Call to Artists/Request for Qualifications Majestic Park Sculpture of Babe Ruth Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas INTRODUCTION Friends of Majestic Park (FOMP), announces a Call to Artists / Request for Qualifications (RFQ) in order to award and commission a permanent, site-specific sculpture of Babe Ruth. The sculpture will be installed at Majestic Park, a youth baseball and softball complex constructed on ​ a historically significant site. This Call to Artists/RFQ is a two-stage selection process, and only ​ artists who are pre-qualified through this initial stage will be permitted to move to, and be considered in, the second stage of the process. OVERVIEW Majestic Park - Where baseball's past meets baseball’s future. When play begins at Majestic Park in 2022, boys and girls from Hot Springs and across the South will begin participating in America’s Game on a site that once hosted Major League Baseball immortals Babe Ruth, Henry Aaron, Honus Wagner and Jackie Robinson. Majestic Park, a five-field baseball complex currently under construction, is being built on the ​ site of one of the first spring training sites in Major League Baseball history. Nowhere else in the country can a young person playing baseball say he or she played on the exact site where the legends of the sport played. History Even as early as the 1800’s, Hot Springs, Arkansas, was well known as a health and recreation resort that attracted the rich and famous. The city had the finest hotels, lively nightclubs, a beautiful mountain setting and the famous hot, healing water. These were a few of the attractions that led Cap Anson to bring his Chicago White Stockings (now the Cubs) to Hot Springs in 1886. The health spa with its famous hot mineral baths, the mountains, trails, hotels and activities in this bustling turn-of-the-century resort was the perfect place for something no one had ever heard of: annual spring training for professional baseball. One of the fields constructed to host annual spring training was located at Carson and Belding Streets in the center of Hot Springs. In 1909 the Boston Red Sox leased the property and it was named Majestic Park after their spring training headquarters downtown in the Majestic Hotel. Ruth attended his first spring training as a Red Sox player at the site in 1914. From 1908 through 1918 the site hosted spring training games for the Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals. Twenty Major League exhibition games were played at the park. The Ray Doan Baseball School and the George Barr Umpire School were held at Majestic Park. Instructors included Dizzy and Paul Dean, Grover Alexander, Rogers Hornsby, Cy Young, Tris Speaker and Schoolboy Rowe. Legendary female athlete Babe Didrikson attended one of the schools. Jaycee Park was built on the site in 1947 and served as the home field for the Hot Springs Bathers (Cotton States League) from 1947 to 1955. Jackie Robinson played in an exhibition game there in 1947. In 1952, a game in the Negro League World Series was played at the site when the Indianapolis Clowns faced the Birmingham Black Barons. The Clowns featured an 18-year-old shortstop named Henry (Hank) Aaron. Majestic Park is part of Hot Springs’ rich history as The Birthplace of Major League Baseball Spring Training. The Historic Hot Springs Baseball Trail includes a guided tour of locations throughout the city that were the sites of significant events during the late 19th Century and up until the mid-20th Century when Hot Springs was the favored training site for 50 percent of the members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Historical markers at these locations guide visitors through the colorful history of the game as it played out in Hot Springs. A block-long mural at Convention Boulevard and Malvern Avenue in the downtown area illustrates the legends of the game who played in the city. Majestic Park and the beautiful bronze sculpture of Babe Ruth will be another highlight added to the tour. Babe Ruth History George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) had a Major League Baseball career that spanned 22 ​ ​ ​ ​ seasons, from 1914 through 1935. One of the world’s greatest sports heroes and considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time, Ruth was elected into the Baseball ​ Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members in ​ ​ ​ 1936. Ruth trained in Hot Springs nine times and became a very familiar face around town. He hiked the mountains, took the baths, played golf, patronized the casinos and visited the racetrack. On March 17, 1918, the 23-year-old launched a mammoth home run that flew over 573 feet, baseball’s first 500-foot-plus drive. COMMISSION OPPORTUNITY FOMP seeks to commission a permanent public art piece to be installed as the centerpiece of Majestic Field’s entrance. The bronze sculpture will depict the young Babe Ruth who once played on the original Majestic Field. The original artwork must be permanent and site-specific, at least 1 ¼ scale. A total budget of $100,000 has been allocated for this commission. This total sum is inclusive of all artist(s) fees, insurance, fabrication, installation, travel and all other project-related expenses. Majestic Park will separately fund and contract for footers, landscaping, lighting and other needs. The artwork installation schedule will be further developed during the RFP process, with a desired completion time of Spring 2022. ELIGIBILITY AND SELECTION CRITERIA This competition is open to artists and artist-teams who reside in the United States. Artwork will be selected based on creativity, artistic merit, technical proficiency and previous examples of completed sculptures. Commissioning of this project will be decided without preference to racial or ethnic origins, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, disability or age. FOMP reserves the right to modify this solicitation and to request additional information from participating artists. FOMP reserves the right to accept or reject, at any time prior to the commissioning of a work, any or all proposals when the acceptance, rejection, waiver or advertisement would be in the best interest of the project. FOMP will be responsible for all correspondence and communication by and between applicants and members of selection panels. Discussion regarding these projects by and between any applicant and any member of a selection panel outside of regularly scheduled meetings during the selection process may be grounds for the disqualification of the applicant. Such determination shall be at the discretion of FOMP. SITE IMAGES The site is currently under construction, so all included images are of the architectural renderings of the proposed facility. Majestic Park entrance where the proposed sculpture will be located. Majestic Park 5-field Complex, located at Carson and Belding Streets in Hot Springs, Arkansas. SELECTION PROCESS The selection process will take place in two stages: Stage 1 Stage 1 consists of this Request for Qualifications (RFQ), with Responses due by February 20, 2021 at 5 p.m. CT. Submissions will be reviewed by FOMP committee. Up to 3 artists will be selected to move to the next stage and asked to submit a Request for Proposal (RFP). Artists prequalified for Stage 2 will receive notification by email. See detailed Stage 1 RFQ Application Procedure section for details. Stage 2 Only those artists who have been pre-qualified in Stage 1 will be permitted to apply in Stage 2. Prequalified artists will be required to submit a more detailed formal proposal consisting of text, proposed budget, and images/drawings/renderings. Stage 2 Applicants will each receive a $1,000 honorarium to cover research, administrative and logistical costs. Stage 2 Applicants will be required to give a virtual presentation to the FOMP selection committee. Nothing in this RFQ binds the FOMP to issuing an award in response to the Stage 2 RFP, any artist/artist team selected through the Stage 2 RFP will be required to enter a written contract agreement with the FOMP prior to commencing work. No selection shall be deemed final until a proposal has been fully approved and an agreement properly executed. If a finalist is not selected from the Stage 2 finalist group, the FOMP committee reserves the right to re-open the call for artists. FOMP reserves the right to change, modify, or revise the Call for Artists, in part or whole, at any time without prior notice. FOMP reserves the right to make no selection for this call to artists. TIMETABLE Issue Call January 2021 Submission Deadline 5:00pm on February 20, 2021 Stage 2 Finalists Notification February 28, 2021 Request for Proposals Deadline 5:00pm EST on April 1, 2021 RFP review and artist presentations April 5-9, 2021 Sculpture Commission April 30, 2021 Artwork Fabrication Summer-Fall 2021 Artwork Installation Spring 2022 STAGE 1 RFQ APPLICATION PROCEDURE Email the following to [email protected] via a file-sharing program such as Dropbox or GDrive. If unable to access either format, please email for further assistance. ● Submit eight (8) digital work samples of your artwork ○ Images should be labeled as last name, first name, and number; for example: Smith_Jane_01 ○ Images should be saved as JPGs, GIFs, or PNGs at 72 dpi with 1200 pixels as the widest dimension ● Submit the following information as A SINGLE PDF document: ○ Artist Info: Name, Address, Phone, Email, Website, how you heard about the call ○ One Page Statement of Interest: This brief cover letter may include related experience, artistic ambitions, and a description of your concept for the sculpture. ○ Resume (Two-page maximum) ○ Image Identification Sheet: These must correspond to the numbers of your submitted images.