Since 1989, Carolyn Braaksma has been executing large-scale public art commissions for municipalities and local governments, DOTs, educational institutions, and venues including airports, malls, shopping centers, bridges, and parks. Often her award-winning work incorporates site-specific imagery and local references to create a strong sense of place, representing geographical, environmental, and historical research as well as design sensibility.

Her projects have included highway sound walls and retaining walls, facing panels, wall and railing enhancements, and relief and surface treatments of noise walls, ramps, and bridge piers and abutments. In addition to concrete and wall art, she has also worked with terrazzo and stone floors and cast bronze.

As proprietor and principal artist of the woman-owned firm Braaksma Design, Ms. Braaksma brings to her work a sense that public art is both art and public. It must maintain artistic integrity, satisfy the public, and be created within budget and in an atmosphere of professional collaboration with public officials, engineers, fabricators, and construction crews.