Thank you everyone who attended! – Tulips for Bentonville is a temporary tactical public art project commissioned by the developers of Oak One Townhomes designed by artist Dayton Castleman of Verdant Studio. The artwork is intended to serve as a gesture of thanks to the surrounding neighborhood for enduring the dust and noise during the downtown Bentonville development’s construction phase, and to celebrate Bentonville’s ongoing spring of urban transformation.

 

Situated adjacent to the disciplines of sculpture, mural arts, mosaic tilework, and digital media, Tulips for Bentonville is composed of 82 multi-colored tulip icons rendered with colorful plastic snap-in pixels installed on the chain link fencing surrounding the Oak One Townhomes job site. Tulips for Bentonville spans over 400 feet of fence and is composed of over 18,000 individual  pixels in ten colors.

 

Six common tulip colors of orange, red, purple, pink, yellow, and white were selected for the artwork. Traditionally these colors are shared as gestures of gratitude, love, honor, friendship, joy, and empathy, respectively, and reflect a desire for helping contribute to a neighborhood that exemplifies those ideals. The dual-sided nature of the artwork’s installation results in full visibility of the artwork on the interior-facing surface of the fence as well, providing a more colorful and novel workspace for those engaged in the project’s construction.

 

Installation of the work is intended to be community-engaged as well. Materials and installation instructions for each tulip are packaged individually, allowing the local community to not only enjoy the completed artwork, but also to participate in the artwork’s realization.

 

This is the second public artwork by Dayton Castleman in the Bentonville Arts District, following his landmark 2015 neon installation The Three Feathers at 410 SW A St.