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How Cambridge Arts’ Conservation And Maintenance Program Preserves Public Art For The Future
“The goal of preventative conservation is to address maintenance issues before they become bigger, more intensive (and expensive) problems,” Cambridge Arts Director of Art Conservation Craig Uram says. “Our Conservation and Maintenance Program works to get to as much of the public collection as possible each year, to inspect, clean, coat, remove rust and biological growth, and fix minor damages in an effort to preserve the collection and stave off costly deterioration.”
This annual care helps keep the artworks fresh. “Take a look at the bronzes throughout the city,” Uram says, “to see how nice like they look cleaned up with a nice coat of wax, all buffed and shiny.”
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Anne Harris (left) and Joseph Carlson-Strom clean Nancy Selvage’s “Water Wall,” 2007, at Trolley Square.
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If you see our team at work, please say hello. We’re happy to chat and answer questions.
Joseph Carlson-Strom, who has worked with the Conservation and Maintenance Program each spring since 2018, says, “I’ve learned an incredible amount about Cambridge while working in and around the public but one experience sticks out to me. While working on the piece ‘Pole Climbers’ at Clement Morgan Park, a man approached me and asked if I knew what the sculpture was about. I replied that I actually didn't know, and he told me his story about growing up here in Cambridge and playing the sport this sculpture honors. This sport was pole/mast climbing where kids and local residents would climb a 12-foot-tall greased pole competitively. The whole community would get together, cook food and watch these competitions.”
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Cambridge Arts Director of Art Conservation Craig Uram attends to Bland Hoke’s “Artesian Well – A Portal to Sacramento Park’s Past,” 2017, at Sacramento Field.
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Gene Cauthen's 1986 bronze "Pole Climbers" at Clement Morgan Park, 60 Columbia St.
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Cambridge Arts is the River Festival, Open Studios, Gallery 344, Sidewalk Poetry, Summer In The City, Community Supported Art, grants to artists, street performers, more than 280 works of contemporary public art in every neighborhood of the city, and a conservation program to preserve them for the future.
We are the Cambridge Arts Council, a City agency that funds, promotes, and presents high-quality, community based arts programs for the benefit of artists, residents, and visitors in Cambridge. Active since 1974, Cambridge Arts is one of the most dynamic local arts agencies in the country. Cambridge Arts exists to ensure that the arts remain vital for people living, working and visiting Cambridge.
Cambridge Arts is located on the Indigenous homelands of the Massachusett, Nipmuc, Pawtucket, and Wampanoag peoples. We are guests on this land. We honor the people who were here before colonization, are here now, and will be here in the future. In our work as a cultural organization, we are committed to doing whatever we can to dismantle harmful structures built from violent colonialism. Our work seeks to expand the visibility of and celebrate the histories, cultures, and stories of indigenous peoples, who are of this place.
Cambridge Arts embraces a vision that welcomes and supports everyone. Believing that a multiplicity of perspectives is essential to a strong society, we are committed, both in our policies and practices, to building participation in and awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the arts and all cultures. In our ongoing work to address cultural and historical inequities, we strive to be a community anchor that reflects the entire Cambridge community and expands access, opportunities, and inclusion in every form of creative expression. We value diverse voices and people of all ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, abilities, gender identities, sexual orientations, socioeconomic situations, religions, citizenship statuses, and family configurations.
The City of Cambridge does not discriminate on the basis of disability. We will provide auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternate formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures to persons with disabilities upon request.
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