'Design Those Stumps!"

In March, Honesdale borough officials, board members of the Wayne County Arts Alliance, and Known Grove Sacred Land Stewardship’s Keenan Gruver launched a placemaking project to turn two tree stumps in Honesdale Central Park into works of art. The first step was to solicit designs from the public, and a wide variety of students and professional artists brought their A-game to the call.

In total, more than 52 designs came in for the two stumps. A group of deliberators including park neighbors, non-participating artists, parents, a borough rep, and a middle schooler had the challenging task of choosing three finalists for each stump. Fortunately, a thorough review of the submissions uncovered several themes, three of which the deliberators felt would fit the park well. We’re calling them ‘Forest Spirits’, ‘Flow and Fauna’, and ‘Forage Fantasy’.

We also had a number of honorable mention submissions that were fun concepts or ones that we hope could be explored in other locations in the future. These can be found below:

Final Stump Concepts

Forest Spirits

The main design for forest spirits comes from Benjamin T., who drew a series of stacked cubes with pensive personalities. The designs were a little short, so we kept the cute proportions of what we started calling ‘forest spirits’ while bringing in some other designs to round out the idea. These included some positive affirmations from  Addison T., and an owl topper inspired by both Mary E. and Briar W. 

The playfulness of Benjamin’s design also got us thinking – what if there were opportunities for the forest spirits to be more interactive? With the extra space, we thought that peekaboo holes that look to different sites around the park could be an interesting addition. There could even be holes that could be used for arms, adding extra interactivity to the tree sculptures. Lastly, we thought that having small spots to sit on the stumps for pondering could match nicely with their positive affirmations.

Flow and Fauna

This theme was very much led by Sadie N. 's beautifully drawn design. Her two playful bears, and the flowing shape of the logs were kept with minor modifications to better fit the taller stump. There were many other designs that came in with a variety of animals and naturescapes, including eagle drawings from Bodie B. and Mary E., and bountiful nature scenes from Kristine W. and Heather S.

Thus, for the shorter stump, we tried to keep the same river flow idea that we saw in Sadie’s bear design, and incorporated a variety of other local animals. Depending on how much detail our wood carving artist can do, we would like to be able to include Kristine W.’s idea of a ‘search-and-find’ that includes an even wider array of local animals, with a list noted on the plaque that will go along with them.

Forage Fantasy

The last theme tied together a number of concepts that we also saw as related. Adelaide T.’s  fairy house and fairy designs were the leading visions for this concept.  JoeAnn W.‘s mythical creature design, Finnegan D.’s ‘child reaching for the star’ drawing, and the glimmering mushroom drawn by Addison T. further solidified the idea of a magical and whimsical design that felt rooted in local features and wild foods. 

These two stumps feature numerous fairy houses, a gnome, and a phoenix. Ramps (wild leeks), dandelions, fiddle head ferns, and morel mushrooms turn it from a design that could fit any forest to one that feels at home in our river valley. To top it off, a fairy can be seen reaching for the star on Irving Cliff.

Our team reviewed these amalgamated sketches to check that we had captured the spirit of the chosen submissions as authentically as possible, while ensuring that they would be feasible on the canvas that was our tree stumps in the park. Redrawing the designs also allowed them each to be evaluated by the public as a full concept, so that whether a design came from an elder master artist or a five-year-old just learning to hold a pencil couldn’t be determined just by looking at the final concept drawings. We didn’t want either one to have an unfair advantage! ;)

And now that you have insight into the process that it’s taken for us to get here, it’s finally time for you to vote on your favorite designs for the east stump and the north stump. While there may be three themes, you don’t need to choose one theme for both stumps! If you’re having a tough time choosing between them, I’d recommend visiting Central Park and sitting there for awhile, imagining which stump designs would fit the space the best.

Once voting has concluded (at midnight on May 9th!), the winning designs will be turned into full renderings, tweaked for feasibility by our wood carving artist, and then go to the Borough Office for final approval. In the meantime, we’re still seeking funding to make the carving possible. Many people have kindly donated their time to this project, including submitting artists, deliberators, and project managers. That said, it’s important to pay professionals for their work, and two carvings of this size will cost around $3,000 to have made by a professional. If you’re able to contribute a few dollars to make this project come to life, you can donate to the Friends of the Honesdale Parks–just be sure to add a note that it’s for the Stump Project!