Sybille Canthal is a dreamer. In her dreams, art is everywhere in West Palm Beach, the city for which she serves as the director of arts, culture, and community building.
Today, from her Clematis Street office, Canthal is closer than ever to that dream. Since she joined the city in 2015, roughly 72 artists have had temporary or permanent artworks across the city—pieces like Color Field of Northwood, the recently unveiled eight-story mural by local artist Renee Phillips at The Spruce apartment complex. She’s worked with private entities on commissions too, including Portals, the late artist Fred Eversley’s final public artwork, consisting of eight towering parabolic sculptures at One Flagler; this effort was a public-private partnership between the city and Related Ross, with the art consultancy Culture Corps serving as the lead on the project.
Canthal truly believes “that art should be accessible to everybody,” giving residents and visitors the ability to view works that inspire and challenge them. For her, the public space is the best way for people from all walks of life to take in art.
“The intimidation factor goes away in a common space,” she says. “Going into an interior space has a sacred or treasured feeling. But in public, you are just walking down the street and come upon art. You’re like, ‘Wow, what is this?’”
Hailing from Los Angeles, Canthal graduated with an art history degree from California State University, Northridge and a MA in arts administration and policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A longtime arts advocate, Canthal considers herself a creative, but not an artist. She draws occasionally, mostly for herself, and reads poetry every day. “I just think poetry is such an abstract, beautiful language that helps fill the space,” she says, “which is what art also does.”
In West Palm Beach, her arts division works within the mayor’s office, allowing her to define the city’s public art program, ArtLife WPB, while collaborating with both public and private entities to make it all a reality. As part of that vision, she and her two-person team created The Commons, an initiative that selects local artists to create temporary, site-specific works in public spaces.
Though she is still dreaming, Canthal believes reality can be just as beautiful. Like when a friend told her he spent an hour with Yinka Shonibare’s Material (SG) II. Another result of a public-private partnership between the city and Related Ross, this sculpture located outside 360 Rosemary mimics the flow of fabric. “He loved it, but he wasn’t sure about the colors,” Canthal says. “So, he gave it some room and let it breathe in his mind. He came out of it and said, ‘I really love this piece.’ Seeing someone react like that gives such satisfaction to my job.”
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