Quincy Square artists selected as project takes shape in downtown Bremerton

Three artists have been selected to make major contributions to Bremerton's Quincy Square project, moving the transformation of Fourth Street ahead as soon as this summer to recognize the former city resident and the community's African Americans history with two separate pieces – a large woven bronze sculpture and a mural on a four-story parking garage bursting with warm colors.

The Quincy Square project aims to revitalize a stretch of Fourth Street from Pacific Avenue to Washington Avenue with a focus on arts, entertainment, and evening-centric retail spaces. The reimagined square will feature a walkway painted like Quincy Jones’ famous piano-keys that can be closed off for community events.

In October the Bremerton Arts Commission issued a call for artists that drew 50 submissions from around the country for a mural and 30 for a sculpture, which were narrowed down to a handful of finalists, project manager Katie Ketterer said. On April 18 the city announced the selection of San Diego artists James Dinh and Michael Stutz to commissioning a sculpture, planned to be installed at the intersection of Fourth Street and Pacific, and Louisiana artist KaDavien Baylor to commission the mural at Fourth and Washington.

“With the theme of the mural, with this sculpture, it does promote diversity in our community and it’s a rich part of our history that hasn’t been fully told,” said Bremerton Mayor Greg Wheeler. “I fully believe that this will be a unifier for our community, it will be an opportunity for us to learn more about our history that hasn’t fully been explained.”

Through their proposed pieces, the sculptors and muralist tell a story of the wide-spread impact of Jones’ achievements in the music industry after he left his childhood home of Bremerton, and the spirit of unity at the heart of the Quincy Square project.

Bremerton through the eye of Quincy Jones

James Dinh and Michael Stutz were drawn to Bremerton’s call for artists after having recently watched a Netflix documentary called “The Greatest Night in Pop,” which featured a segment about the song “We Are the World” which Quincy Jones produced in 1985. The two were struck by Jones’ “amazing ability to bring people of different backgrounds and musical genres and different generations together.”

This special talent of Jones’ became a framework for their proposal.

Their sculpture will resemble a large bust of Jones’ face, but will be composed of bronze and steel ribbons woven by Stutz across one another, said Dinh, who has been creating public art since 2010 in cities like Baltimore, Dayton and San Diego. The woven structure of the piece is meant to symbolize the way Jones’ work has brought people together.

The structure will be set on a pedestal, which will be crafted by Dinh, featuring images of Jones’ collaborators and perhaps some of his life in Bremerton, if such pictures can be found, Dinh said. The piece will also be interactive, as admirers will be able to climb onto the pedestal behind Jones’ face and peer out onto Bremerton from behind his eye.

Harriette Bryant, interim executive director of the YWCA and member of the Bremerton Arts Commission, was a part of the sculpture committee that selected Dinh and Stutz. She was drawn not only to the unique bronze color, but to the meaningful way the emblazoned bust would center African American history in a city that had done little to recognize it.

“For Quincy Jones to be one of those artists that actually was here in Bremerton… that speaks volumes to our community and to our African American community, because everybody knows Quincy and we know his music,” Bryant said. “Just for it to land right here in our little city is amazing.”

The vibrant colors of scarves and sheet music

For muralist KaDavien Baylor, the Quincy Square project will mark his first project he’s commissioned outside of his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, in two years. Baylor has worked on public arts projects for UNESCO World Heritage and the Juneteenth Legacy Project, but has been devoted more recently to giving back to the community that raised him. Now, he’s excited for the opportunity to venture out across the nation.

As he prepared his pitch, Baylor was interested to learn that Jones “discovered a piano in this community and it went on to influence the rest of the world and some of the largest musical artists that we have ever heard of – your Michael Jacksons and Ray Charles all spawned from this one location,” he said. “So in the artwork, you'll see a series of events that took place in Quincy Jones' life and how they went on to spawn and influence this musical outbreak that leads to revealing the deeper history and the foundation of the African American community in Bremerton.”

The mural will feature Jones’ face on a backdrop of vibrant pink, orange, yellow and red blocks that covers the entire side of a parking garage along with a collection of Jones’ collaborators and other notable African American Bremertonians.

Roosevelt Smith, a trustee on the board of the Kitsap County History Museum, served on the sculpture committee. He was impressed with Baylor’s high energy and research that was so thorough, “he was telling us things that some of the committee didn't even know about concerning Bremerton.”

Related: How Quincy Jones came to Bremerton, and launched into history

Looking forward to seeing the storylines of African American pioneers documented in the piece, Smith said, “we're telling the whole story, the good, the bad, the beautiful, and that makes us a better city.”

As for the bold color scheme, Baylor said he pulled inspiration from the scarves Jones has worn in his later life. The scarves brandish the same pinks, oranges and yellows along with lines that reminded Baylor of sheet music. He also felt the warm tones would compliment the cooler Bremerton climate as well as the project seeks to activate Fourth Street.

A window into the downtown’s future

Dinh and Stutz will craft their sculpture over about five months in California and ship the piece over later in the construction process, while Baylor will travel to Bremerton in the summer and paint his mural over about a six-week timespan concurrently with construction. Baylor hopes to include a crew of local artists in the process and perhaps even host a community day for those interested to paint a corner of the piece.

But efforts to revitalize downtown Bremerton with the arts reaches beyond the works of Dinh, Stutz and Baylor, as the city begins rolling out creative programs.

“We have an enormous amount of very, very talented people in this community… but it always seems like it's a little silo here, a little disparate group there, and we want to come together and to celebrate not just the creative people in our community, but our culture and our history,” said Bremerton Creative District executive committee member and Bremerton Arts Commission member Lynn Horton, who served as the city's mayor from 1994-2001.

The state-certified Creative District will fill vacant storefront windows downtown with pop-up displays to showcase the work and products of artists and creative businesses. The program, called Creatively Restored, will make its debut during the Downtown First Friday Art Walk on May 3. The first wave of windows will feature nine artists, with an additional five added by the Armed Forces Festival weekend and rotate about every two months.

Community stakeholders told the Creative District they wanted to see two downtown issues fixed: “one – empty buildings in downtown, and the other one was the lack of affordable space for small micro businesses and also space for artists to have exhibits and things,” Horton said. “We thought that we could kind of kill two birds with one stone.”

Quincy Square will serve downtown as a hub for creative businesses and events, said Bremerton Creative District executive committee member Cynthia Engelgau.

The revitalized area could host networking events for siloed creatives in the summer, which the Creative District is already looking into, Horton said, but it could also represent the induction of an arts-impacted section of Bremerton’s local economy.

Engelgau mentioned Bremerton’s Krampusnacht event last December, which brought in several thousand people downtown. She said that concerts or regular markets could have similar stimulating effects for local businesses.

“In order for a retail neighborhood to survive nowadays, it has to be an experience with interactive kinds of things for families to do together – not just buy things,” Horton said. “If there's a place that you can go to, and it's got a good vibe and it's fun, people will come, especially after COVID.”

If artists are interested in a Creatively Restored window slot or have ideas on building a creative district, Horton encourages sending an email to [email protected].

“It's just going to be amazing with the piano keys on the sidewalk, and hopefully all of the African American artwork that may be displayed,” Bryant said. “I think this is going to be something great for all of our future generations to see and to explore and to feel and touch. I think that it's so important that our young people understand what we have here in Bremerton, Washington.”

But Bryant hopes to see one person in particular at Quincy Square – Jones himself. Just as she brought Jones a Washington State Legacy Project book written about Bremerton civil rights activist Lilian Walker, she’s been passing along project materials and artwork proposals to keep him in the loop. She’s excited about the idea of Jones coming out to see the project himself near its opening.

The project is currently out to bid through May 16. After a contract has been awarded, construction will likely begin in early summer and take five to seven months to complete. During that time, Fourth Street will likely be closed to vehicle traffic.

“We have many individuals, many groups that make up the rich fabric of our community, and I want this to be a catalyst to do more of this,” Wheeler said. “I think starting here will be the greatest springboard to bring all art forward.”

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: 3 artists selected to commission pieces for Quincy Square