About the Commissioning Organizations:

The Leesburg Center for the Arts is the creative hub for artists, creatives and dabblers in North Lake County, FL.  The CFA provides art education, awareness and opportunities to enrich and inspire our community with art and culture and to gather, create and collaborate.

The City of Leesburg’s mission is to provide effective and efficient municipal services that promote public safety, economic growth and quality of life.  Leesburg is a diverse community energetically working in collaboration to ensure it upholds its history, ambiance, and natural resources to become and stay a vibrant community. 

Call Summary: 

The Leesburg Center for the Arts is placing a Request for Qualifications for Public Art Sculptural Screening at 4 sites. The budget for this project is $28,000. The selected artist/artist team will be expected to visit the site prior to fabrication and work with the City of Leesburg on logistics and final installation.  Three finalists will be shortlisted and compensated $350 for conceptual designs.  Commissioned artwork should reflect themes preselected by the community and the values and mission of the Leesburg Center for the Arts and the City of Leesburg.  Emerging artists are encouraged to apply and must show appropriateness of previous work to the scope of the project.

Budget:

The artist/artist team selected will receive $28,000 to cover design, transportation, lodging, fabrication, materials, labor, installation, insurance, and any other costs associated with the artwork through final installation.  The fee will be paid half on invoice as a deposit after contract execution and half on invoice after satisfactory completion.

Eligibility: 

This call is open to professional artists with qualifications and experience in their medium and with projects of this scale and complexity.  Emerging artists are encouraged to apply and must be able to show the ability to complete a project of this scope.

Timeline:

Application Deadline: August 6, 2021

Anticipated Notification of Shortlist: Week of August 23, 2021

Anticipated Conceptual Design Presentations: Week of September 20, 2021

Installation anticipated to begin: December 2021/January 2022

Project Description:

This is a commissioning of new work by the Leesburg Center for the Arts in partnership with the City of Leesburg.  The goal of the project is to use the Public Art Screening to conceal the Lift Stations from view and provide aesthetically pleasing street scape elements.  The artwork should be unique, engaging for passersby, reflective of the themes preselected by the community, and not easily scaled.  The screening will be placed in front of four separate Lift Stations.  Each location requires a different size.  Three of the screening panels will be placed in front of existing chain link fence enclosures.  One will be stand alone.  The screen panels are all to be free standing.  They will not be connected to or lean against the chain link fence. The openings in the design should limit entrapment by limiting openings or perforations to less than 3.5” in diameter.  The materials need to withstand a high traffic, public environment, and be capable of withstanding adverse weather conditions common to the state of Florida (high UV exposure, high humidity, high temperatures, heavy rain, frequent storms, high winds, etc.)  The materials must be able to withstand washing/maintenance for graffiti removal.

Locations and Sizes:

The four sites have been preselected by the commissioning organizations. These sites are highly visible to the public but the Lift Stations are not open for public entry.  The sizes are as follows:

Lift Station Shore #9: 25’ L x 8’ H / Gate Opening / 11’ L x 8’ H

Lift Station Center #11: 30’ L x 8’ H

Lift Station Park #29: 13’ L x 8’ H

Lift Station Citrus #37: 22’ L x 8’ H

Selection Process:

The selection panel will be comprised of commission organization representatives, community representatives, and artists.  Three artist/artist teams will be shortlisted and paid $350 for a conceptual design of the Public Art Screening.  The designs will be reviewed by the same panel.  Only applications that are complete at the time of submission will be considered.  If any portion of the application is incomplete, the artist/artist team will be disqualified.

Artist/Artist Teams will be shortlisted on the following criteria:

• Quality of previous work.
• Letter of Intent.
• CV/Resume.

Artist/Artist Teams will be selected on the following criteria:

•  Quality of conceptual design.
• Ability to fulfill RFQ requirements.
• Durability and longevity of materials used.
• Ease of maintenance.

The selected artist/artist team must contract with the Leesburg Center for the Arts for this project. The selected artist/artist team must sign a hold harmless and add the Leesburg Center for the Arts to a general liability insurance policy for the duration of this project. The Leesburg Center for the Arts reserves the right to photograph the work and/or the artist/artist team for documentation, education, and publicity purposes without additional compensation.  Accepting a proposal from an artist/artist team does not constitute any form of contract or agreement with respect to the project. The Leesburg Center for the Arts reserves the right to request additional information from artist/artist team and make changes/clarification to the RFQ if necessary. The Leesburg Center for the Arts reserve the right to cancel, amend, alter the RFQ, or its contents. Submission constitutes agreement to the rules and details as published in this RFQ. 

Application Requirements

Eligibility Criteria