Tanks a lot
Art All Around project billed as world's largest, to be visible from space
Sprague Energy Corp.'s Peter Frye remembers hearing the pitch: The world's largest permanent public art project, a series of massive fuel tanks in the company's South Portland fuel terminal, all painted in various designs and colors.
The results, when completed in 2012, will be visible from space, organizers of the art project say.
Jean Maginnis, founder and executive director of the Maine Center for Creativity, a Portland-based nonprofit group devoted to Maine residents working in the creative economy, first envisioned this spectacle of multi-colored oil tanks, varying in size from 78 feet wide and 36 feet high to 120 feet wide and 52 feet high.
The early stages of the three-year, $1.2 million artistic endeavor were unveiled Thursday at a media event where Sprague Energy Corp. allowed access to its high-security facility so Maginnis and board members of the center could ride a "cherry picker" up the side of a 40-foot-tall tank used to store home heating fuel. She and other representatives of the center dabbed swatches of paint on the side of the tank, symbolically marking the official launch of their project.
Years earlier, Frye recalled how Maginnis broached the idea of using the tanks as the equivalent of a massive canvas — 261,000 square feet of it, to be exact.
"'It's this huge palette of white area, what do you think?'" he remembers Maginnis asking. "'We could marry art and industry and put this region on the map for being aware of art as well as industry.'"
That was nearly seven years ago, after Maginnis experienced an epiphany and first envisioned the tank farm turned public art panorama.
Now, a company has been hired to start painting, following the patterns of Jaime Gili, the London, England artist chosen in a contest by the center to design the oil-tank artwork. Portland and South Portland residents will be able to watch the artwork in progress, almost like looking over the shoulder of an oil painter as he works on a painting.
Of the 30 tanks in the tank farm, a total of 16 will be painted. Eight tanks will be painted on the sides and the top, and eight will be painted only on top. Approximately 4,500 gallons of paint will be needed to paint the 16 tanks, the center estimates.
"The tanks that they selected are the ones that will be easily visible from the highway," Frye said, noting the proximity of Interstate 295 and the Portland International Jetport. "Their thrust is to make it so that the local folks can see it; if you're flying in and out of the airport you'll be able to see the tops of eight of the tanks that they're going to be painting. You're going to see the work as you come in over the tanks. You'll be able to see it from the highway, the main arteries. As a matter of course, since they're so large, you'll be able to see it from space."
Maginnis said she hopes to have the artist visit in the spring and review his plans.
David Swardlick, a Maine Center for Creativity board member from Yarmouth, said, "I think it's really exciting. It's putting Maine on the map internationally, from a cultural standpoint."
Artists from about 80 countries submitted entries in the center's Art All Around contest for a design; Gili's — his vision depicted a horseshoe array of tanks festooned with interlocking, geometric shapes and slashing colors — won out over 559 others.
Swardlick said, "It really was intended to become a visual symbol of creativity in Maine and help connect Maine to the larger world through this creative culture."
The project's bragging rights as biggest in the world is described thusly by Swardlick: "There's more square footage of art than any other public art project that is intended to be a permanent exhibit."
Maginnis remembered riding her bicycle in Bug Light Park and imagining the Art All Around concept.
"I saw a group of tanks over there and to me in my mind, I imagined the art that I had seen at an art opening the night before. I saw it on a number of tanks, not one, in my mind's eye, and I just said, 'Wow, that's it, that could be an incredible symbol of bringing industry and art together.'"
Frye said industry, in the form of Sprague Energy Corp., is fully on board. The Portsmouth, N.H.-based company, which annually distributes or handles more than 2.5 billion gallons of petroleum products, 170 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 3 million tons of bulk materials, welcomed the innovation.
Swardlick promised that the public would notice when the project neared completion.
"It will continue to grow as this project becomes more visible," he said.
