New Art Sculptures at the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport!


The Coastal Carolina Regional Airport Authority in partnership with the East Carolina University’s (ECU) School of Art and Design reveals student art sculptures!

Today’s “3rd Annual Art at the Airport” Event was an eye opener. I’ve seen the art sculptures at the Airport before, but had no idea of the story behind this interesting project.

This unique venture gives ECU students a chance to exhibit their art to 134,000 travelers to and from the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport each year.

The Airport Authority sends a jury to ECU each year to view models 10-12” tall of the student art sculptures. They choose seven pieces out of 15 to display outside the airport. This isn’t an easy process because they try to imagine what they would look like at a much larger scale and vote on the most appealing to widest variety of people who had a chance to look at it. – Summary: Maj Gen Tom Braaten, USMC, Ret

Meet the artists:

(from left to right: Tom Braaten, Colton Winchester, Kevin Poole, Samantha Woitovich, Jenny Reading, Jonathan Burger, and Phillip Winn)

– Colton Winchester: Elements of Flight – he combined the “four elements of flying which is weight, thrust, lift, and drag. Last year I focused mainly on weight and lift, but this year I wanted to incorporate all four of them”. Note: Colton has another piece from last year – Let Go.

– Kevin Poole: Imagination – “Idea of a kid imagining he can fly and he’s basically transforming into a plane”.

– Samantha Woitovich: Mystic Flight – “Inspired by the idea of an atmospheric perspective and by a plane taking flight and going up into the sky”.

– Jenny Reading: Flight of Feather – “Like a feather being swept off in the wind. Depending on how you look at it, it also could represent a bird or a shell”.

– Jonathan Burger: Landing Place – “Owl is wisdom, Delta is peace, Raven is meditation to make up various aspects of mankind. The tree is a place like an airport where we gather before a journey, a place to take off from and land as a stepping stone to a more permanent place where we nest”.

– Phillip Winn: Traverse – “The two forms were going to or coming from a destination. The round elements on the outside represent longitude and latitude and are made of foam based steel fabricated.

– Brandon Estep – was not present, but Tom Bratten described his piece, Glide “made out of cedar wood and which will age very nicely”.

Check out the YouTube Video of the ECU Art Students talking about their artwork: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6K7YSIYsYA.

The Coastal Carolina Regional Airport Authority purchased two sculptures from last year – Abigail Cochran’s The Travelers Three (three dandelions) and Chase Key’s Up, Up and Away (paper airplane with pencils).

The sculptures are for sale to the public by contacting the artists.

Special thanks to the Craven County Master Gardener Volunteer Association for the work at the Sculpture Arts Garden.

Please contact the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport for more information at 252-638-8591, visit them at 200 Terminal Drive, New Bern, NC.

Great job, Airport Authority Board and Staff and the ECU Students and Staff! Special thanks to East Carolina’s School of Art and Design’s Director Micheal Drought, Sculture Department Coordinator Hanna Jubran, and Faculty Member Carl Billingsley!

Please feel free to comment below or send me an email. Thanks for visiting New Bern Now!

Wendy Card