Garner Wins Statewide Award for Public Art
Garner Wins Statewide Award for Public Art
Garner’s growing efforts to brighten public spaces with art have earned some well-deserved statewide recognition.
The Town recently received the 2025 North Carolina Great Places for Public Art Award from the American Planning Association-North Carolina Chapter during the organization's annual conference in Charlotte on Oct. 15.
The award, according to the APA-NC Chapter, “values a community's creative side.” To showcase Garner’s new burst of creativity, Planning Department staff submitted an award package titled Downtown Garner Public Art Initiatives that featured public artworks in the Main Street and Garner Road area.
The award submission highlighted these examples:
the Wings of Hope sculpture unveiled earlier this year at the corner of Garner Road and Avery Street;
the In Full Bloom mural on the Full Bloom Coffee building at Main and Purvis Streets;
the Hidden Figures mural honoring some of Garner’s most venerated Black residents on the Locs, Naturals and More Salon and Academy building at Rand Mill and Main Streets;
a new sculpture at the corner of East Garner and Auburn-Knightdale Roads commemorating the Auburn community’s railroad heritage;
newly painted crosswalk art in Downtown in the area around the Garner Recreation Center;
the Art Around Town initiative featuring 23 works installed in public locations in 2021;
and the 2018 Pop-Up Art project, which featured fence posts painted by a cross-section of local residents.
“The Town of Garner’s Historic Downtown stands out as a truly exceptional location for public art due to its vibrant visual expression, deep cultural significance and strong community collaboration,” Planning staff said in the award submission. “What distinguishes this area is the intentional and ongoing partnership between the Town, local artists and the community to cultivate a thriving public art scene. Rather than taking a passive approach, the Town of Garner is proactively supporting and expanding public art initiatives as a key element of Garner’s identity and future growth.”
The award submission cites the “collaborative efforts between Town leadership, the Planning Department, the Public Art Advisory Board and the Downtown Garner Association.”
“From large-scale murals that celebrate the town’s cultural and historical roots to interactive projects like painted crosswalks and community art installations, Garner has prioritized accessibility, inclusivity and creativity in the public realm,” the award submission says.
The Town has ramped up its support for public art considerably in the past year. Most notably, in April the Town and Garner’s Public Arts Advisory Board unveiled the Wings of Hope sculpture by local artist Jeff Hurr. Located at the corner of Garner Road and Avery Street near the Garner Performing Arts Center, this sculpture—the first one ever to be funded by the Town—features bold, upward-reaching branches that are grounded in the natural world but reach up toward the heavens. Wings of Hope is the first piece in a planned future sculpture park on the property at Garner Road and Avery Street.
Over on Main Street, two large-scale murals painted in the past six years have become prominent visual landmarks Downtown. The Hidden Figures mural presents a colorful portrait of a young Black woman surrounded by four smaller portraits honoring influential Black residents throughout Garner’s history. The work blends imagery of local Black churches and references Henry Fort’s historic cabinet shop, the first known business to be established in Garner.
Just down the street is the Life in Bloom mural, which showcases North Carolina’s native birds and wildflowers, layered with motifs from Garner’s railroad heritage. The mural quickly became an iconic visual that has appeared in countless social media posts since its completion in 2019.
The Garner Forward Comprehensive Plan promotes an emphasis on the public realm, and Planning staff routinely suggest public art elements in their reviews. One of the recent fruits of these efforts is the abstract metal sculpture at the corner of Auburn-Knightdale Road and East Garner Road that honors the railroad heritage of the historic Auburn community.
The Town Council celebrated receiving the Great Places for Public Art Award at its Nov. 3 meeting. Council Member Kathy Behringer, who heads the Town’s Public Art Advisory Board and has long championed the cause of public art in Garner, said at the meeting, “Public art is a good thing to have. It makes your town look attractive, but it also makes people smile—and that’s what you want.”
via Town of Garner
