Broward Public Artwork Chief’s Legacy: Mentoring Artists Who Mirror Broward’s Range 

Leslie Fordham, Broward Cultural Division’s public artwork administrator since 2010, unintentionally honed her craft in a most uncommon approach.

“I sewed,” says Fordham. “I made clothes once I was a teen and in my 20s, and I discovered a complete lot about how sculpture goes collectively and the way they make sculpture from these days once I did stitching. I made my very own clothes as a result of I appreciated going to quite a lot of events.”

Early in Fordham’s profession, she labored with engineers and says that’s how the items got here collectively.

“What I don’t often inform folks: I labored then within the development enterprise and I discovered how a barrel vault labored as a result of it was just about the identical as placing a sleeve in a costume,” she says. “There was a time I went and talked to architects, they usually known as my firm and requested if I used to be an engineer as a result of I appeared to know a lot about how issues work collectively.”

Additionally, Fordham “discovered about planning and planning out a mission.” These have been abilities, she says, she was capable of apply working in public artwork.

Fordham, 66, retired from her place with Broward County on Friday, Sept. 13.

She grew up in Washington, D.C., the place she says, “my dad and mom have been nice artwork lovers. They took us to artwork museums.”

After visits to the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork, Fordham “got here to like” the work of French Baroque artists Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain and of the 19^th century impressionists.

She studied artwork and artwork historical past at St. Mary’s School of Maryland and earned a Grasp of Arts in info administration at College of West London in the UK.

In August 2000, Fordham moved to Vail, Colorado, to run the city’s Artwork in Public Locations program.

“What I discovered in Vail – and was capable of apply right here – is that it’s so necessary to ask folks what they need, what they need to see. Allow them to know upfront what you’re planning. And people neighborhood outreach abilities are important,” says Fordham. “In a much bigger neighborhood like this, the planning course of is barely totally different in that one must anticipate who’s going to have a stake within the public artwork, and take into consideration who has questions, and ensure that you’re connecting with these people upfront.”

After 9 years in Vail, Fordham accepted the job of public artwork supervisor in Lancaster, Pa. A 12 months later, she moved to Broward County and in August 2010 joined the cultural division because the county’s public artwork administrator.

“Once I first got here, there was nonetheless that little bit of an financial downturn. There have been questions on the way forward for our public artwork ordinance,” says Fordham.

She managed to deal with each the financial and political challenges. 

“I discovered a lot about public artwork administration from having to react to conditions outdoors of our management. Conditions the place the county was reconsidering the way it wished to do public artwork.”

Fordham says that was one thing she hadn’t anticipated going into the job.

“However I’d say that after the primary two years, I used to be prepared for nearly any eventuality. I may deal with it, I knew our codes inside out, the processes inside out, attending to know the commissioners.”

She remembers the machinations of the way it all labored.

“Throughout the subsequent 5 years, we have been taking our public initiatives to our county commissioners upfront of them being permitted, assembly with commissioners, assembly with the neighborhood. We have been engaged on the county’s one hundredth anniversary [in 2015], doing quite a lot of murals and dealing very intently with Broward cities.”

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Fordham says that along with Broward County being a bigger neighborhood than Vail or Lancaster, she was interested in South Florida’s cultural variety.

“As I turned extra entrenched locally right here, we began taking a look at our public artwork assortment and who the artists have been who have been making public artwork. And we knew that we wished to achieve out to artists who have been extra like our neighborhood, who higher mirrored the demographics of our neighborhood.”

Artist Addison Wolff, initially of Winter Park, Florida, moved to Broward in July 2020 after going to school and dealing in Indiana.

“The large transfer extraordinarily pivoted my life from working retail. I used to be doing visuals at Saks Fifth Avenue, the division retailer up in Minneapolis,” says Wolff. “I used to be excited to return all the way down to Florida. I knew the artwork scene in Miami with Artwork Basel was integral, and I used to be in search of a bigger artwork ecosystem. And I had an affinity with Fort Lauderdale, and, particularly, Wilton Manors.”

His artwork contains sculptures, work, and inside design and is at present on show at Gasper Arts Heart in Dania Seashore, he says.

“Wolff’s follow explores queer id, expression, and sexuality,” in response to the Gasper web site. “Themes of evolution, time, private id, societal influences, fluidity, and code switching are explored by non-objective compositions of damaged shade, collage, layering, erasure, and moiré results, on canvas and hand constructed, ceramic types.”

Wolff, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, obtained a nationally judged 2022 fellowship from the South Florida Cultural Consortium, which is a five-county initiative comprised of Broward, Martin County, Miami-Dade County, the Florida Keys and Palm Seashore County. 

Broward Cultural additionally awarded Wolff a $10,000 2024 Artist Innovation Grant.

His 2024 ceramic sculpture “ochre/ruddy orange/midnight blues” can be displayed as a part of the Broward County Public Artwork & Design assortment.

“I would like my artwork to be private to me. As somebody who’s queer and younger, it’s been part of my life. It’s elementary to sort of communicate your reality and id,” says Wolff, 36. “And I need to discover methods to precise how I navigate life.”

Wolff says Fordham has performed a “elementary” position in his growth as an artist, “verifying that I’m a authentic artist and verifying that my artwork has price to the neighborhood.”

Fordham and others in her program “are actually energetic companions in saying, ‘What do you want from us? How can we provide help to?’ Advancing you to ensure you keep in Broward, which you could work out right here and don’t have to maneuver on to Miami.”

‘WE OWE HER A LOT’

Phillip Dunlap, Broward Cultural Division’s director since 2019, says Fordham leaves a considerable legacy upon her retirement.

“We calculated 71 items of artwork that have been commissioned throughout her tenure. That in and of itself, I feel is a very massive accomplishment,” says Dunlap. “Public artwork in Broward County is what it’s largely due to Leslie Fordham and her imaginative and prescient, her path, and her management. We owe her rather a lot for that.”

Dunlap is at present reviewing functions to search out Fordham’s successor.

The Cultural Division is “increasing the idea or the concept of public artwork past our core program or the normal public artwork program that commissions artists to do functionally built-in artwork, which is nice and has a spot,” says the 43-year-old cultural director.

“However with Leslie, we’ve been engaged on increasing that concept. We began an artwork buy program the place we’re buying artwork from Broward artists that may go in public areas. That’s a brand new program. It’s not commissioned, however we’re really buying artwork from artists. We’re taking a look at how artists could be change brokers inside county or municipal departments.”

Jacoub Reyes, 33, of Plantation, is such an artist.

Reyes’ “El Encuentro,” a brief video shadow puppet efficiency screened final 12 months on the Broward County Foremost Library in Fort Lauderdale, was funded by the Artist Innovation Grant he obtained in 2023.

“For this mission and this mode of artwork, it’s actually based mostly round accessibility. I wished to speak concerning the historical past of the Caribbean and colonialism and its ripple results that we see as we speak, however in a really palpable approach that any age or studying capability can perceive or work together with,” says Reyes, whose mom is Puerto Rican and Cuban, and whose father is a Pakistani immigrant.

“What each of these have in frequent is colonialism,” explains Reyes. “The British got here into India and separated Pakistan, Kashmir and India into three totally different states. And the identical occurred with Puerto Rico so far as . . . the colonial holdings from Spain after which, shortly after, the US. These are the overarching themes.”

One other of Reyes’ works “made potential” by Broward Cultural assist: “Decorative Figurations in Movement (Peace, Love, and Pleasure),” an 8-foot by 8-foot woodcut that depicts native and invasive species of vegetation present in South Florida and the Caribbean.

A CHAMPION AND MENTOR

Reyes grew up in New Brunswick, N.J., later lived in Central Florida and moved to Broward County about three years in the past. He describes Fordham as “an integral a part of the Broward Cultural Division,” who has championed his artwork and develop into a cherished mentor to him.

“We often have lengthy conversations over the cellphone, or she involves the studio and presents her expertise, which has been completely beneficial to me,” says Reyes. “All her tales and what she does and the way she navigates public artwork and all these totally different aspects. So she’s sort of been like a marketing consultant, possibly one of the simplest ways to explain it for me.”

Reyes says Fordham has made an influence in how he handles his artwork as a enterprise.

“She’s helped me navigate sure issues in my artwork profession that I may not be too versed in: the enterprise facet of the humanities, negotiations, that kind of stuff . . . She’s simply been an arts useful resource on prime of being a tremendous individual.”

Broward’s Public Artwork & Design program started in 1976, “with the imaginative and prescient of beautifying a rapidly-developing Broward County,” in response to a county web site.? “We administer a median of 80 artwork initiatives yearly, together with conservation initiatives.” There at present are greater than 310  public artworks on view all through Broward.

This system, which gives over $6 million in annual assist for cultural organizations and artists, now extends into municipalities all through Broward and Fordham has been on the heart of that enlargement.

“The opposite factor that we began, that Leslie was so nice at, is to work with cities and assist them create their very own public artwork applications,” says Dunlap. “Leslie has led our public artwork groups within the creation of Dania Seashore’s public artwork grasp plan. She’s at present ending up the identical with the town of Wilton Manors.”

Among the many spectacular public artworks commissioned throughout Fordham’s tenure:

• Alice Aycock’s white and blue “Exuberance” is displayed in a Port Everglades site visitors circle outdoors Cruise Terminal 25, which is primarily utilized by Movie star Cruises (additionally identified for its white and blue colours). The sculpture, budgeted at $495,000, was accomplished in 2019.

• “Strolling Sticks with Tales to Inform” (2019) by artist Claudia Fitch. The $220,000 sculptures are on show close to the African-American Analysis Library and Cultural Heart, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd., Fort Lauderdale.

• “Tidal Faculty” by Mission One Studio, a $200,000 243-foot-long sculpture of painted aluminum and galvanized metal on grass plantings quickly to be accomplished at nineteenth Avenue and Eller Drive in Port Everglades.
• An in-the-works $6 million shade lighting mission for the E. Clay Shaw Jr. Bridge, often known as the 17^th Avenue Causeway bridge, which crosses the Intracoastal Waterway east of the Broward County Conference Heart. “That’s our greatest mission but,” says Fordham.

The general public artwork program is a mixture of visible and audio works, some apparent and others extra discreet.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Worldwide Airport incorporates examples of every.

“At our airport, we’ve obtained a few sound artwork items,” Fordham says. “You would possibly hear chicken noises. You would possibly hear the sound of waves. You would possibly hear an individual’s voice saying, ‘You look lovely as we speak.’”

Fordham herself just lately was startled by considered one of her personal acquisitions. “A few months in the past, I had a 6 a.m. flight, and I used to be strolling by a hall the place we had some sound artwork. I jumped, considering, ‘Who was that who simply mentioned that to me?’”

Some artwork sounds are supposed to be extra nice than the standard noises heard in busy airports.

“When you’re standing ready on your baggage, we now have one thing known as ‘musical warning beacons.’ As a substitute of simply the standard sound you would possibly hear to warn you that the conveyor belt goes to begin shifting, you have got a musical warning slightly than the obvious ‘beep, beep, beep.’”

‘FUNCTIONALLY INTEGRATED’

Public artwork shows are sometimes “functionally built-in,” she says, and generally so delicate they may be neglected as artwork, reminiscent of designed terrazzo flooring on the Conference Heart and Broward property appraiser’s workplace.

“You’re not at all times going to cease and say, ‘Oh wow, that’s a tremendous sculpture.’ You’re going to be strolling throughout one thing that’s feeling fairly nice and subliminally, doubtlessly, you’re going to be feeling nice since you’re not strolling on the cracked sidewalk. You’re now strolling on a stunning artist-designed ground that may be colourful, which may have textual content in it, imagery. These are the sort of issues that simply make our lives richer.”

As her retirement approaches, Fordham ponders what’s subsequent.

“After the stress of the job is cleared a little bit bit and I can see the longer term coming, I actually don’t need to divorce myself from the humanities,” she says.

She’s pondering taking her abilities and placing them to make use of as an advisor, maybe.

“I’d prefer to discover the concept of advising others on their acquisition and buy of artwork. I additionally care very a lot about public areas and what artwork can do within the public area. If I could be concerned in that – maybe not within the municipal sense the place I’m advising cities anymore – however advising different forms of organizations that put artwork in public locations, I might very very similar to to do this.”

She’s additionally trying ahead to simply having the time to take pleasure in retirement.

“I’ve all the standard plans: touring and enjoying. I’ve been studying French for the final 4 years, and I’m not completed studying that. I’ve some home renovations deliberate, as effectively,” says Fordham, who lives in Fort Lauderdale.

By the way in which, she has no plans to renew stitching. “However I’m actually concerned about some Japanese embroidery and Japanese luggage. Maybe I’ll have time to do a few of that once I retire.”

This story was produced by Broward Arts Journalism Alliance (BAJA), an impartial journalism program of the Broward County Cultural Division. Go to ArtsCalendar.com for extra tales concerning the arts in South Florida.