Skip to content

Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

The Wellington Marbles

By

Read more articles by

Spacing Ottawa photo contributor Justin Van Leeuwen was on hand this week as the City installed 18 sculptures along Wellington Street West, from Garland in the east to Island Park in the west. The sculptures –- each a playful re-imagining of a fire hydrant –- are the work of artists Marcus Kucey-Jones and Ryan Lotecki, and tomorrow (September 25th) the pair will be leading a walking tour of the installation route, mustering at 1.00 in the lobby of GCTC, 1233 Wellington Street West. To register send an email to publicartprogram@ottawa.ca or call 613 244-4261.

The funding for the commission came from the City’s “One Percent for Art” program whereby 1% of the total budget for street reconstruction projects is set aside for public art.

[flickr 7496732@N07 72157625020720468]

photos by Justin Van Leeuwen

Recommended

7 comments

  1. BEAUTIFUL PIECES!!!
    Are they solid marble?
    Congratulations to artists Marcus Kucey-Jones and Ryan Lotecki.

  2. Waste of money. You watch, they’ll be tagged in no time, sadly. Given that Wellington Village is considered the “Arts District”, why couldn’t a local artist in the area been given the opportunity to do this work? Almonte may be local to Ottawa, but for this art in this community, it really should have gone to a neighbourhood artist. Italian marble is nice for a bathroom or kitchen, but not for this neighbourhood street art.

  3. No picture of the bees?? It’s my favoraite one!

  4. OMG we are supposed to be proud that our city has gained brownie points in the arts and entertainment department when losing some in the quality of life?????
    Put all this wasted money towards feeding our poor or fixing pot holes??
    Oh wait, why make sense when you can be all artsy fartsy?

  5. Eighteen statues but only sixteen photos. Please add the other two.

  6. really a quarter of a million dollars. These stupid things need to be Italian marble when they have the novelty of those stupid moose in Toronto.