Public Art Committee

Durham Cultural Advisory Board’s PUBLIC ART COMMITTEE Meeting, Jan. 18, 2017 8:30 a.m. at Durham Arts Council Members Present: X Jennie Barbour X Kathy Bartlett X Margaret DeMott X Dan Ellison X Chris Ogden (Chair) X Nola Paterni X Charlene Reiss X Julie Rhodes X Katie Seiz Sarah Serventi X Gail Williams Durham City: Stacey Poston, Brian Smith, Trish Creda The meeting was called to order by Chris Ogden at 8:35 a.m. The minutes from the December meeting were reviewed and some minor changes were made. Dan Ellison moved that the minutes be accepted as revised and Charlene Reiss seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Durham received the official award letter selecting Durham as the sixth host city for THE FENCE, the largest public art photography project in the world, sponsored by United Photo Industries in Brooklyn (http://fence.photoville.com/city/durham/). Brian Smith reported that the City Hall/Orange Street site has been selected for this highly visible, community-engaging project. It will be installed in a 758 feet main loop and a potential 355 feet in alleys in the same area. The project will display sets of six images from about 50 international photographers chosen to appear in all of the FENCE-cities across the country. Additionally, about 10 regional photographers shall be chosen from the remaining applicant pool for a FENCE: Durham-only section. Photographers’ work will be chosen through a multi-step process by a blue-ribbon jury comprised of museum curators, gallerists, collectors, educators, photo book publishers, agents, and the like. The fence will be displayed from August – November of 2017, with the possibility of an extension. Once our 2017 display is complete, we have several options for reusing the exhibition materials. Chris Ogden will circle back with our other top choice, American Tobacco, and thank them for their willingness to serve as a site. It is possible that there could be future collaboration with them on popup public art project(s) using shipping containers. January 18, 2016 Durham Public Art Committee Minutes page 1 of 4 Charlene Reiss motioned, Jennie Barbour seconded, and unanimously passed that: “The regional competition should be labeled the “Triangle Region” and should include any photographic artists who live or work (determined by their mailing address) in the following counties (as defined by the city’s combined statistical area): Durham, Wake, Franklin, Johnston, Chatham, Orange, Person, Harnett, Lee, Granville, and Vance.” After some discussion of the perks that could be offered to encourage top regional artists to apply, Charlene Reiss suggested that a task force be formed to deal with specific details of the project rather than the committee as a whole. It could include members of the local photography clubs. Chris requested that the committee email him suggestions for local experts who could serve as jurors for the regional competition. It was agreed that the City should purchase the domain name PhotoFenceDurham.org for our project’s website. The remainder of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of potential public art at the new police headquarters… Stacey Poston stated that $20,000 has been set aside in the police headquarters project budget for public art on the site. Chris reminded the group that this Committee passed a motion unanimously in August to allocate $90,000 to police headquarters public art (by combining the outstanding $70K in public art funds with the project’s $20K), which would allow us to do more significant piece(s) and be more attractive to potential matching grantors. Stacey shared that interviews for the new intern (to work on grants for additional Police HQ public art funds) would be later in the week. Charlene Reiss brought up the ArtPlace grants of $100K to $500K which are looking for community place-making opportunities. Applications are due February 16th. She advocates encouraging our city representatives to pursue grants in connection with the project and to look for opportunities to involve the community. Margaret DeMott shared her learning about someone who got an ArtGrant to restore a blighted community – a key point was the importance of the community doing for itself and not unto itself. Kathy Bartlett asked who would curate/program the hallway. Stacey said she or Brian could work on changing the content and Kevin Lilley’s group would do the maintenance. Dan Ellison suggested maybe we could combine with the City Hall Frontier walls to curate. Margaret noted that this could be a perfect place to work with community. Discussion continued about partnering with another organization as well, such as the Durham Art Guild’s curation program, NCCU Art Museum, East Durham entities like Spirit House, Working with Youth, etc. An important question to resolve is whether the hallway shall be focused more on community art than fine art. January 18, 2016 Durham Public Art Committee Minutes page 2 of 4 Stacey reported that the most likely areas for art are a police memorial, display cases in the lobby, a long hallway which could be a display area for community art, a large wall that is visible from the street and a possible sculpture outside in front. Chris pulled up the previous working spreadsheet from dropbox which lists many more potential art opportunities at the site that we previously discussed. The task force has been awaiting project costs details by buckets to allow us to prioritize both signature pieces and also items to might be lower priority items but that make sense to do now anyway to leverage given current construction timing and existing budgets (eg, it could be affordable to add color changing or imprinted concrete in the parking deck floors and the walkways preconstruction that would be cost prohibitive and impractical to jack hammer up and redo at a later date). Trish Creda, the lead project manager on the Police Headquarters building, indicated that subcontractors had already been identified for things like concrete floors and walls, planters, and benches. It would be difficult at this point in the process to influence their look although this had been a desire of the committee in the past. Stacey said the committee could be most helpful now by weighing in on which item had priority – the interior large wall which could have a mural or other artwork which would be visible from outside or a sculpture on Main Street. She will bring pictures to the next meeting so the committee can discuss this decision in more depth. There was also discussion about possible partners for organizing police memorabilia displays in the community spaces. Margaret suggested connecting with the Durham History Museum to optimize the story-telling aspect. Kim Walker, who has archival responsibilities within the police department, and the Police Benevolent Association also will be involved. Chris urged that Sergeant Dave Piatt be included as well, for he has a tremendous collection of police historical items included patches, badges, riot gear helmets, police portraits both individually and also grouped by year which also tell a story of the force’s ethnic and gender compositions changing over time. Dan asked if there will be a designated “public speech” spot? Stacey shared the police’s philosophy that the front lawn belongs to people, just tell them so they can staff and all parities safe. Katie urged we consider how to use art for community healing. Use art to make the building a place where community will come, address rifts, present opportunities for art (walls, gardens, etc.). Margaret reinforced the desire to make the outdoor spaces feel welcoming and asked if we can’t be creative within UDO constraints around benches/lights, can we at least change the concrete? Trish responded that the project has been bid, they’re under contract with LeChase who is are already doing subs for concrete benches. If we want to change what concrete put down, we would need to work swiftly. If that is what we want to spend budget dollars on? Katie asked whether our opportunity to work on these lower priority, but timely items, is past? Kathy asked if they will schedule a meeting with LeChase with us. Stacey said we could “if we get dollars.” Chris underscored that we currently have at least $90K unless we change our minds. He also expressed that time January 18, 2016 Durham Public Art Committee Minutes page 3 of 4 seems to be running out, or practically, has run out already. He expressed concern that if we reduce our scope and vision to “just” picking a mural or a sculpture, we will likely miss out on many of the creative opportunities for which we’ve been trying to advocate. Such items which we have hoped to springboard from base-level materials to artistic incarnations by paying the smaller, incremental costs included: concrete (especially walkways and the parking deck floor/walls/ceiling), stair steps, façades, bollards/security planters, integrated/ancillary (ie, not subject to UDO) benches/ lighting, fences, handrails, bike racks, crosswalks, multi-use electronic displays (eg, artworks, police memorabilia, emergency communications), kinetic/light walls/HVAC features, bus shelters, etc. The last HQ topic was about the status of the Community Input Sessions. Charlene said she’s been working on setting up facilitated sessions. Stacey said she’d like to onboard her intern and then discuss what/how/when we want to ask of the community. Then she’ll go back to the City administration. The meeting was adjourned at 9:55 a.m. to clear the room for DAC’s next meeting. Respectfully submitted by Kathy Bartlett January 18, 2016 Durham Public Art Committee Minutes page 4 of 4