The past two weeks saw a blossoming of odd things in Portsmouth, even more so than usual: skin grafted to sidewalks, a phone spouting poetry, and an illuminated road sign that went mad and started talking, to name a few.

They were part of Art-Speak's Overnight Art! exhibit, a temporary set of public art installations placed around downtown and meant to spur awareness of and discussion about public art. Art-Speak is a quasi-governmental organization formed to implement the Cultural Plan aspect of the city's Master Plan.

The installations were a resounding success, several of them drawing nearly constant public attention and interaction.

The poetry phone attached to the wall of Nahcotta on Congress Street (see page 3) was brightly colored, with an orange handle and red buttons. It rang randomly, causing passersby to pick up the handset, at which point the phone began telling them poetry.

People listened, poked, prodded, recoiled, brought their friends over, smiled, scoffed, puzzled, and whacked at that phone for two solid weeks nonstop. Thousands of people experienced that phone in one way or another, and nearly every time I saw it, some human was investigating it. The light got pushed in twice, the handset got banged up, the batteries gave out at least once... that poetry phone got a whole lot of lovin'.

The road sign in Market Square took me a few days to notice. The type of sign that normally barks "SLOW DOWN" and tells you how far over the speed limit you're going, this one was saying things like "YOUR HAIR SCARES ME" and "THE ROADS GO NOWHERE." The sign was paired with a set of orange metal boxes scattered around town, into which people were encouraged to drop notes. The text from some of those notes would then be programmed into the sign. The general effect was as if the wandering Portsmouth street rabble were telepathically controlling the Department of Public Works.

I even enjoyed the little stone steps in Vaughan Mall with "ART AS ARCHITECTURE" inscribed on them. At first I thought the piece was a little uninspired, but then I realized that I really wanted to walk on the stairs, even though they went nowhere. Then I thought maybe I shouldn't, because it was art. But they were stairs, right? So it must be OK? And that was what the motto meant, that art could be used hard, even stomped on... then again, there were people watching, and what would they think if I went over and stood on the exhibit?

Which I finally did, and it felt strangely great. Since then, I've developed an as-yet-unsatisfied desire to ride the gold lions over at the the Library Restaurant.

Any time you engage in a public project, you open yourself up to criticism. Nonetheless, I have been surprised at the volume and vehemence of negative commentary on Overnight Art! from people in the art community.

In the past two weeks I've heard or read that: It's not art. It's not good art. It's art by committee, and therefore has no integrity. It's hypocritical for the city to sponsor this art, but not other art. This art is just advertising for the city, and is, as such, devoid of meaning. That it should be guerilla art, yet it can't be because it's city sponsored. That it's disappointing that this is the best the city can do.

On a basic level, this is further testimony to the exhibit's success: it spurred dialogue. Still, I find it strange that so much of this energy would be directed back at the fledgling organization that is trying to encourage the arts in Portsmouth, and at their exhibit, which is meant to draw attention to the lack of public art in the city. Overnight Art! was never meant to be a definitive exhibit or statement about anything-it was meant to be the first step on a long road.

Maybe the harsh negativity is a commentary on the pent-up bitterness that the artistic community feels toward city government, or maybe it's just a sign of dysfunction in that community. If the latter, then it would explain why the artistic community hasn't organized itself to address the critical shortages of artist housing and display/performance space, and why that job has been left to a city committee.

We do need more art, and more places for it, and more people making it and more organizations supporting them.

The question is, what are we going to do about it?