Norfolk commissions artists to enliven parking garages

In a few weeks, when Larry Bage drives down a certain parking garage ramp, he’ll see his life – and his summer – flashing before him, in the form of made-up signs for old Norfolk businesses.

Bage was one of three local artists who took part in a project commissioned by Norfolk’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs to enliven municipal garages downtown with public art. Most of the pieces should be in place by next week.

Bage’s faux signs for long-gone concerns such as B&H Restaurant on Church Street and the Ocean View Amusement Park will be visible to motorists heading down the cylindrical exit ramp at the Main Street garage.

Diane Husson designed three ceramic murals with maritime imagery for a garage entrance at Boush Street and City Hall Avenue. The 4-by-6-foot murals were intended to welcome visitors “in a beautiful, happy way,” she said. Her marine imagery features a fish, a blue crab and a tall ship, all within sight of the Elizabeth River.

A third artist, Cassandra Akers, spent two months this summer in the Freemason Street garage, stenciling a quote or fortune onto all 617 parking spaces. Seven high school students, hired through the city’s “Earn and Learn” work program for teens, assisted her.

Bage and Husson each got eight “Earn and Learn” youths to help sculpt, glaze, saw, paint and sweat over the city’s latest creative adornments.

The pieces will be in the public eye for some time. Akers guessed her stenciled fortunes and sayings would last a decade.

The city’s parking division spent about $45,000 for materials, installation and artists’ fees, said Karen Rudd, manager of cultural affairs. The teens were paid about minimum wage, through a separate fund.

Parking administrators had been asking for some art to brighten drab corners, Rudd said. “Why would you just want a concrete parking garage? Why not make it beautiful?

“These artworks hopefully give a unique sense of place, so that you know you’re in Norfolk, Va. It really gives character to our public spaces.”

A little about the artists and their projects:

Bage has lived in Norfolk since his teens. Early on, he painted signs for a living. Though he’s trained as a metal sculptor, he thought the signs would make for an entertaining down ramp.

Oh, look, Hofheimer’s! Was that the real Bacalis Hot Dogs sign? Wow, the Midway Tavern, one of the old Main Street watering holes.

He remembers a lot of the businesses he’s commemorating, but couldn’t recall what the signs looked like. He sent two student helpers to the library a block away to look for old photos of the Norfolk businesses he chose. They came up with just a few, including Hofheimer’s shoe store and Ocean View Amusement Park.

Making up authentic-looking signs proved a creative enterprise, both in finding just the right components and designing to reflect the businesses’ era. Bage sought materials from “salvage yards and people’s backyards.” He used the large lids from 40-gallon drums for his Church Street’s Plaza Hotel sign.

For his gate sign for the Kiptopeke Ferry, which carried motorists to the Eastern Shore before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel existed, he painted “rust” over and below the new screws he used to secure the artificially aged letters.

Bage made all the newly minted signs look old, faded, decrepit, rusted. As they truly age, he said, chuckling, “all the better.”

“I don’t ordinarily look at everyday things as a piece of art,” said Adeline Quejada, 17, of Norfolk, one of his student helpers, when asked what she got out of the experience. She’s a rising senior at Booker T. Washington High School.

“It doesn’t have to be art,” Bage told her, “to be art.”

Husson has studied in Italy and knows that Renaissance artists hired apprentices to assist them. So when she got the commission in the spring, she envisioned a similar setup.

She needed the help to complete her ceramic murals in just two months. Going by her designs, students helped build up the sculptural relief. They rolled out clay slabs, like thick pie crust, then cut out dozens of fish scales. They made long clay tentacles for a jellyfish. They tested glazes on practice clay bits.

“I made most of those seashells,” said Major Brooks, 19, proudly. He’s a rising freshman at Tidewater Community College, and he plans to become an architect.

His shells “didn’t need a lot of rework,” Husson said. “He’s a really good sculptor.”

After the sculpting was done, Husson cut each mural into about 60 irregular pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece was numbered, coded and hollowed, then glazed and fired in a kiln. They are being installed this week by a stonemason.

Though carved to half-inch thicknesses, each mural still weighs about 200 pounds, the Norfolk artist said.

In essence, she created mosaics. But rather than let the beige mortar be visible meandering through the design, she planned to tint the mortar to blend in with the image.

By Saturday, Husson’s maritime scenes will be in place, facing the river and visible to Boush Street traffic. “This is celebrating the bounty of Norfolk’s waterways,” she said.

Akers majored in Asian studies and communications at Old Dominion University and has visited China. She also was thinking of The Pagoda, a downtown landmark given to Norfolk by Taiwan in 1989, when she submitted her Asian-themed public-art idea.

With 617 parking spots, she needed lots of fortunes but ran out after about 100. “They’re kind of the same: 'You will find a (blank) today.’ ”

So she started researching quotes. “It’s kinda fun. You’d find a quote that means something to you, and you’d be able to put it on the wall where people could see it.”

Two of her favorites: “Control your destiny, or someone else will.” “A friend asks only for your time, not your money.”

She and her helpers had seven floors to cover in two months, sans air conditioning. Akers, who is expecting her second child Sept. 15, was on her feet and dodging traffic six hours a day.

Using concrete stain covered with a clear sealant, she also painted Asian motifs by the elevators. Pagoda, tiger, crane.

On a few sweltering days, she took the teens to the Chrysler Museum of Art, so they could learn more about fine art, she said.

One day, a woman pulled into a space with a nearly complete maxim, “Fortune favors the …” She got out of her car and asked how the saying ended. “Brave,” she was told.

“She pulled off her baseball cap and her hair was completely shaved,” Akers recalled. “She said she was a cancer survivor, and that seeing that encouraging message was like having an angel on her shoulder.

“Every day after that, she parked in the same parking space. It’s her fortune now.”

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com