Workers in downtown Bangor had nearly completed the process of installing a semi-permanent piece of public art featuring colorful umbrellas as of Wednesday afternoon.
The Umbrella Sky Project, inspired by similar pieces of public art in cities and towns all over the world, is now hanging above Cross Street, the short street connecting Main and Columbia streets in downtown Bangor.
The project, a collaboration between the Downtown Bangor Partnership and sponsor Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, features multiple multi-colored umbrellas hanging on wires stretched across the buildings on the street. It not only provides an “Instagrammable” backdrop for photos, Downtown Bangor Partnership director Betsy Lundy said, it also will provide shade on hot summer days.
“It adds to the whimsy of the area,” Lundy said.
The wires holding the umbrellas will stay up year-round, but the umbrellas themselves will come down before the snow flies, and will be put back up in the spring.
It’s the latest piece of public art in downtown Bangor, with the Good of the Hive mural by artist Matthew Willey on Park Street set to be completed at the end of this week, and the “Living Water” sculpture on the Bangor Waterfront installed over the spring.
It joins other well-known pieces of contemporary public art, including murals at the Together Place on Union Street, Shaw’s Supermarket and on Franklin Street, and a mural and sculpture on the McGuire building at Union and Main.
