Salina announces People’s Choice Award sculpture winner
SALINA, Kan. (KSNW) — Salina residents have voted and chosen the winner of the 2023 SculptureTour Salina. The winning sculpture is Phoenix Rising by metalwork artist Jodie Bliss.
The sculpture is currently in front of the Hoffman Building at the corner of Santa Fe and Iron. But it probably will not stay there permanently.
The City of Salina designates up to $20,000 to purchase the People’s Choice sculpture. The Community Art Design Advisory Committee will choose a new location, possibly on Salina’s south side, and the Salina City Commission will vote on it in late February.
Bliss explained her motivation for Phoenix Rising.
“As life ebbs and flows, we all experience times of doubt, feelings of failure of not being our best selves,” she wrote. “We go through struggles with relationships, health and various other challenges that life brings to us. Phoenix Rising is a tribute to the overcoming of these challenges and the growth that we undergo as we do.”
She said the mythical nature of the Phoenix let her get creative. She took inspiration from several real birds and then added some “Bliss Flare.”
“This rendition of the Phoenix embodies the idea that each of us is unique in our compositions, our struggles, our strengths, and it is the beauty of that unique combination that makes each of us wonderful,” she said.
Brad Anderson, executive director of Salina Arts and Humanities, said Phoenix Rising will be a perfect addition to Salina’s permanent collection.
“Salina is in a renaissance,” he said. “We’re in a perpetual state of transformation and getting better every day, like new businesses … and having that kind of excitement, of energy, and then also having artwork that has a diversity of color, of texture, of shape, of complexity, and simplicity and this message of rising up to be something greater than we were just a few minutes ago is perfect for the community right now.”
Bliss is the owner of Bliss Studio Custom Metalwork in Monument, Colorado. But Salina is her mother’s hometown.
She said it has been wonderful seeing Saliina grow during her many visits in the past seven years.
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“As a town, you have truly shown what can happen when value is placed on integrating arts into a community! I look forward to being a part of your town for decades to come and to many more visits!” Bliss wrote. “I participate in a lot of these public art programs, and bar none, Salina is the cream of the crop in every aspect! A town rising into it’s own in such a fantastic way!”
This is the second time Bliss has won the People’s Choice Award. Her Picasso’s Violin won in 2017. It’s on display at 336 S. Santa Fe. The city also has one of her other sculptures, a horse called Off the Merry-Go-Round, on display in front of the downtown Starbucks.
Each year, SculptureTour Salina invites sculptors to enter the competition. Between 18 and 35 sculptures are chosen for the contest and then placed in historic downtown Salina.
The sculptures remain for one year, and people vote for the one to be declared People’s Choice.
Salina is becoming known for its sculptures and murals around town. Click here to learn more about Salina Arts and Humanities.
Click here to learn more about SculptureTour Salina.
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