Two of the Village of Oak Creek's Four Roundabout Pads Now Hold Art. The Volunteers Who Filled Them Aren't Done.

Drive south on SR 179 and the Cortez Drive roundabout now holds a bronze raven. It is life-size, perched with a steel dream catcher, and the sculpture is about 9 feet high and 8 feet long. It sits on a 4-foot-high pedestal of masonry and local flagstone, built to match the rock of the roundabout. A little farther on, where Verde Valley School Road meets the highway, there is a much bigger piece. It measures 13 by 16 by 9 feet in Cor-ten steel, with red rocks, junipers, cacti and hummingbirds, and the cactus blossoms are stainless steel anodized cadmium yellow.

The first is "Dream Catcher" by Chris Navarro. The second is "Village Treasures" by Reagan Word. The Sedona Village Main Street Partnership says both are now installed, which completes Phase I of the project.

They weren't paid for by a city arts budget. The Village of Oak Creek has no city, so a group of residents built the funding, ownership and upkeep arrangements themselves. That took four years and filled two of the four circles.

The circles had room for art from the start

The roundabouts were always meant to hold art. Lenore Hemingway, a member of the Art in the Roundabouts committee, told the Sedona Red Rock News that her husband had supervised maintenance for the district that cares for the SR 179 corridor. He "saw on the maps for the roundabouts that there was actually a pad designed for art."

The project went after those pads. Big Park Council, the volunteer group that represents the Village, created the Art in the Roundabouts committee on May 12, 2022. In 2024 the committee moved under the Sedona Village Main Street Partnership, a nonprofit set up for these art pieces. The plan, as the Red Rock News reported it, is four pieces along SR 179 through the Village.

Why two sculptures took four years

Uptown Sedona's roundabouts already had sculpture. The Village had no city to own art in the middle of a state highway, so the committee had to set up ownership before anything could go in.

That arrangement uses several organizations. Each one handles part of the job that a city would normally handle alone:

• Arizona Department of Transportation: approved the installations on the state route.
• Sedona Area Garden Club: designed the landscaping around the pieces.
• Arizona Community Foundation: provides long-term maintenance funding.
• Red Rock Road Enhancement Maintenance District: will be the final owner of the artwork.
• Sedona Village Main Street Partnership: holds a special fund for maintaining the art.

That last item is there because of a quirk in the district's rules. Rotarian Rob Schaefer described the Red Rock Road Enhancement Maintenance District, usually called RRREMD, as a taxing district set up in 2008 to maintain the public areas along 179, funded by a small amount on property tax bills. The district can own the sculptures, but its charter doesn't let it hold money. Committee co-chair Camille Cox explained to the Red Rock News how the group worked around that:

"That's how we worked out these structures, and that's kind of why this project's taken four years. It's never really been done before by a non-municipality or … no county sponsorship or anything. It's just been a group of volunteers and a community that had a desire to beautify our roundabouts, which were designed to have art in them from the very beginning."

So the sculptures will belong to a district the Village's property owners already pay into. A foundation and a nonprofit cover upkeep, so the art doesn't depend on a city budget that the Village doesn't have.

The money came from neighbors

The artwork was paid for privately. Village philanthropists Rob and Alix Schaefer donated $110,000, enough to fully fund "Village Treasures," according to Sedona.biz in May 2025. "Dream Catcher" was paid for through a separate fundraising campaign, which the project announced as complete in June 2025. In that announcement, the program says both pieces were "FULLY FUNDED" by local community members.

The artists are local too. Lenore Hemingway told the Red Rock News that both "live right here in the village, which just happened to happen." Both have work elsewhere in Sedona. The same article notes that Word made "Open Gate" at the Schnebly Hill roundabout and the paired "Eagle Dancer" sculptures in the Uptown roundabouts. Navarro has a number of sculptures outside his gallery at Tlaquepaque.

Residents chose the themes before any artist was picked

Residents shaped the selection before any proposals came in. "In the beginning of the project, we actually polled the community on themes that the community was attracted to and thought would be good," Cox told the Red Rock News. The call to artists drew eight submissions, and the committee narrowed them to five. As Sedona.biz reported at the time, those five were revealed on May 1, 2024, at the Village branch of the Sedona Public Library and stayed on display there through May 8. Residents could comment until May 31, and their input went into the committee's further talks with the artists.

The Partnership describes the process in four steps:

1. Issue a call to artists.
2. Evaluate the artistic proposals.
3. Display the proposals for community input.
4. Select art for the roundabouts at Bell Rock Boulevard and Ridge Trail.

Step four names the next two sites.

Phase 2 covers both ends of the Village

The first two sculptures are near the middle of the Village. The remaining pads are at its two ends on SR 179, the Bell Rock Boulevard roundabout and the Ridge Trail Drive roundabout. Most traffic into and out of the Village goes through those two circles. Once Phase 2 is done, drivers will pass art when they enter and leave the Village, as well as in the middle.

This round will draw from a wider pool of artists. Cox said the next call for artists will be nationwide, for ideas that meet the criteria already set by the community polling. "Once we get the ones that meet the criteria, we'll have a public event," she said. "Last time, we had it here at the library." The Partnership's page currently ends with "STAND BY FOR PHASE 2."

Saturday, November 21

Art in the Roundabouts is inviting the community to a celebration on Saturday, November 21. Big Park Council announced it in its November newsletter. It is the first community event since the Partnership announced that both pieces are installed, and the Phase 2 plans should make it a good time to ask questions. Venue and time details are posted through Big Park Council and the program's site at ourvillageart.org. Big Park Council's regular public meetings are on Zoom at 9 a.m. The November meeting is Thursday, November 12, and the one after is Thursday, December 10. Guests can RSVP by email to get the link.

Both sculptures sit in the middle of active highway roundabouts. The safest way to see them is from the car or from the November 21 event.

Our team keeps track of projects like this one because they affect what Village homeowners see every day and what buyers notice on their first drive in. If you own a home near Cortez Drive, Verde Valley School Road, or one of the two Phase 2 circles and want to know how the Village's changes affect what your home is worth, Kris Anderson and the team can give you a straight answer. Get your confidential home valuation.