Vancouver — Ahand-carved circle of Coast Salish tadpoles and a digitally rendered constellation of bacterial dots are the two winning designs that will grace Vancouver's new manhole covers.Art Underfoot, as reported in yesterday's paper, was a city-sponsored competition to design two new cast-iron manhole covers for Vancouver's separate storm and sanitary sewer systems. The contest, open to anyone who lives, works or goes to school in Vancouver, surprised city staff when it drew a staggering 643 submissions.

The two winning designs -- one a joint entry by renowned Coast Salish artist Susan Point and her daughter Kelly Cannell, the other by another well-known local artist, Jen Weih -- were selected from a shortlist of 30 and announced at a public ceremony last night. The independent jury panel -- which blind-judged the entries -- included writer/designer Douglas Coupland, artist Sonny Assu, Suzuki Foundation executive director Jim Fulton and Vancouver Art Gallery chief curator Daina Augaitis.

"The jury was really struck by both designs," says Barbara Cole, project manager with the City of Vancouver's Public Art Program.

"Susan and Kelly's is a beautifully rendered design that really shows the mark of a hand," she said, referring to the design selected for the storm sewers, which depicts four little eggs in the centre, with tadpoles that become frogs radiating out to the edges "It has a very strong first-nations reference. And it's Coast Salish, which was a welcome addition because a lot of the first nations work we see here is Haida."

Point is a Vancouver-based Coast Salish artist and master carver of international acclaim, whose work has been commissioned for the Vancouver International Airport, the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology and, most recently, the Smithsonian in Washington. Kelly Cannell is an emerging artist who has previously collaborated with her mother on several screen prints. In 1999, she was commissioned to create an original logo for Canadian Airlines.

Weih's design for the sanitary sewers is a digital rendering of microscopic dots. "The jury liked the texture and inventiveness of composition," Cole says. "She obviously spent a lot of time planning where to put every circle and bump. It almost looks as if you're looking through a microscope at bacteria.

Weih, a multimedia installation artist who works with sculpture, video and sound, is a graduate of the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and has worked as the exhibitions and programming co-ordinator for the Vancouver artist-run studio Video In.

As an additional bonus, the artists have agreed to make the original patterns for the cast. Point's will be carved out of cedar and Weih's will be digitally routered.

"One will be very technological, which refers to the new sanitary system. The other will be steeped in tradition and carved by hand. Once it's on the ground, it will be like walking over a carving, but in iron," Cole says.