As thousands of participants plan to meander through Mid City this Friday for White Light Night, many will pass by a newly installed piece of public art at Government and Eugene streets.
On Wednesday, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and other officials cut the ribbon on the contemporary work, which was funded by the volunteer-run Mid City Merchants (MCM) with proceeds from White Light Night and the merchants’ other major arts event, Hot Art Cool Nights. Broome commented on the character of Mid City as she cut the ribbon.
“I’m going to be extremely transparent and say that Mid City is one of my favorite areas of Baton Rouge,” Broome says. “The sculpture that we’re looking at today is one of the reasons why. When I think about Mid City, I think about (it) as a snapshot of the diversity, the inclusivity, the creativity and innovation that is within our city-parish.”
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Located on a small green between Boudreaux’s Catering and Baton Rouge Magnet High School, the 20-foot-high aluminum sculpture was created by Shreveport artists Bruce Allen and KaDavien Baylor. Entitled “Spirit Rising,” it’s intended to evoke the four elements: earth, wind, fire and water. The piece features nine rods organized in a grid pattern that reach skyward, each bending in a slightly different fashion at the top.
The project has been underway since 2022. MCM partnered with the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge to issue a national call to artists. They received dozens of nationwide responses, Lemoine says. A committee comprised of those organizations, along with the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance and noted Baton Rouge artist Sam Corso, narrowed the proposals to five, three of which were from Louisiana.
Organizer Justin Lemoine, a volunteer and former Mid City Merchants board member, says the project is the first of its kind for MCM.
“Over the last few decades, we’ve had a lot of beautification and murals, but this is our first signature piece of public sculpture in Mid City,” he says.
Allen and Baylor, established artists in north Louisiana, had never worked jointly on a piece of art. They knew each other from working on the Shreveport Regional Arts Council’s annual Christmas in the Sky event, Baylor says.
“We had really good chemistry, and when this project came up we were like, ‘We should work together on this,” Baylor says. “We were blessed to be able to receive the commission and got to work in Bruce’s studio. It was pretty seamless, how the project came together—the design and what we wanted to communicate. We just took off with it.”
Allen says the duo wanted the design to mirror the eclectic Mid City neighborhood.
“The idea for this piece had to do with the four elements that are basic to human existence,” he says. “And it reflects the texture of the neighborhood. We also thought about how it would be situated in this particular site. The silver offers a contrast to the live oaks and other trees.”
The design called for a 3-foot mound, representing earth and borrowing from the design of Native American mounds, Allen says.
Water is evoked by the rippled etchings in the aluminum. Wind is depicted literally—the sculpture sways slightly at the top on windy days. And the rods’ curvatures at the top could be waves or flickering flames.
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Allen says the pair worked on the piece over eight months. They brought the completed work from Shreveport to Baton Rouge on a flatbed truck a couple weeks ago for installation. It arrived as a large, single unit and was installed on the site with help from Arkel Constructors. JR Construction Solutions created the 3-foot foundation, and GroundWorks installed the sod, Lemoine says.
Amber H. Wroten, MCM president, says the new public sculpture fits into the culture of Mid City—particularly as it prepares for one of its biggest annual arts events.
“We are a community of artists and vendors and neighbors,” she says. “We all work together for the same goal. And this gives us something to look at every day that says, ‘This is our community, and we’re proud of it.’’’