Public art is the art that is part of our everyday life, part of our public spaces. It is part of our cultural environment, enhancing and defining our community. Public art is an important civic asset. It expresses community pride, enhances our streets, and it improves our parks, open spaces, and community places. It reaffirms our sense of place.
Public art recognizes and celebrates the importance of art outside galleries and museums.
Because public art is accessible to all persons, it creates opportunities for people to experience art as part of their daily routine. The creation and collection of public art for our parks, our public buildings, and our public spaces enhance the quality of life for Lake Oswego residents. We have wonderful public art in our library, city hall, Westlake Park, Millennium Park, and the downtown fire station. Although we presently have only a few pieces of outdoor public art, that is about to change dramatically. The city's Arts Commission is presently developing a new outdoors-public art program, Arts Downtown to begin in the summer of 2001.