The sign is for an outdoor art installation in the works at the west-side park and is not related to the east-side Art Park, which is a collection of mostly art-related businesses geared toward children on 29th Street between Woodlawn and Rock Road.
“I’m nauseous, honestly,” says Charles Baughman, who owns the 12-year-old business with his wife, Kate Pepper. Baughman says they’ve “tried to handle this quietly for six months.”
Pepper says she’s been talking with John D’Angelo, the city’s manager of the division of arts and cultural services.
D’Angelo referred questions to the county, which referred questions to artist Terry Corbett, who is facilitating the art installation.
“It started out first with a county proposal,” Corbett says. “It was called the Art Garden. . . . They wanted family-friendly environmental art.” County spokeswoman Kate Flavin says county representatives don’t know when that was.
“Clearly nobody remembers . . . how the Art Park got its name.”
Regardless, she says, “We don’t feel that there’s any confusion.”
(Read more: Wichita Eagle)