After pressing the brakes on Sylva’s municipal grant application, county commissioners have decided to approve a portion of the grant, none of which will go toward a public mural that had been cause for concern among commissioners.

The choice by Jackson County Commissioners not to move forward with a municipal grant application from the Town of Sylva has led to discussion among residents, town and county government about the value of public art, as well as how it should be funded.

With the help of the Jackson County Municipal Grant, Sylva may soon be able to implement a Sylva Art Walk. 

As part of its public art initiative, Sylva will host a large, interactive cat sculpture in Bridge Park this fall and winter, after which the Sylva Art + Design Committee will find a more permanent home for the feline.

Drawing more than 300 million visitors each year, the National Park Service is both a reservoir of natural beauty and an economic anchor for the communities surrounding its lands — and many of those communities are now banding together to demand that Congress address the parks’ $11.3 billion maintenance backlog.

“To know what this means to us — the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — and for us to have to ask them for some sustainable revenue to keep these parks going, it’s almost like asking somebody to take care of their baby,” Jackson County Commissioner Boyce Dietz said before the board unanimously passed a resolution in favor of sustained funding Dec. 18, 2017.

The Town of Waynesville has selected an artist and an art piece for its latest public art installation.

Sylva’s town leaders were so excited to see the number of applications they received from prospective members of a public art committee they’ve spent the last half year working to form that they considered expanding the number of seats available on the committee.

The tiny but blossoming business community along Hazelwood Avenue is about to get a major boost from the town of Waynesville.

A new public art sculpture will be unveiled in downtown Waynesville this week by renowned Western North Carolina metal sculptor Grace Cathey.

The Waynesville Public Art Commission has put together a 150-recipe cookbook to benefit future public art pieces.

The Taste of the Great Smoky Mountains Cookbook is $10 and is the culmination a month-long process of collecting recipes from area residents. Many are old recipes handed down from generation to generation. One recipe dates back to a 1966 church cookbook.