Brenda Gottlieb is the brainchild behind Art Bench, an international design competition that enhances The Woodlands Waterway with artistically designed benches. Three years ago Gottlieb served on the board of the Woodlands Waterway Art Council and was looking for ways to bring art to the public.

“Art Bench seemed to be an ideal thing to bring to the community,” Gottlieb said. “You can feel it literally, and you can sit on them.”

WWAC timed the first installment of the project to coincide with The Woodlands’ 40th anniversary, Gottlieb said.

Last year the program placed eight benches at locations along The Waterway and near The Woodlands Mall, Art Bench Committee Chairwoman Amy Lecocq said.

Phase 2 of the Art Bench project is underway, Lecocq said, which means emails to local art galleries, art schools and international advertisements have been sent to solicit applicants.

“Artists from the U.S. as well as overseas look at [the application] to see what is available,” she said. “We have had our artists from Austria and Spain as well as the U.S.” 

Artist designs are selected from the pool of applicants by a committee that reviews applications for suitable designs. Criteria committee members consider during selection include the design’s ability to weather the elements for five years, good drainage and its ability to withstand the use of skateboarders, Lecocq said.

“We want the artist to use their creative energies to select the medium that they think is going to be best,” she said. “We want it be art as well as functional. Some of them you don’t realize it’s a bench until you look more closely, it just looks like a piece of art.”

Underwriters—those who fund the creation of the benches—are presented with three designs and must choose one winner.

Bob Mosier, visual arts department chairman at John Cooper School in The Woodlands, won last year for his African mahogany design, “Hail and Farewell Henry Moore.”

“The surface is sculpted to represent the flowing water found on the Waterway,” Mosier said. “I like the idea that when first approached people think it is a sculpture, but when they get up to it they see the sculpted seats [and] realize, ‘Hey, it is a place to sit.’”

Lecocq said the next six benches will be selectively placed around Waterway Square and Town Green Park in February or March of 2016.