The Appleton Public Arts Committee met 06/01/2021.
The only action item was electing a Vice Chair. The rest of the meeting was taken up with a discussion about the history of the committee and the Art in Public Places Policy, what the committee’s goals were, and what potential projects they could work on.
[I find myself having a difficult time trying to make this recap readable. Brainstorming meetings may serve a purpose but they can also be painful and tedious because they consist of a lot of thinking out loud and throwing ideas around, most of which won’t actually end up being used.]
City staff member Jessica said the public art policy was born out of recommendations related to the city’s comprehensive plan. She said the policy was updated in 2017 and originally adopted a couple years before that although she couldn’t remember the exact date. There had been lots of recommendations in support of public art and one of the recommendations was to create a public art committee. At the direction of the comprehensive plan she was tasked with creating that committee. The first step was to create the Art In Public Places Policy which established the committee, defined its role, and established a process for reviewing public art. The committee is advisory in nature and reports to the committee of jurisdiction which depends on where the art is going to be placed. If a piece of public art is in the public right of way the committee of jurisdiction is Municipal Services; if it’s in a public park the committee is the Parks and Recreation Committee. Ultimately, the final vote will be by the Common Council.
She noted that the committee only reviews artwork that is on public property or within public buildings. Art on private property is not within their purview.
An important thing the policy does is set up an application process for submitting artwork and vetting it. She worked with multiple departments to create that process. It’s main goal is to ensure public health and safety by making sure the pieces are made out of safe materials and erected in a safe manner. It also establishes the terms of the display–how long it will be and who is in charge of maintenance.
The policy also defines the review criteria so the committee knows what to look at and the applicant also knows what will be reviewed. Prior to this policy, there was no set procedure for dealing with public artwork. She said that it has been amended a couple times. Once it had been created and they started applying it, they found some areas that could be adjusted and she thought there were opportunities for adjustment moving forward.
Jessica also addressed why the City of Appleton thinks public art is important. It creates special places for people to visit and a sense of place and identity in our community. It can bring people together to certain locations to view art, “and it can create conversation around the artwork, if something is either controversial or historic, or many different reasons, it can create conversation. Everybody in the city can see if there’s this particular piece of art in this place and you know where it is and you can have a conversation with your neighbor about it.” So it brings out conversation in people, provides an opportunity to share ideas and bring awareness to important issues that are facing our community and our country, and enhances the city’s public spaces.
[I can only hear and read this in the context of the Collective, and I’m assuming that is what she was obliquely referencing. I laughed quite a bit. Honestly, I love bad art, so I don’t mind that sculpture, but it’s funny to me to hear people try to make the argument that if a work of art provokes conversation then that somehow makes it successful as artwork. If the conversation never moves beyond “is this art?” or “is this good?” then that’s a very limited discussion and I would say the work fails even as a conversation piece much less as artwork. Still, I’m going to be sad when that big head leaves.]
The Committee Chairwoman pointed out that right now the committee had no budget and asked if there was a way in the future that they could be given a budget or somehow provide a budget for themselves. (Grants were mentioned a little later on.)
Jessica said the city starts its budget process very early and is already working on the 2022 budget. They’ll work on it through the summer and it will be finalized at the end of October. The alderpersons ultimately review the budget and determine the priorities with their vote. They have the standard budget items that are in it every year, and if someone wants to change that or add extra things, they have to make a request. Any budget for the Public Arts Committee would have to be a special line item.
The Chairwoman asked if the committee were to get a budget would they be taking away from another line item. Jessica answered not necessarily, but, ultimately, the city has X number of dollars for operating costs and they have to figure out how to allocate those across all of the departments in the city.
[Given the financial repercussions of the Covid-19 response, it’s very difficult to see how the City could responsibly start giving the Arts Committee a budget. We just heard about how the Parking Utility is facing a budget shortfall and how they are planning to deal with that. I would expect they’re not the only city department experiencing financial problems.]
Someone asked if they could look into community grants. Or can they only be funded through the budget.
Jessica said grants need to be approved by the Council. If there was a specific one that a committee member thought would be appropriate, she could take a look at it and see if it was something that they could pursue.
The Vice Chair said she knew a lot of grants can only be applied for if you have a project in mind, but that might be something they could look at going forward and might be a way to get a budget.
A committee member thought it wouldn’t hurt if they could get some guidance as to the process of how they might be able to get funds for themselves even if they didn’t pursue it this year. She thought the committee could do a whole lot more if they had even a nominal amount of money. Jessica said she would look into that.
There were no more questions regarding the history of the committee and the public arts policy.
The next talking point was why all of the committee members think public art is important.
One committee member felt that for her personally the arts are not only what heals a community but brings them together and creates discussion. She’s been involved with Imagine Fox Cities, the PAC, and the Trout Museum and loves the ability of those organizations to use the arts to bring up topics that can be explored and discussed. She hoped the committee could bring people together to share experiences hopefully in a non-confrontational and healing way through the arts. She thought that was a very important part of our community and anything they could do to facilitate that makes Appleton a better place to live, raise families, and grow as individuals.
The Chairwoman said that especially after Covid-19 it was important to raise community awareness and promote open conversations–just get everybody out in the public and meeting each other and talking to each other. Communities that have lots of public art are the communities she wants to go to because there’s so much vibrancy. People seem to enjoy each other and being around each other and downtown. She found spaces where there is a lot of public art are welcoming.
A committee member added that Covid was a very screen heavy time. Having a physical place to go and see some art would spark conversation and keep people alive and moving. Public art is visually pleasing and brings new life to an area that may not have had that life before.
The Vice Chair said “I think it can maybe also help maybe like the isolated or the marginalized feel more connected to the community and give them a voice and also tell the story of our community so when people come here they, you know, can kind of have an idea of who the people are and then it also attracts people to our community which I think is really great. They may see something on, on a website or whatnot that will bring them here and that’s also good for Appleton downtown area.”
Another committee member saw public art as something that inspires creativity. She enjoys going to the different public art locations with her kids and talking about the creativity and how the art enhances the spaces.
The lone male voice on the committee said he loved the idea of art expressing the community. Appleton has many different communities and the committee could help those communities express themselves. The place where you find more art is where the community is closer and expresses themselves better.
The Chairwoman reiterated the keywords from everyone’s statement. She thought a lot of what everyone said was very similar. Express all communities within Appleton. A sense of inclusivity so everyone is welcome to come. Community. Voice. Feeling. Health. Conversations. Inspiring. Creativity. Enhances our city.
The Vice Chair thought it was important to highlight the city’s diversity and the little cultures and communities with the larger Appleton community.
The next talking point was what could they do as a committee to help support local art and artists.
There was discussion of simply promoting more awareness of the committee. They have a public arts process, but people with public art ideas may not know that process is available. In the past, people would reach out to the mayor’s office, but connecting them with the right staff would be useful.
The hope was voiced that once they had a budget they could do some sort of public art event or project that would draw attention to the committee.
They discussed the possibility of somehow collaborating with different art organizations or somehow facilitating collaboration between separate art groups and bringing people together for an event. There was speculation that a lot of local organizations may have the financial resources to make a big event happen but don’t have other types of expertise.
A committee member thought it might be a good idea for the committee members to document what connections they each had as individuals which might spark some sort of collaborative event. Perhaps they could create a summit for local arts organizations.
One person said that even if they couldn’t create an in-person gathering, they could connect with arts organizations via something like a paper survey or phone conversations. She thought it would be useful to have connections with each of hte principal organizations in the city and see what they have planned and what the committee could do to facilitate their plans.
The Chairwoman really liked the idea of conducting a survey, because there are lots of pockets within the community that they may not know about but which might already have ideas about how the committee could help them. The committee just needed to learn about them.
A committee member was interested in connecting with not-so-obvious organizations–with the Latinx, African American, and LGBTQ communities so that their voices are heard and the city could utilize their art forms and interests.
They also discussed how they could help local arts and artists.
One idea was to create a directory of the art in the community and create a path people could walk to see the pieces and have QR codes people could scan to see information about the artwork. The things downtown are pretty visible, but they wanted to get people visiting different neighborhoods they’ve never been to. The city staffers who deal with GIS maps could definitely do something of that nature, but Jessica didn’t want to commit them because she didn’t know what their work load was like; however, it was a low cost thing that would not require a budget.
One member suggested creating a directory of resources for artists in the community related to public art, or if the city could direct them toward funding resources. Another seemed to suggest making a directory for people/organizations seeking artists. [To me, both of those seemed way outside the purview of a government committee.]
One person wondered if they could highlight the private property murals in the city, but Jessica said they could really only focus on city owned art.
They finally discussed setting short term or long term goals.
Jessica mentioned the need for Houdini Tower pictures. The most recent photos were installed in February or March and they will need to be switched out again. The mayor is interested in having them changed more frequently than they have been. It’s a pretty prominent piece in our downtown and people like to see the things that it changes.
The Vice-Chair suggested having some sort of ongoing submission to create a catalogue of images to have on hand, but Jessica said they should keep it more focused. Allowing people to submit at any time would be clunky and result in a lack of direction. The timeframe for when new pictures were to go up was unclear and seemed pretty loose.
[They clearly are struggling from a lack of a process here. It seems to me it would be useful to formalize how frequently the pictures are switched out–either every 3, 4, or 6 months. Then the committee should decide the prior year what the themes will be for the upcoming year. They will then have plenty of time to gather photos for those themes–whether they do that via contests or by specifically seeking out certain artists or types of work.]
Last year, before they held the Images of Hope contest, they had planned to put some photos up related to the Rhythms Of The World event but that had fallen through due to Covid-19. There was some discussion of doing something similar in the future.
One committee member suggested reaching out to the more marginalized communities for pictures. Another asked if it was possible to send a photographer to events within the city to take pictures, and one of the other committee members volunteered to do that.
They eventually decided to focus on getting new pictures for the Houdini Plaza tower as well as start putting together a directory of public art and a walking path people could take to view that art. They also wanted to put together a catalogue of organizations they as a committee wanted to be aware of. Jessica was also going to find out what the workload for the GIS staff was. And, of course, if any public art applications came in they would deal with that at the next committee meeting.
A scintillating 51 minutes was had by all.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=859377&GUID=61F33159-E156-48A3-B5A1-E6343E3C09A5&Options=info|&Search=
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