‘Forest for the Trees’ tapped as Spruill’s third public art installation

More than 100 people attending the Spirits for Spruill event Oct. 15 witnessed the unveiling of the third annual winning AMPLIFY public art installation, “The Forest for the Trees” by Alice Stone Collins, self-described as “contrasting energies of calm and chaos.”

Colins’ artwork, which was chosen from several dozen submissions, will be displayed on the Spruill Center for the Arts‘ smoke house wall at 4681 Ashford Dunwoody Road for the next year. Previous winners included works entitled “Together We Bloom” and “Find Your Wings.”

Spruill CEO Alan Mothner called the event a great success.

“It was a perfect fall day to unveil Alice’s engaging and provocative work, which utilizes the power of art to call to question, in this particular instance, the fragile environment in which we live,” Mothner said. “We are looking forward to the work being in place for the coming year and hearing the conversations spawned as a result.”

Collins, a Johns Creek resident, who is an educator and a mentor for a group called “Artist Mothers,” said the selection of her artwork was “a great honor.”

“The making of this mural has been such a great experience,” she said. “I was inspired by forest fires in my former home in Boulder, and now in Georgia, and how they have become so commonplace that we start to gloss over it. I want people in Atlanta to stop and take note when they see the mural.”

Attendees enjoyed a signature beverage from Chamblee-based Distillery of Modern Art called the Dunwoody ’22, food from Good Foods Kitchen, and entertainment from the Tyler Neal Band.

In its education center on Chamblee Dunwoody Road, the center provides more than 800 visual arts classes annually to about 5,000 students of all ages and skill levels, including ceramics, decorative arts, drawing, glass, jewelry, mixed media, painting, photography, and sculpture. Located in an historic 1867 home on Ashford Dunwoody Road, the center’s gallery mounts four to six exhibitions each year in a variety of mediums, including a holiday arts market.

Farmhouse Realty, based out of Dunwoody, was the presenting sponsor of the annual event.  Other sponsors included Georgia Power, JWB Realty Services, Piedmont Bank and Regency Centers. Reporter Newspapers was the media sponsor for the event for the first year.