Lake George Arts Power Up project is bringing art to unexpected places

With a fine-detail paint brush, local artist Shay DeRusso delicately dabbed paint to her sketch of a paper birch tree that ran the height of her work. A curious group of onlookers stood on the sidewalk behind her to watch. Derusso was not painting on canvas, but rather on a utilitarian, not-very-attractive, traffic control signal box that is attached to a utility pole at the corner of Canada and Lower Montcalm Streets.

DeRusso is one of five artists selected by the Lake George Arts Project to design and paint four traffic signal cabinets along Canada Street for their Power Up Lake George project. (Two of the artists selected are working as a team on one cabinet.) All Participating artists are from the Lake George region, which is defined as within a 50-mile radius of Lake George. DeRusso is from the Glens Falls area.

The Power Up project is a joint venture of the Arts Project and the Village of Lake George “with the goals of enhancing the aesthetics of the Village, extending public art to new areas and unexpected places, and introducing art to the public in a creative and inventive way.”

Art along the sidewalks in Lake George is not something new. In June 2013, a great blue heron sculpture, a creation of wildlife sculptor P.J. LaBarge of Lake Placid, was unveiled in Blais Park. 2016 saw the rise of the beloved chainsaw bear in Shepard Park, a work by chainsaw artist Tim O’Brian. In September 2017, the canoe sculpture created by master woodcarver Paul Stark was placed at its permanent location on Beach Road.

According to DeRusso, the artists will be completing their traffic signal box artwork by the end of June.