Public art is valued in Naperville and residents want to see more of it around town, according to a report recently released by the city.
Earlier this fall, Naperville invited residents to take part in a survey gauging their hopes and expectations for the future of local public art. Results from the survey were released by the city last week. Across findings, respondents showed strong support for public art in Naperville — both existing and new.
“The response was very overwhelming, very positive,” City Clerk Dawn Portner said in a call Tuesday.
Open from Oct.1 through Oct. 31, the survey was available online through the city’s website and amassed more than 500 responses. To conduct the survey, Naperville used the civic engagement platform Polco. The city used the same platform to conduct its 2023 Community Survey.
The public arts survey included fewer than 20 questions, ranging from how residents characterized their relationship with public art to how they prefer to encounter public art.
Among key findings was that almost half of respondents — 45% — said that they place a high value in public art and believe that it is essential to a community. Another 44% said that they value and consider public art to be important.
About 82% of respondents thought public art should spark creativity and joy, when asked what they believe is the most important role public art can play in a community, per survey results. Two-thirds of respondents also said that public art should foster community pride and diversity as well as celebrate Naperville’s history.
Asked in what settings they thought public arts is most impactful, 91% of respondents said commercial and downtown areas. Respondents also showed strong support for parks and green spaces.
As far as what kinds of public art they’d like to see more of, respondents’ answers were varied. Murals, painted artwork and nature-inspired public art garnered the most support, followed by sculptures and interactive and engaging art.
Survey results may be viewed in full at https://www.naperville.il.us/public-art-survey.
Results will help guide the city as it charts a new path forward for how public art in town is created and maintained.
In September, early plans for a reinvigorated public art program were laid out at a meeting of the Naperville’s Special Events and Community Arts Commission. The cornerstone of the new program is a public-private partnership.
Essentially, the idea is to establish a partnering nonprofit organization that would help the city solicit new public art projects. The public-private arrangement would be a change of pace from how the city has commissioned and maintained public art for decades.
For the past 27 years, the task of soliciting and producing murals, sculptures, mosaics, fountains and other art pieces in Naperville has been the work of local independent organization, Century Walk Corp. However, a new way of doing things has been building for some time, as recent years saw the city’s relationship with Century Walk begin to strain and the organization itself face internal changes.
A public-private partnership would allow the city to set a new course.
The idea is inspired by what the city has had for years with the Naperville Development Partnership. A public-private economic development organization, NDP receives city funding but returns the investment by promoting local business interests.
As of this week, the “public-private partnership for the arts has been developed,” Portner said. It will be called the Naperville Partnership for Public Arts, but known as “Art Forum” for short, according to Portner.
There are still a few things the partnership needs to do before it can be fully up and running — namely, decide who will lead and advise the venture, as well as secure all of the approvals it needs to operate.
Portner reckons the initiative could be in full swing by early first quarter next year. Once it is, the city’s recently completed public art survey will serve as a road map for projects and priorities the public-private partnership takes on, Portner said.
“People talked about how they want public art to spark creativity. … They want more interactive art,” Portner said. “They want more temporary art. They want art that deals with nature. They want community involvement. So those are the things that the group is going to be looking at, to be able to develop public art for the future.”