The City of Lakewood’s public art program creates opportunities for collaboration between artists, and the City to create art designed for the public in our commercial corridors.
Since 2016, the City has been investing in public-private art projects to increase its value as a place that attracts and retains residents, entrepreneurs, employees, and entertainment offerings. Higher community values like these help attract and retain businesses and residents, while increasing social connections. Based on lessons learned from past projects, the City of Lakewood is happy to release the Request for Proposals for the 2025 Spectacular Vernacular program.
Spectacular Vernacular has provided funding for civic art projects within the City of Lakewood. The goal of the grant program is to incentivize investment in public art. The total available funding for this specific project is $33,000. The focus for this year’s program is vinyl wrapping of traffic signal boxes along Madison Avenue. The City is seeking to select 3-5 individual artists or artist groups that will create vinyl wraps for 42 traffic signal boxes (as budget allows) throughout the community. This year, the City will allow either singular artists or groups of artists to complete the project, with one main contact person for each artist of group. The number of boxes will be divided as evenly as possible among the selected artists.
Process
- The artist(s) submits portfolio and proposed theme (if you have one) for the boxes. If you prefer a specific box or set of boxes along Madison and want to tie that into your theme, please note that in your proposal. Along with the theme, the City will require renderings or examples of what the proposed art would look like. These can be sketches and not final images. Artwork should not act as an advertisement for any adjacent businesses.
- The artists will be selected by the City of Lakewood’s Public Art Advisory Board. Either a single artist or an artist group will be accepted, however, a group will be offered the same stipend as an individual.
- After selection, the artist(s) will work with City officials to flush out design. Check-ins with the Public Art Advisory Board will take place often throughout the design process.
- Project must be completed in 2025. See timeline for details.
- The artist will be awarded $500 per box for this program. This cost is solely for the artist’s time as the City will be utilizing remaining funds for materials and fabrication. The boxes are approximately 24” wide, 42.25” tall, and 22.79” deep. They will be covered on three sides of the box, not the top or bottom.
Project Timeline
- January 31 – Request for Proposal released.
- February 28 – Questions submitted to the City electronically by 12:00 p.m.
- March 7 – City responses to questions posted to City website.
- March 21 – Applications due, electronically, by 12:00 p.m.
- April 9 –Public Art Advisory Board meeting to select artists.
- May 16 – Preliminary concepts submitted to the City.
- May 21 – Special meeting of the Public Art Advisory Board to review preliminary concepts. After this, we will interact via email, phone, or in-person to finalize the design.
- June 20 – Final design documents submitted to City.
- September 30, 2025 – Project must be completed and implemented.
Eligibility
- Incomplete applications will not be considered.
- Artists must live in Cuyahoga County or adjacent counties.
- Artists who received city funds for two or more projects within the past 5 years may not be eligible.
Questions
Have questions about the project or process? Submit all questions by February 28th at 12pm to: Amanda
Cramer, AICP, Department of Planning and Development, amanda.cramer@lakewoodoh.gov.
Disclaimers
- All submissions become property of the City of Lakewood.
- Selection of artists by the City and the pursuit of all city activities are implemented without preference to racial or ethnic origins, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, disability, or age.
- The City reserves the right to modify this solicitation and to request additional information from the participating artist.
- The City reserves the right to accept or reject, at any time prior to the commissioning of a work, any or all proposals when the acceptance, rejection, waiver or advertisement would be in the best interest of the project or City.
- Additional traffic signal boxes may be added at the discretion of the City of Lakewood. Artists chosen may be approached to work on additional boxes if the budget allows.
Submittal Requirements and Instructions
- Maximum of 10 projects on 10 pages. Additional project pages will not be reviewed.
- Up to 10 projects of past two- and/or three-dimensional works. Some, but not all, images may be gallery work.
- Each project must include artist name, contact info, dimensions, artist’s role in the project, and project partners, if any.
- All materials must be in a single PDF file. Individual jpegs or Word files will NOT be accepted.
- PDF file name to include the Artist’s name, saved as “Artist Last Name_SV_Application”
- Emails exceeding 25MB will NOT be delivered to the inbox; multiple emails will NOT be accepted.
Email application materials by 12pm on March 21st to: amanda.cramer@lakewoodoh.gov.
For additional information, please contact:
Amanda Cramer, AICP
Department of Planning and Development
216-529-7679 / amanda.cramer@lakewoodoh.gov
Applicants will be notified as to the status of their application.