IUD college students chosen for Artwork within the Arboretum 2020 competitors | way of life

INDIANA, PA. – Two high-ranking studio art majors at Indiana University of Pennsylvania have been selected to be the recipients of the Art in the Arboretum 2020 competition to provide student artists with the opportunity to create art for the IUP’s Allegheny Arboretum.

David Salinas from Zelienople and Katie West from Pittsburgh created a design entitled “Birds of a Tree”, which was selected as a winning proposal by the Art in the Arboretum Selection Committee. Both were students in Sean Derry’s public art class, which works with the Art in the Arboretum project.

The Allegheny Arboretum was established in 2000 and covers the entire 374 acres of the IUP campus, including 150 acres of wooded area. In 2005, the Allegheny Arboretum officially became part of the university. It is overseen by the Allegheny Arboretum Board, which provides guidelines for achieving the goals and objectives of the arboretum.

The Allegheny Arboretum’s mission is to provide a learning environment both on and off campus that is designed to promote global understanding of temperate forests worldwide, promote an aesthetic appreciation for the regional flora of the Allegheny Plateau, and demonstrate practical uses of wood plant materials change and mitigate local environmental conditions.

Salinas is the son of Lee Ann and Carlos Salinas of Zelie Drive, Zelienople. He is a 2015 Seneca Valley School District graduate. He participated in the university’s U-SOAR summer research program. West, the child of Cindy and Larry West from Pittsburgh, is a 2016 Keystone Oaks High School graduate.

Both Salinas and West are members of the IUP Sculpture Support System, an IUP program designed to provide deeper work experience to highly motivated students through hands-on social projects that involve community members in a range of artistic processes.

When submitting their competition entry, the students suggested placing the sculpture in the Arboretum’s Confluence Discovery Park, a former industrial area and undeveloped multi-purpose space with floodplains that is surrounded by the central business district and the IUP campus and connects the southern part of the IUP Robertshaw -Building and the Indiana County Hoodlebug Trail.

Long-term plans for the Allegheny Arboretum are that Confluence Discovery Park will be a healthy and beautiful landscape with restored streams, new ponds, riparian forests, Mesian meadows and naturalized plantations. The trails, boardwalks, pavilions, and the visitor center will aid education and exploration for both study and tourism.

“Birds of a Tree” was suggested by the artists to stand on the northeast grass corner of the parking lot just off Wayne Avenue to complement ongoing efforts to revitalize the Wayne Avenue corridor and make the existing parking lot more welcoming and contributing to a contemporary one Element for the planned renovation of the parking lot and the pedestrian bridge.

The aim of “Birds of a Tree” is to create a focal point for visitors to the website, according to the artist, and to establish that “complementing the organic revitalization of this space is a central aim of the work of art”.

“Birds of a Tree” consists of four vertical sculptures presented on posts and a central vertical piece. The birds are made of wood and built in layers that are represented orbitally around a steel plate in the shape of an oak. Each bird is painted with an environmentally friendly milk paint, corresponding to the bird species common in Indiana, the Blue Jay,

The artists said that “the goal of this piece is to remind visitors of the different species of birds that are cared for under a house, the arboretum, and the cycles of restoration and rebirth,” and noted that the meaning of the Rebirth reminds people of the country’s history and its rebirth as Confluence Discovery Park.

“Birds of a Tree” is also designed as a teaching tool that introduces visitors to the website and shows which birds can be found in the arboretum and in the region.

“The selection committee loved the mix of art and education suggested in Birds of a Tree and the theme of rebirth,” said Dr. Jerry Pickering, Chairman of the Allegheny Arboretum Board of Directors. “It would be a great addition to Confluence Discovery Park.”

In 2015, Ray Kinter, IUP graduate of 1967 (Bachelor) and 1968 (Master) of the IUP, donated funds to establish the art in the Arboretum program, including the honorarium made available to the winning artists. Kinter, who lives in Colorado, is originally from Emporium.

The first sculpture in the Art in the Arboretum program, Legacy Marker, created by Jennifer Blalock, Anthony Bookhammer and Bill Brown, was selected in 2016 and installed in front of the IUP’s Sprowls Hall in 2018.

Allegheny Arboretum has Level 1 accreditation from the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and the Morton Arboretum. The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program is the only global initiative that officially recognizes Arboreta at various levels of development, capacity and professionalism.

The Allegheny Arboretum at the IUP is also recognized as an accredited arboretum on the Morton Register of Arboreta, a database of arboreta and gardens around the world dedicated to wood plants.

The Allegheny Arboretum was originally accredited in 2014 and named the 10th Most Beautiful College Arboretum by Best College Reviews in 2015.