Before Madison Metro demolishes and replaces them at the end of this month, the seven bus stops around the Capitol Square are getting a "creative farewell" from artists.

The idea for the public art project ("Destination") comes from Mequon-native Melanie Kehoss, 27, who just finished her Master of Fine Arts at UW-Madison. She arranged a grant from the Madison Arts Commission through their BLINK Temporary Public Art Program and got the green light from Madison Metro in late May.

On Sunday, July 1, seven artists – Kehoss, Nina Bedarsky, Sean Bodley, Craig Grabhorn, Nick Hartley, Darryl Jensen and John Riepenhoff – assembled on the Square to make art on each individually-assigned bus shelter. The art ranges from quiet and sly to loud and sloppily exuberant.

Kehoss' created her own design using Mylar plastic stencils and glue. The result is a narrative scene of two white silhouettes that wraps around the bus shelter.

At the end of this month, Madison Metro will be tearing down the existing shelters to replace them with ones that look more like the shelters on State St. The cost of the project is estimated at $792,000.

On July 21 from 1 to 3 p.m., each artist will be stationed at his or her bus stop, available to answer questions. You can also hear artists' statements by calling telephone numbers with pre-recorded out-going messages. More info here: http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/kehoss/Destination.html

I sat down with Melanie Kehoss recently to discuss public art, public transportation and how she envisions work that finds an intersection between the two.

Is this the first public art you've organized?

Yes, this is the first public art project that I've spearheaded. I'm really interested in public art in terms of the public being a venue anywhere, rather than in galleries. Galleries tend to be very sterile, kind of intimidating for most people. I mean, they're great, I'm glad they're around, but a lot of people just wouldn't want to walk into a gallery. And I don't think that's what galleries want either. They want to sell art. They aren't interested in people walking through like it's a museum. Public art is for the public. It's not a possession of any one person; it's a possession of the citizens.

What's some of your favorite public art around?

I really love the fountain at Millennium Park in Chicago with the video beneath the water. It isn't just decorative. You actually have to look at it for a while and think about it. I think last year's "Cows on Parade" helped the public here be aware of public art, of art transitioning in and out of visibility. Most of the cows were decorative and crowd-pleasing. A lot of the public art that people connect with is, I don't want to say juvenile, but just not thought-provoking. I like to put art out there that's more than just decorative.

How did you get the idea to incorporate a bus stop into your art?

I've always wanted to do something involved with public transportation. During undergrad, I did an off-campus study in Chicago and there was art all over their public transportation system. Particularly in the program I was in (the Chicago Arts Program), a lot of people did 'L'-related artwork. I thought it was a great place to do it because it was semi-enclosed, but everyone needed the 'L.' Everyone will likely see the work. The space also influences what the work will read as. For me, that's a handy thing, because my own work has a lot to do with public space, human interaction and awkward moments between strangers. Usually the interactions I tend towards are a balance between warmth and tension. Warm in the sense that people are attempting to connect and sometimes having a positive experience that way, but also tense because it's hard, it's awkward trying to connect with someone. That's all portrayed in the body language.

How does that play out in what you have up right now?

It's an interaction between strangers. The man is flying a kite and the woman is just passing by. As she walks away, the kite gets out of control and just about hits her. We've all hung out at parks and know that can be kind of an awkward thing. But she's okay and she helps him get the kite back in the air again, so there's warmth in that. I wanted to do a scene that was outdoors, that reflected the social environment in Madison and the culture here. James Madison Park is practically in view of the structure that I did.

Why is awkwardness important to you as a motif?

I guess it's part of the zeitgeist of art-making right now that you can't just have a purely happy-go-lucky image. There has to be something belying the positive, optimistic qualities of the work. A lot of artists these days aren't optimistic. I think I'm on the positive side of the artist spectrum. But I want there to be moments of 'Huh? Wait a second, what's going on here? Is this really so happy or is there something a little more dark, or just awkward, going on here?' Because that's what are lives are like. It's part of the human condition.

Do you ride the bus?

I do. I prefer biking, actually. I don't have a car, so in the winter I tend to ride the bus a lot. I wish we had light rail, but for this size city, Madison's bus system is really good. I'd like to help the image of public transportation, particularly in Madison right now. It was interesting going to the Transportation and Parking Commission meeting to present this idea, because there were people there from the public who could come in and voice their gripes. They were saying how the bus system is so unsafe, bus drivers don't stop, how kids will be disruptive on the bus. I think a lot of people just have that impression of riding the bus, you know, 'it's going to be disruptive, it's going to a negative thing, poor people ride the bus, old people ride the bus.' But in other cities, everyone does. There shouldn't be anything wrong with it at all, I think. So I want to enter that P.R. element, too, because I'm an environmentalist. I wish we were all biking and taking public transportation.

What do you think of the current brown brick bus shelters on the Square?

You know, I never really thought that much about them until I undertook this project. I'm glad they're getting a little attention, because anything that has been part of the cityscape for a while should get some recognition at the end of its existence. I didn't know they actually had a lot of politics behind them, in the sense that they were expensive. All of those bricks were made for those shelters, so they're unique. There are problems with them – like not being able to see in and out of them really well because there is so much brick, and of course, there's the whole controversial homeless issue. So they wanted to put in shelters that would be a little more open and airy. That's not my issue here. I mean, I would love to decorate those, too.

In your artist's statement, you lament the stifling effect that bus shelters can have on social interaction and say you hope that artwork will "socially activate" the shelter. What do you mean by this?

I'm probably like a lot of other people. I go into the bus stop, and maybe there's someone sitting there, and I'll nod at them and think, 'Should I talk about something? Should I talk about the weather? Should I talk about whether the bus has come yet or not?" I feel this urge to connect but I'm also held back due to tension and fear and awkwardness. So I think that having art in any place can encourage dialogue, even if it's about the art itself. We talk about the weather because we all experience it. We could talk about art instead of talking about the weather, for once.

And then there are iPods. I take the bus a lot and I'll want to ask somebody at a bus stop something, like, "Has the #3 come past yet?", but they'll have their ear buds in. It's this block.

I was playing with that whole iPod image with my own shelter, using the silhouettes that the iPod commercials also use. The string is also about connection: the kite string versus the cords on an iPod. But this is a much different message. I'm really ambivalent about things like iPods. Before iPods, people would read a book or a newspaper. Now this is even more closed off, people are even more in their own world. I don't have an iPod and I don't know what iPod etiquette is. Can you talk with someone when they're listening on their headphones? I'm not sure. But getting people out of that shell is a good thing.

How did you find the other artists involved in this project?

It was an open call on Milwaukee and Madison artists' yahoo groups. Most of them are actually from Milwaukee. I had never met any of the artists before July 1st -- the day of installation. They worked really hard all day. I think I was the first done and that was a nine hour day for me. There's actually one guy who got the police called on him. This person who called 9-1-1 just thought he was dumping paint on this shelter for no reason.