Engagement with the Davis Centennial Seal
This was a partnership with the City of Davis Arts and Cultural Affairs Program, which supports community-based arts projects, cultural opportunities, and education initiatives in Davis. In commemoration of the City of Davis Centennial in 2017, local artist Susan Shelton created a bronze seal installed in 2019 in front of the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer Mansion in Davis, next to Mishka’s Cafe.
As part of my project, I created an historical essay analyzing how the Centennial Seal was created, which will live on the City of Davis’ website, as well as curriculum for elementary and high school students. With the essay, I sought to analyze the history of how Shelton conceived of and designed the seal–the imagery that went into it, the themes she highlights in the seal. I imagined how people can interact with the seal as a public history installation, and what sorts of questions the seal raises about the FUTURE of our city. Particularly today, the general public has become much more interested in memorials and monuments over the past few years given controversies over the history of the Civil War and the ways in which Confederate leaders have been honored throughout the country, whereas it was only recently that there was the creation of a National Historical Park created to commemorate Reconstruction, in South Carolina. So I wanted to be attentive to how discussions surrounding memorials has become nuanced by these conversations. And I also found it interesting that, not only was the artist, Shelton, aware of this, in the seal she made a point of highlighting particular ideas and themes, such as conservation and biodiversity, rather than particular “great men or women.”
I was grateful to be able to interview Shelton and John Mott-Smith, her husband, who provided their perspectives on the seal. I also relied upon the work of Larissa Saco, who worked on a storytelling project based on the seal last year, and who created a video about the seal.
Rachel Hartsough, my contact at the City of Davis, was enormously helpful in connecting me with local teachers and with Shelton and Larissa, among others.
I gained perspective on how public art installations can best serve the public in the present. I was most concerned with how the curricular part of my project can work with the seal–how can students learning about Davis interpret the main images of the seal, from its animals and plants, to its references to innovation at UC Davis, to its bike lanes? How can the seal, in this way, offer a USEABLE past for students to better understand the history of their city, and work to improve it in the future?