'A Song for Nurturing Peace' by Nancy Thorne-Chambers was voted as the 2023 Percival Plinth Project People's Choice, Olympia Art Specialist Angel Nava announced at the Arts Commission meeting on Thursday.
The voting was held for the entire month of July and had 212 votes for 18 art pieces.
Nava shared this year's voting results, saying two entries were close in the running.
"[I thought] we would have a repeat of last year because we were very close to another tie," Nava said, adding a little gap showed a clear winner by five votes.
In 2022, 'Salmon Romance' by Pat McVay and 'Underwater Disagreement' by Eileen Lagasse jointly held the People's Choice distinction. Arts Commission Chairman Jim Burlingame said the tie was a first in the Percival Plinth Project's 12-year history.
Each year, Nava explained, the commission helps identify sculptures that are displayed on the Percival Landing for a year. They have a jury process that would select 18 sculptures, with the selected artists receiving a $1,000 honorarium for their work. Additionally, one sculpture is selected by public vote and gets a purchase price of up to $10,000 for its artist.
For this year, Nava said, the winning piece garnered 65 votes. The runner-up, 'Addiction' by Irene Osborn, had 60 votes, and the honorable mention 'Encircled in Cycles' by Jennifer Kapnek got 25 votes.
Nava also shared what voters had to say about Thorne-Chambers' artwork:
"It is beautiful. It depicts gentleness, nurturing, love…everything I consider humans could never have too much of!"
"Very creative and well-crafted bronze with excellent message embedded."
"It is an extraordinary work describing the vision of peace in a creative wholehearted way."
According to Nava, people also spoke about the 'Addiction' artwork, which they described as a "very powerful work" that depicts the power of addiction, the importance of talking about it, and giving attention to people struggling with it.
Commissioner Kathy Dorgan recalled having a hard time on which to vote for, saying it was a tough choice between the top two artworks.
"It is kind of 'yin-yang.' They are so different in emotion. I found them equally beautiful. But I went with the positivity. I just thought healing is kind of a thing we need to do in so many areas. The other side is that we need to keep difficult issues at the forefront. So, it's still a tough choice, but the positivity made me come with it, and I have – when this is going on," Dorgan commented.
The commissioners approved the purchase of "A Song for Nurturing Peace" by Nancy Thorne-Chambers as the 2023 Percival Plinth People's vote winner.
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