Public Art Committee

Public Art Committee SUMMARY MINUTES Wednesday, March 21, 2018 Durham Arts Council Board Members Present Kathy Bartlett Chris Ogden, Chair* Katie Seiz Margaret DeMott* Dan Ellison* * Cultural Advisory Board member City of Durham Present Brian Smith, OEWD Eliza Meredith, GSD Cason Whitcomb, GSD Others Present Brenda Miller-Holmes Rachel Wexler, DDI I. Call to Order Meeting was called to order at 8:32am by Chair Chris Ogden. II. Roll Call III. Approval of Minutes MOTION: To accept February meeting minutes. (Ellison, Bartlett 2nd) ACTION: Motion approved 6-0 IV. Adjustments to the Agenda None. V. Presentations i. Brenda Miller Holmes, DPDHQ Public Art Community Engagement Process update Artist Brenda Miller-Holmes presented the community engagement plan for her public art installation at the Durham Police Headquarters Complex. The six week process will focus around  Public Art Committee the theme of peace and peacekeeping in Durham. Miller-Holmes alongside professional facilitators will lead a six week process with the goal of determining what peace looks like in Durham. The first community engagement event will be six (6) hours long, including a lunch break, musical (word), and racial justice and racial justice language training. Around thirty community members, representatives of community organization, and members of the Durham Police Department will be in attendance. Miller-Holmes is working on developing partnerships with community organizations such as EDCI, Church World Service, and DPD affiliated organizations to ensure a diverse group of stakeholders participate in the events. The community engagement will not be open to the public; instead the community organizations will select members to participate. Miller-Holmes will develop an online survey to collect feedback from the general public. There will be events open to the general public to provide feedback on initial concepts. The community engagement events are planned to be held at Durham Technical Community College. Two Durham Tech art students will be taken through the process and Miller-Holmes will bring on another paid muralist mentee. Durham Police Department is identifying strong community and organizational partners as well. A documentarian will document the mural making process, similar to the documentary made for the Durham Civil Rights Mural. Miller-Holmes believes success will be the community seeing that the City is facilitating authentic engagement. Committee questions: What is the language issue addressed by bringing in professional Racial Justice facilitators?  Partnering organizations say that having a conversation regarding racial justice and RJ language are essential, conversations can’t happen if we aren’t speaking the same language Who are the professional facilitators?  Angela Davis at Durham Tech. Is there a need for a Spanish interpreter?  There is a Spanish speaker available to translate. Will there be a stipends process?  Ideally, yes. Miller-Holmes is still in the process of determining what this looks like and how it fits into her budget What will the process look like for families?  Children will be encouraged to join in the process. There will be peace themed activities for the children when adults break out to more “adult” conversations Is there an opportunity for the press to attend community engagement events?  Reporters could be at the first session, which will be celebratory but also filled with meaningful trainings, conversations, and brainstorming  Public Art Committee ii. Black Wall Street Gardens Public Art Brian Smith, OEWD gave a presentation about the upcoming public art opportunity at Black Wall Street Gardens. In the summer of 2017, Black Wall Street Plaza was the site of a successful pilot placemaking project to replacing stationary benches with moveable furniture. City council authorized 30k to be spent on public art at Black Wall Street Gardens. The Gardens are currently undergoing site improvements including re- organization of walkways, widening the center gathering space, and addition of ten (10) more trees. Improvements to the walkways create a larger center area, which is an ideal location of public art. The public art project budget is $30,000. As Black Wall Street and Historic Parrish Street are important pieces of Durham’s and North Carolina’s histories, the eligibility of applicants will be restricted to North Carolina residents. MOTION: to restrict Black Wall Street Gardens Call eligibility to NC resident artists (Ellison, Bartlett 2nd) ACTION: Motion passes (5-0) VI. Updates/Old Business i. Liberty Warehouse Wall at Durham Central Park Artists’ visit took place February 20-23. Community engagement event held on February 21st at Kompleks Creative. Community engagement survey created on February 26th and as of March 21 2018 thirty-two (32) responses have been collected and shared with the artist team. Additional community responses were collected at the Food Truck Rodeo on Sunday March 11, 2018. ii. West Ellerbee Creek Trail Pedestrian Tunnel Art Dare Coulter and Jonathan Massullo’s concepts presented. PAC voiced preference for Coulter’s concept of the child surrounded by bees and sunflower and Massullo’s riparian-themed concept. iii. Durham Police Headquarters William Paul Thomas announced decision to not move forward with the project. Brenda is moving forward with local artist David Wilson. iv. Downtown Mixed-Use Parking Garage Public Art Contract was approved at the February 19, 2018 City Council meeting. Selected Artist Team Public Ground Studio will be visiting April 1-3. News Release published March 21, 2018 announcing their selection and upcoming community engagement events.  Public Art Committee v. SmART Project 1: Corcoran Banners City of Durham accepted contract for the Durham Arts Council to transfer ownership of banners to the City. vi. Public Art Committee Application-New Deadline Application deadline extended. Applicants will be reviewed at April meeting vii. Cultural Advisory Board’s Artist Grant program Draft of grant application was sent out on Friday with agenda and minutes, local artists grant program. Comments from the Committee:  Remove the leftover boilerplate description from the capacity building grant  The current application requires applicants to be far along process. Recommended to tweak application so that once business has a plan they bring it back to be approved.  Edit Page 3 under eligible expenses “candidates are eligible” doesn’t fit there  Budget – “how to apply” the organization needs to balance to net-zero viii. Other Project Reports DADA: A group including 4 people who are blind are BETA testing an app version of the public art description project, the DADA project. BETA version can be accessed through the Duke Location Learning section of the Apple App Store under the “under construction” section. Title is “Audio Described Art App”. Testing was constructive, adding GPS pins to sculptures, and working out through additional technical difficulties. Duke has contract with app template and DADA will fit in to the template to keep it as accessible as possible. Group is moving forward to add another 8 artworks. The group is in the process of determining consistent logo and signage for art descriptions. ix. Traffic Utility Box Artist One person selected, Daniel Le Claire. OEWD is speaking with Transportation about location; an update is forthcoming in April. x. The Fence 2018 Early bird application has closed but applications are open for one more month. Chair Ogden is still working on the traveling FENCE but recognizes a need for the formation of a subcommittee to continue coordination.  Public Art Committee xi. DDI is getting close to launching “Downtown Durham Public Space Project” offering micro-grants to artists and community members to do temporary “interventions” in public space. Interventions can take the form of art, markets, theatre, community dinner, etc. Guidelines are that installation is thought provoking, community building, and engages public spaces on a temporary basis. There will be 4-5 iterations in total, one installation per month, opening on 3rd Friday of each month. Launching application to program early April and closing mid-May. First installation is planned for July. Program running July – October. Grant amounts up to 2k. Sending application to art orgs and “guerilla marketing” via chalk and spray paint (temporary advertisements). xii. Sculpture Park by Golden Belt: The large green space inside the entrance of Golden Belt is being studied for conversion to a sculpture park. Golden Belt has been connected with Liberty Arts to explore the possibility of local artists crafting artistic archway entry points to the Sculpture Park. VII. New Business None. VIII. Adjournment MOTION: To adjourn meeting at 10:06AM (Bartlett, DeMott 2nd) ACTION: Motion passes (5-0) Respectfully submitted, Cason E. Whitcomb