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For goodness sakes you would think that the City of Atlanta would invest a little bit of time and effort in its public art, especially the ones taking pride of place. I know, I know, times are tough and money is scarce, but if you are going to have public art in the first place, look after it. Sculptor Mark Smith has been having a long battle to have his Emerging sculpture restored. It stands right next to the Andrew Young Memorial Park which has recently enjoyed a face lift and should have had the same courtesy, considering the amount of traffic that views it each day. Mark is passionate about his work and is more than a little annoyed that his sculpture has been neglected to the point that it has lost its original meaning. Mark has gone to e public. I visited Atlanta in 2007 and grabbed some snaps of it for my website, unawarxtraordinary lengths to have Emerging restored but to no avail. Disillusioned by the whole thing he is now trying to raise money to restore it himself. It must be hard for an artist to watch his work disintegrate in full view of thee that it was in such a terrible state. Despite this I thought it was the most exciting and thought provoking of the public art I saw. I guess Mark was horrified when he discovered I had included the neglected piece on my website (including photo’s) and contacted me. After watching a presentation of the before and after of Emerging it is no wonder Mark is fighting to have the sculpture restored. Placed in a prominent and busy intersection the people and motorists of Atlanta deserve more and should be treated to the real emerging with all its reflective power. Check out Mark Smiths website .