The Public Arts Committee met 06/04/2025. The main action item on the agenda was the request to approve a request from Neo Medina and the Trout Museum of Art to paint a mural inside the Red Parking Ramp on Superior Street in downtown Appleton.
The committee ended up voting unanimously to recommend the item be approved. It will also go before the Municipal Services Committee for a vote because the ramp is owned by the city and managed by the Public Works Department.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The Trout Museum of Art is holding a Spray Camp class 07/14/2025-07/18/2025. The last two days of the class will involve the mostly high school aged students painting this mural in the parking ramp under the supervision of Neo Medina who has painted a number of other murals around the city. Mr. Medina himself will also do some work on the mural outside of the class.
He submitted a concept design to the committee. The Chairperson Elyse-Krista Mische wished that they could have been told a little about how Mr. Medina came up with the design. Additionally, coming on the heels of the public’s negative reaction to the selfie sculpture that had been proposed for Houdini Plaza she briefly expressed concern about how “some of the anatomical, maybe more extreme aspects of it, bursting open and stuff” might be perceived by the public.
The committee members generally seemed to view the mural favorably but were concerned that the handicapped parking sign might get lost in the imagery. They spent much of their 13 minute discussion on the item talking about ways to make sure the handicapped sign was still visible. In the end, they opted to not make any formal amendments to the item but to approve it as presented along with an informal request to the artist to make an effort in the final painting to make sure the sign for the handicapped parking stall was easily visible and did not get lost in the painting.
[I thought it was kind of funny that there was concern the fact the public disliked the selfie sculpture meant that they would dislike this mural as well. This mural at least is art created by someone with an artistic vision; whereas the selfie sculpture was never anything more than soulless marketing.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1303934&GUID=3394CB89-ABD2-4248-A7B4-F9A6BF37B0BE
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