide members through the process because most of them had no professional art experience, L’Heureux said.

Despite the upcoming relocation, the committee hopes the Sculpture Park will become a permanent fixture because there has been a “tremendous response from the people in Burlington, from both the residents and businesses,” L’Heureux said.

Bob Buckley, the Public Arts Committee business representative, said while he and Sachs have had clashing views in the past over certain economic development projects, they came together to make the Sculpture Park happen. 

Buckley said the art scene in Burlington benefits the town because it makes it a more desirable, engaging place to live, which attracts more businesses.

The Nordblom Company, which owns the 3rd Ave development in Burlington, has gone from supporting the Sculpture Park — giving the committee its first donation to get the park started — to starting its own outdoor art program, L’Heureux said.

Todd Fremont-Smith, Nordblom’s senior vice president of development, said the company started its art program in partnership with the New England Sculpture Association a couple of years after the Sculpture Park opened. The company is spending $25,000 a year to buy and install art in and around 3rd Ave.

“I think that the art adds texture and cultural depth to the park,” Fremont-Smith said. “It makes it more authentic.”

Regardless of where the sculptures end up for the next two years, it is clear that the public art scene in Burlington is expanding, adding character and visual appeal to the town.

This story is part of a partnership between Burlington Buzz and the Boston University Department of Journalism.