02 Aug Art Adventures: “It All Flows Into The Savannah” Storm Drain Public Art Tour

Art Adventures: “It All Flows Into The Savannah” Storm Drain Public Art Tour

By Rhian Swain

It’s just about time for the kids to get back to school so the mad dash to fill as much family fun time in before the school bell rings has begun. A great family activity can be found on the Arts Council’s Public Art Tours page on their new website: the self-guided tours. There’s currently five tours available including the Augusta Sculpture Trail Tour, the Golden Blocks Tour, the Art the Box Tour, Public Walls Mural Tour and the new 2021 “It All Flows Into The Savannah” Storm Drain Tour.

I grabbed part of my family last weekend and took the self-guided Stormdrain tour. There are twelve painted storm drains located in walking distance from each other around downtown. Local artists painted the storm drains during Masters week in April as part of the City of Augusta’s outreach to raise awareness about storm water pollution. Every bit of nastiness that gets tossed into our storm drains ends up polluting the Savannah River.

Scott (my kidnapped family for the tour) and I started our tour in front of the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art on Telfair street where we found “Stallings Island” by Alyssa Beck. Just down the street, in front of the Municipal Building, was one of my favorite murals, the crazy eyed octopus “Not Enough Hands” by Tim McSherry.

Following the handy online map sponsored by Emory University in Atlanta, We made our way from one drain mural to the next. A new favorite of mine was “Save the Drain for the Rain” by Art Abdon, located in front of the Jessye Norman School of the Arts. When I had taken the tour in April to photograph the artists as they were working on them, Apex” the Alien Artist hadn’t been added yet so I was thoroughly delighted to discover him.

The murals run up along Broad Street, over to the Augusta Common and up into Reynolds Street where Ansleigh Davis’ “Water is Life” greets all the Saturday Market visitors each week. A must-see mural, and Scott’s favorite, was the delightful riverscape on the Augusta Common “Up the River” by Cyndy Epps. I think he would have taken the playful otter home with him if he could.

Augusta’s public art is growing and touring it makes a GREAT family trip, plus price of admission is so affordable! The only cost is showing up. Check out all the great tours at https://augustaarts.com/augusta-public-art-tours.