The Arts in Bowie

Arts are a piece of the fabric of life in Bowie.

The City of Bowie maintains art galleries, awards arts grants, is home to the Bowie Playhouse, our own little “Theater in the Woods” and supports the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts. The City also sponsors summer concerts at Allen Pond Park and on the Town Green in Old Town Bowie.

New Galleries open Fall 2011

The Arts Committee will open new art galleries at the new City Hall this fall. East and West Galleries are planned and with one exception will be located on the second floor of the building. All exhibits will be juried art. The first exhibit will be “Belair-50 years’ and pieces should be representative of this part of Bowie’s history. Artists are being asked to bring artwork to the new City Hall on Saturday, October 8, for jurying. Applications for that are available at the link below. Regular gallery exhibits will begin in January 2012 and applications for artists are available below,For more information, contact the City’s Arts Specialist Annette Esterheld at 301-575-5601.

Call for Entries: Belair at Bowie

Art in Public Places

In 2009 the Bowie City Council adopted an Art in Public Places Policy. The City of Bowie believes that art has a special role in the community. Public art, by its very nature, is visible to all. The City of Bowie sponsors the Art in Public Places Program in order to integrate a wide range of public art into the community that will reflect a diversity of artistic styles, disciplines, and points of view. The goals of the program include:

• Preserving and enriching the character of the community
• Improving the quality of life within the City
• Broadening the role of the artist in the community
• Fostering artistic creativity
• Developing an image of the City as an arts destination

The City of Bowie has two large pieces of public art at its new City Hall, 15901 Excalibur Road, Bowie. One is a kinetic sculpture entitled “Triple Crown” that hangs in the rear lobby of the main floor of City Hall. The sculpture was created by Philadelphia artists Joel Erland and Kate Kaman to honor some of the greatest race horses to ever run on American turf.
Bowie’s Belair Stable has long been known as the “Cradle of Thoroughbred Racing,” a title it earned in the 18th century when English thoroughbreds were imported to the colonies to the Belair Mansion with the intent to ‘build a better thoroughbred.” The Belair Stable in the 20th century was home to Gallant Fox (1930) and Omaha (1935), the only father and son racehorses to ever capture the Triple Crown.

The large sculpture is three rings of petals, totaling 39 petals, of bronze mesh. Each petal is approximately four feet long and one and a half feet wide. The sculpture is 12 foot long and 12 foot wide. It is an imaginative interpretation of the Black-Eyed Susan flower, the state flower of Maryland, and also the kind of flower used in flower blankets given to racehorses that win the Preakness Stakes, one of the Triple Crown horse races.
The large monumental sundial that stands in the front driveway of the City Hall is the work of Taos, New Mexico artists Gino and Judith Schiavone. The steel base of the dial forms a portal, reflecting the dial’s name, “Bowie Portal Sundial” and the portal acts as a symbolic entrance to all the potentials of Bowie’s future.

The design and crafting of the dial and the tile mosaic base took just over a year. On site installation of the dial took over a week. The dial is erected on two stainless steel posts that hold the 48 inch by 66 inch copper and brass vertical dial 15 ½ feet off the ground. The dial’s style is a vertical brass window dial. The hour lines and seasonal declination lines appear as filigree, using a frosted glass surface to allow the time to be seen from both inside City Hall and along Excalibur Road.

Sundials measure time by the position of the sun which casts a shadow onto its surface marked with lines to indicate the hours of the day. As the sun moves across the sky the shadow-edge aligns with different hour-lines.
At the entrance of the sundial portal are bronze outlines of children at play, symbolizing the children as a true asset of Bowie and linking the present to Bowie’s future. Two granite benches flank the portal and underneath the benches running horses are etched, thus reflecting back to Bowie’ long horse racing history.

Acquisition of Existing Art Policy
In June 2011 the City adopted a policy for the acquisition of existing art either through purchase or donation by the artist. The policy sets criteria for artwork to acquire and sets out the procedure/process that will be used to review the art. The City’s Arts Committee wrote both the original Public Art Policy for commissioning art and this policy for acquiring existing art.

View Art in Public Places Policy.

Youth Chorus
Bowie sponsors a Youth Chorus for young people in grades 5 -8 who are either residents within the City limits of Bowie or who attend Bowie schools. The chorus that started in January 2010 is under the direction of Eleanor Minor.

The Youth Chorus sings at several events throughout the City including Bowiefest and the City’s Holiday Tree Lighting. The group has also sung at several other venues in the area including singing at the National Peace Tree on the Mall in Washington, D.C.  The group also performs concerts at the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts.

The Youth Chorus is expanding in fall 2011 to include a high school group. This group, unlike the younger chorus, will be audition only. For more information about the Youth Chorus, contact Arts Specialist Annette Esterheld at 301-575-5601 or by email, aesterheld@cityofbowie.org.

Bowie Playhouse
Travel north of City Hall and into Whitemarsh Park to attend plays and other events at the Bowie Playhouse. The Playhouse established in the 1970s is home to four resident theater groups and maintains a busy schedule throughout the year with performances from three outstanding theater companies. The intimate 150-seat theater has state of the art lighting and sound run by a professional theater technical crew.

Read more about the theater companies and their productions by visiting their websites:

Bowie Community Theatre  
2nd Star Productions 
Prince George’s Little Theater
Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Bowie Center for the Performing Arts (BCPA)
In 1995 a unique partnership of government and private organizations formed to establish the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts. The BCPA is an 800-seat, state-of-the-art venue that offers a wide variety of entertainment specials, theater and concerts, mixed in with high school events, including concerts and musical productions.

Learn more about the BCPA.

Don't stop here. If you are interested in the arts in Bowie, check the local papers for announcements about concerts, plays and other live entertainment put on by schools, clubs, houses of worship and others in the Bowie area.