Cotati Unveils Newest Sculpture Downtown

Missy Englehardt, a former Sonoma State student and local artist, unveiled five cement sculptures on the lawn outside the Lions Club downtown Cotati Tuesday — the spearheaded by the Cotati Arts Project — a collaboration between the Cotati Chamber of Commerce and Sonoma State University.

Englehardt said she wants the public to interact with the exhibit, titled “Inside Out.”

"I lived in Rohnert Park and Cotati for five years, so I partly wanted it to serve as a remembrance, like a gravestone, but not in a morbid sense," she said. "But I also wanted them to act as personal benches for people to use."

The , a seven-foot sculpture of the godess Athena, was dedicated at La Plaza Park in April.

“The Cotati Arts Project has taken on the charge of bringing as much art to Cotati as humanly possible,” said Andre Morrow, president of the chamber.

Englehardt, a recent graduate of Sonoma State's fine arts program who is currently purusing a master's degree also in fine art from the San Francisco Art Institute, was one of 11 students to submit an art proposal to the city. Five additional sculptures are planned for the coming months.

Her project — a process of pouring cement into plastic bags, and hanging them upside down to create tension and weight — took about six months, she said.

Each sculpture is funded by an organization and honors a civic or neighborhood leader. “Inside Out” was dedicated to Exchange Bank vice president and former city council president Nadine Wolford for service to the community.

“We’re really looking forward to the future sculptures,” Morrow said. “We have two sculptures that are over 15 feet high — we're really excited about continuing the process to get all five of them up.”