On Thursday, Burlington leaders will gather near City Hall Park to celebrate a new sculpture. Anthology by Lydia Kern is one of four large-scale works being installed along Main Street.
The sculpture brings a welcome dose of color to a city street that's been under construction for more than a year. Businesses on the road are struggling, and a few have shut down. On some blocks, traffic cones far outnumber pedestrians.
But when streets and sidewalks are torn up, it's a perfect opportunity to install public art. So went the thinking of Colin Storrs and his colleagues at Burlington City Arts. The organization uses a combination of city funding and charitable donations to program gallery exhibitions, festivals, art classes and public art projects in Vermont's Queen City.
The process of building foundations for the four sculptures was incorporated into the construction project. The construction area around Anthology was finished first, and Kern was able to get the piece ready for an early installation this fall. The other three pieces will follow in 2026.
Burlington City Arts received 165 submissions for Main Street art. Storrs said Kern's vision was selected in part for how accessible it is to anyone who walks by — be it a tourist, a college student, a longtime Burlingtonian or a little kid.
"It was going to be bright and colorful yet meaningful, and sort of complex in a way that is hard to achieve in public art. It really spoke to the type of Burlington-centric public art that the committee wanted to see," Storrs said.
Anthology is an 11-foot-tall archway. Dried flowers are preserved in semi-translucent resin the color of a sunset. That color scheme was inspired by the sky over nearby Lake Champlain, which a visitor can see from the sculpture.
"Lydia sat for over a month getting donations of community flowers and community items that she incorporated in the piece," Storrs said. "It reminds people that life is about change and coming together and being a community."
There’s also a QR code to scan that takes you to an Eye Spy-style list, so you can treasure hunt for little surprises that Kern left embedded in the resin.
Kern was a Burlington resident until recently, when she moved to New York City.
The archway leads pedestrians from the Main Street sidewalk into City Hall Park, which is in its own state of transition. There’s a splash pad for kids, brightly colored tables and rain gardens. It is also where a lot of people congregate who struggle with drug addiction or homelessness. Police are a frequent presence.
Kern said she’s not particularly worried about whether or not her piece will be targeted for vandalism. For one, it's treated with a special finish to make graffiti easier to clean off.
"I'm not concerned about graffiti or things like that," she said. "The sculptural body can be fixed. I did a lot of graffiti testing. That can be attended to. I think I'm more concerned about other things in our city, and people's needs not being met."
Graffiti is a concern for others. In September, someone defaced a brand new mural downtown. Volunteers immediately restored it, but lots of other buildings with graffiti haven’t received that same level of care.
Storrs said Burlington set aside about 1% of funding for the Main Street construction project for public art. Burlington City Arts spent part of that budget on preservation for the pieces they funded. Still, Storrs wishes the city had more funding available for graffiti mitigation.
"It's a very challenging force to reckon with, just because you can't keep things in the public 100% safe all the time," he said.
Anthology is already bringing color to the days of people who live or work in Burlington. Bob Robidoux of Middlebury, a flagger for the Main Street construction project, said his shifts are usually pretty monotonous. He likes to watch people stop and look at the archway.
"There's dozens of people here just taking pictures — a lot of tourists stopping by," he said. "They think it's really cool."
His words made Kern smile. "Thanks for keeping an eye on it," she said.
