Staff Report

LAUDERHILL, Fla. – The new Lauderhill Central Park Library grand opening took place recently and reflected a collaboration of county and city partnerships, the arts, sports and learning.

Broward-based artist Ruben Ubiera’s mixed-medium mural, “Glory and Defeat,” was featured at the event. According to the artist, Glory and Defeat is a marriage between sports and libraries because people who play sports usually don’t find themselves in libraries and vice versa.

He said the artwork represents two ladies: Lady Glory and Lady Defeat, who speak to the unspoken rule in sports where someone must win and someone must lose.

Ubiera also intended the artwork to represent the city’s green areas, gold sunsets, warmth and history through newspaper clippings, with the goal of encouraging community pride.

“This is a daring selection by the Artist Selection Panel,” said Broward Cultural Division’s Public Art & Design Administrator Leslie Fordham. “They took a leap of faith in a conceptual design and supported it through research and questions in order to have the artist bring the artwork to life.”

Fordham said the artwork represents what is important about public art, in that Ubiera was able to improve the artwork through feedback from the community and governing agencies, while also maintaining his artistic integrity through organic origami, sporting figures and ballerinas.

The Broward County Board of County Commissioners and City of Lauderhill partnered to produce the event. It was attended by members of the public, as well as several city and county officials including: Dale V.C. Holness, Broward

County District 9 Commissioner; Richard Kaplan, Lauderhill Mayor; Laura Connors, acting director of Broward County Libraries; Sam Morrison, past director Broward County Libraries; Dan West, director of the
Parks and Recreation Division; Jeff Thompson, assistant director of the Construction Management Division; staff from the library and Public Art & Design; members of Friends of the Library and the Library Advisory Board.

For more information on Broward County’s Public Art & Design Program or Ubiera’s artwork, contact Leslie Fordham at 954-357-7532.