Cultural Council

RECEIVED By City Clerk at 11:32 am, 1/25/22 Tuesday February 2, 2021 6:30-8:00pm Usually Meets 1st Tuesday of Every Month Remote Meeting via GoToMeeting https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/256310181 You can also dial in using your phone. United States: +1 (872) 240-3412 Access Code: 315-653-525 Pursuant to Governor Baker’s March 12, 2020 Order Suspending Certain Provisions of the Open Meeting Law, G.L. c. 30A, §18, and the Governor’s March 15, 2020 Order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Amesbury Cultural Council on January 9, 2021 is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort is being made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in the Order. The public can dial-in to this meeting, and to submit a public comment, you may do so by emailing the Chair at amesburycc@gmail.com or by dialing into the meeting and speaking at the appropriate time in the agenda. All public comments will be added to the public record. WELCOME 6:34pm Shannon reads the open meeting law. RW does the roll call: Members Present: Susan Wagner(sw)-treasurer, Shannon Carroll(sc)-co chair, Laura Kozlowski(LK)-secretary Rachel Wood (RW), Bonnie Brady(BB), Stephanie Martin(SM), Brooke Lambert,(BL) Lauren Cramer: visitor called in. Caitlin Thayer , Delia Rinaldi Absent: Cheryl Desjardin(CD) Approval of minutes: motion to approve BB, Second: SC, unanimous 6:40pm Treasurer’s Report (SW): Amesbury chamber membership paid, 311.10 came out of operation account: roughly 14,500/2020 Grants: paid 700. Nothing from 2021 has come in yet. SW and SC will set up a time to go over the annual report at a later date. Final report isn’t due until March 6:42pm Poet Laureate report:(BL): There have been two meetings, Jan 11, and Feb 1, so she is reporting on both. Went over the financial report, there is a fundraiser at FlatBread Aug 3, they ask that ACC will help with promotion. Ellie has been given her check for 500. Chris Bryant will be sending SC 250.00 which is half of the 500. Ellie is preparing for workshops but they haven’t decided on dates yet. Poetry contest for just HS students, Gathering of Verses, asking if ACC can help spread the word on this. Ellie is applying for American Academy of Poet fellowship. Discussion on how to celebrate Poetry Month, depending on Covid, some are along river walk, in April Art at City Hall, show called Word Play based on a book of art made with words. They will be sending information about the Poetry Contest, which may have already started. 6:53 Art at City Hall:(BB) hung the Chain Bridge show. They had 20 pieces, and will go back and take some photos. Successfully passed on the materials to Megan Peterson. Maybe we can do some more social media posts. Lanie brought a proposal to ACC to see if we can host this poetry art show. A person has made a book that has poetry woven through the art work. Poets that are well known are in the book. Would we be able to hang it in April? Motion to hang poetry art exhibit (SC), RW seconds, Unanimous. Just a one month show. Chain bridge up for 2 months, and then need to plan what goes up in May. SW: Caitlyn connected us to Megan who will keep the remaining Chain Bridge pieces which are now at archival storage at the library who may keep the collection there after the show at City Hall. 6500 is the appraisal for the paintings. The appraisal was done by Skinner. The Library would love to keep it and we can access and hang it whenever we want to use it. RW:Edge of Light Exhibit, did we get photos ? BB: yes but needs a week to finish it. 7:01 Grant Cycle Update: (SC) No appeals, after the denial letters went out. Sending out Grant approval letters this week, a few weeks ahead of schedule. In the past we have assigned a few grants to each of the members so that we are attending the shows to make sure we are funding the right events. Last year because of Covid, this fell through. RW and SC would like to assign events for this year. They will send out dates and grants so we can sign up next to the event. Grant reception is usually held at the Muse studio with live music and food with the artists, it's a couple of hours. What do members think about doing something virtual in March? Some years we have only 1-2 grantees attending, or sometimes they are a bunch of attendees. Do you think we would have more if it were virtual? RW: Maybe introduce online, like we did with the open studios. Or a facebook live? How can we recognize them, know who we are and then use it as a kickoff. Chair recognizes BB: with the Carriage Museum, we have come up with prizes, to entice people to join online. She thinks we can come up with something nice. Half grantees and us would be nice. Chair recognizes SM: Likes the artist spotlight. Extra audience to book more shows. Maybe offer 1 a day, to send traffic to their website. Chair recognizes RW: it’s a great idea to get them to come present their project, look at a visual, at least we can read it if they don’t show. Chair recognizes BL: agrees with the others, but to make this event live would help ACC and give more viewers to add to their social media boost. Chair recognizes SC: only way it would work well if they are giving it to the masses, not just to the ACC. She likes live viewing. Do we ask them for a slide? Or do we do it for them? Sounds like we are all on the same page for a live presentation. She has great Grant graphics which she will put in a pdf or powerpoint to start the presentations. Email to grantees won’t go out until after the acceptance letters. Chair recognizes BB; Anything over an hour online you tend to lose people. Ask for slides in advance. We can record the session to make it available to everyone on our site. Chair recognizes RW: Not sure what the best platform is. Do we assign some people to take this on? Facebook live video gets a larger audience and you can record it to share later. BB: spotlight feature, so you can share the powerpoint on zoom and the speaker is there as well. We would have an agenda for the meeting. Chair recognizesBL: How do we get a zoom meeting onto Facebook Live? CT: Can help with all of this, with the technical aspects. SC: 3 people working on this. Any volunteers? Chair recognizes BL: What are we volunteering for? SW: Same with the technical stuff, not sure I can help with the presentation, but she can reach out to the artists, but putting together a slide show not her expertise. SC: After she sends out the acceptance letters, she will reach out to BB about what should be on the slides, then we reach out to the grantees to make a slide 3-5 min. Once she collects, will send to BB and in March we can discuss the social media and connection for the zoom event. Also in March let's decide what day this will be. SC makes a motion to do a virtual event date to be determined at the end of March. Second: SW, Unanimous. SC makes a motion to decide on the date after we meet in March. Second RW, Unanimous. 2021 Outlook(RW): Feb/March: Grant cycle April: poetry month May: crosswalk grant. June, July, August: we are looking for public art initiatives. October: revisit chalk the walk? November: Fundraiser flat bread, studio tour December: Grant applications close for 2022 SC we are hoping to set aside a chunk of time in March for some ideas for these events. Vote for what we should do. We will give more attention to these ideas in March. New Business:(SC): There is an annual survey every year which needs to send it out this week. The questions are basic but may change this year because of Covid to see if people are interested in more online events? She will send this out to the group before she sends it out to the public. 7:34 City was awarded a grant to paint crosswalks! (CT) Part of improvements includes outdoor fire pit, bike racks, lights, charging station by solar power, natural eco friendly playground in the amphitheatre. We have money for 8 crosswalks downtown. City purchases paint, its thicker than regular paint includes sealant. DPW and APD will handle road closures. Paint takes 2-4 hours to dry. Paint half one day, and then the second half the next day so roads don’t have to completely be closed. Artists will need two days to paint. Limiting colors, 6-8 colors, that way they don’t purchase too much paint since it's expensive. Will share ideas that have been done in other cities. To see them more clearly, bright, colorful to help drivers see them better. Timeline: all has to be done by the end of May. Chair recognizes RW: can you mix the colors?and do we split the artists up or can they all go out the same day to paint? CT: assumes you can, it's thicker than latex paint by Sherwin Williams. And yes split up the artists times to coordinate traffic flow and during the weekend. She will measure each crosswalk to get real dimensions. DPW paints the lines twice a year. They will repaint them before artists paint so that the artists can stay within the white lines and it will be consistent across town. Chair recognizes BL: How do you apply?and do you get the whole crosswalk ? CT: Call to artists, then put out with the city and ACC and we will finalize the designs. Each artist gets one crosswalk that is painted in two days. Chair recognizes SC: like the electrical boxes, we will put the call to artists out, we then vote, and then hand over to the city to approve for final approval. Thinks we should include a theme? Or do we just want it to be bright and bold? What should we not allow? CT: Will talk to the Mayor, family friendly, since it's public art. Open to whatever people want to do. Most of them are usually patterns, abstract, big and bold. SC: Will show the crosswalks, where they are, Paint them all in May. Half done in one weekend. As much details as possible for the Call to Artist. Can you give us a snapshot of the 8 different colors which will help the artists?. CT: would like our ideas for the color palette. Mayor doesn’t like Red. Chair recognizes BB: are paint brushes included? CT: will confirm this but no stipends for artists.(SC) Approve art initiative with the City, and will work with them Second:RW, Unanimous. 7:57 Public Comments: DR: has one question about crosswalks, do we have to prime crosswalks? CT: No. Chair recognizes BL: has an announcement, has an art show on Friday for Feb, at Loading Dock Gallery in Lowell, and wants to let us know about it. She will send us all the details, and will be posting a video. SC: Margaret Lahey will be putting in her application to be a new member this week. Survey (SC: will reach out to Louisa (LW) from last year) BB: the requirement is that we do a survey every year to ask the public what they want. Asking for needs from the public. Art initiatives Grant reception Crosswalk themes CT: the City’s website has a form where you can put up a survey and they will help us with that. SW offers help with the survey. 8:05pm SC motion to adjourn, Seconds( BB ) Unanimous.