Arts and Culture Commission Meeting

August 12, 2014 MINUTES OF A REGULAR MEETING URBANA PUBLIC ARTS COMMISSION APPROVED DATE: August 12, 2014 TIME: 4:30 p.m. PLACE: City Council Chambers, Urbana City Building, 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, Illinois MEMBERS PRESENT: Barbara Hedlund, Eric Jakobsson, John Morrison, Pat Sammann, Ginny Waaler MEMBERS EXCUSED: Robin Douglas, Kevin Hamilton MEMBERS ABSENT: Ilona Matkovskzi STAFF PRESENT: Lisa Hatchadoorian, Public Arts Coordinator; Sukiya J. Reid, Recording Secretary OTHERS PRESENT: Nathaniel Banks, Lisa Fay, Debra Levey Larson 1. CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL AND DECLARATION OF QUORUM The Urbana Public Arts Commission was called to order at 4:30 p.m. by Ms. Sammann. Ms. Reid took roll and a quorum was declared present. 2. CHANGES TO AGENDA There were none. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING The minutes of the July 8, 2014 meeting were reviewed by the Commission. With no changes proposed, Ms. Waaler made a motion to approve the minutes. Ms. Hedlund seconded the motion. All Commission members present were in favor of approval and the minutes were unanimously approved as presented. 4. PUBLIC INPUT There was none. 1  August 12, 2014 5. COMMUNICATIONS • Presentation by 2014 Urbana Arts Grant Recipient: Lisa Fay Ms. Sammann introduced local artist, Lisa Fay. Ms. Fay gave a brief presentation on their project titled, “Lickety Split and other Phenomena of Collapse”, which was a 40 minute interrogation of the nature of social disintegration and its relation to environmental devastation in our daily lives. The performance was a movement-based duet of two men. Ms. Fay showed a brief clip of the performance. There were 6 performances that took place from May 29th-June 1st. Ms. Fay thanked the Commission for the grant received. At the conclusion of the report, questions and comments from the Commission were heard. • Presentation by 2014 Urbana Arts Grant Recipient: Nathaniel Banks Ms. Sammann introduced Nathaniel Banks, Director of BBL Fine Arts Academy. Mr. Banks gave a report on their project, the 8th annual Summer Music Camp. He stated that the primary purpose of the camp was to provide quality musical enrichment to young musicians, focusing on jazz, gospel, and popular music. The academy targets low-income and underrepresented students, but the camp is very diverse. The camp consisted of 9 instructors, 22 instrumental beginners, 19 instrumental advanced, and 8 vocalists, for a total of 58 people. Mr. Banks reported that the camps were held from June 9th-14th, with a closing concert on June 14, 2014 at the Krannert Center. Mr. Banks thanked the Commission for the grant received. At the conclusion of the report, questions and comments from the Commission were heard. • Presentation by 2014 Urbana Arts Grant Recipient: Urbana Pops Orchestra Ms. Sammann introduced Debra Levey Larson, Board President of Urbana Pops Orchestra. Ms. Levey Larson gave a slide-show presentation on their 5th annual season. The UPO offered 5 free recitals, one per month to kick off the season, and two full-ensemble concerts that took place in the Urbana High School auditorium. The first concert called, Sounds of Adventure, took place on June 14th and the second concert called Made in the USA took place on July 5th. The second concert was free and was dedicated to the memory of Greg Chew. Ms. Levey Larson thanked the Commission for the grant received. At the conclusion of the report, questions and comments from the Commission were heard. . • Presentation by Staff: Monthly Progress Report Ms. Hatchadoorian presented the City staff’s monthly progress report to the Commission, outlining projects in process, recent requests and recommendations from the public, staff activities, and upcoming events. For an update on current projects, she reported the following: • With regard to the Urbana Arts Grants Program, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that the grants subcommittee met to go over the 2015 grant application process and documents. 2  August 12, 2014 The subcommittee decided to make a change to the granting structure. For organizations that have been funded by the City for three consecutive years, the City will now require a 100% cash match to the City donation or take a break from the granting process for a year. The reasoning for this is that the City grants are not meant to be a basic support mechanism for organizations, but to function more as seed money as the organizations continue to diversify their funding base as they grow. Staff is also working with IT to streamline the grant application process and move it to our website, rather than a third party website as a common concern from grantees is that it is hard and/or confusing to upload and download files using third party website. Staff is also working with IT on a comprehensive database on the City website of all grant projects from 2009-present. • With regard to the Boneyard Creek Public Art, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that Jack Mackie had his final walk of the public art part of the Boneyard project on July 23rd. He was very pleased with the result and would be receiving his final payment from the City soon. A timeline for the remaining parts of the Boneyard is as follows: a. Late August for flat and retaining walls and street work b. September for landscape plantings to go in the ground c. Spring 2015 for official ribbon cutting and dedication of the park and project. • With regard to the Fundraising subcommittee, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that Staff had received the green light from the Legal Division to set up a contract with the Public Art Program and the Community Foundation of East Illinois. Like the Legacy Tree project, which initiated this process, the agreement would provide a way for any funds raised for public art and for specific public art initiatives to be held in a way that does not put the City in any kind of ethical bind. She also reported that Staff had been given the go ahead to utilize the Citizinvestor platform for crowdsourced funding for specific projects. She went over a few of the possible project ideas. • With regard to Marketing, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that City staff had been regularly updating the Public Arts Program’s Facebook page, which as of this meeting had 730 fans. She also stated that the Urbana Public Arts Twitter account, which could be followed @urbanapublicart, as of this meeting had 1,137 followers • With regard to Downtown Arts Subcommittee, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that the subcommittee was in the process of reviewing new sculptures for 2014-16 for the Urbana sculpture program. To date, the sculptures slated for a 2-year lease in Urbana are: Stranger Reduction Zone, Asteray, and Athirst. She stated that a national call had been placed with a deadline for early September for the last 3 sculpture spots to fill • With regard to Art at the Market, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that the August 9th workshop and performances were veggie and fruit stamping with The Land Connection and a musical performance by Rebecca Rego and the Trainmen. The July Art at the Market was moved a week later because of the weather. It featured Makerspace Urbana with Tee-shirts to Tote Bags and Aduki Jazz Quartet. • With regard to Artist of the Corridor, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that a new exhibition had been mounted that features Urbana artist Jill Stroberger. She is a self-taught artist and creates landscape and nature-oriented paintings as well as mixed media pieces with beads, wire and wood. She stated that the exhibition would be up through November 2nd. • With regard to Art Now!, Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that in the August episode, our 3  August 12, 2014 very own commissioner Kevin Hamilton, new media artist, was profiled. Episodes can be seen at: http://www.urbanaillinois.us/artnow • For upcoming events, Ms. Hatchadoorian stated that the Sweetcorn Festival would take place August 22nd-23rd and that the date for the next Public Arts Commission meeting was set for Tuesday, September 9, 2014 at 4:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers 6. OLD BUSINESS • Update on Fanfare purchase resolution Ms. Sammann introduced this agenda item. Ms. Hatchadoorian reported that the purchase had gone through and the check was currently being processed by Staff. She also stated that she had received the maintenance and conservation report from the artist that would be kept on file in case anything would ever happen. 7. NEW BUSINESS • Discussion/Vote to adopt permanent collection guidelines Ms. Sammann introduced this agenda item. Ms. Hatchadoorian briefly summarized the proposed permanent collection guidelines that the Public Art Commission can use to select future artwork for the permanent collection. She stated that Staff would like for the Public Art Commission to review and suggest any changes or edits to the document, and then vote on adopting these guidelines for accepting artwork into the permanent collection of public art of the City of Urbana. Questions and comments from the Commission were addressed. Following discussion, Mr. Morrison moved to adopt the permanent collection guidelines. Mr. Jakobsson seconded the motion. With no further comments or questions from the Commission, Ms. Sammann called for a voice vote. All Commission members were in favor of approval and the motion carried unanimously. • Support/partner of summer movie series in downtown Urbana Ms. Sammann introduced this agenda item. Ms. Hatchadoorian gave a brief background on the summer movies that had been taking place in the parking lot of Busey Bank. She stated that there had been three movies so far, and that there was a slot open for a fourth movie in September. So she came up with an idea to feature an art movie and wanted to get input from the Commission. A discussion of the matter by members of the Commission and staff ensued. Following discussion, the Commission gave City Staff the green light to pursue filling the fourth summer movie slot. 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS There were none. 4  August 12, 2014 9. ADJOURNMENT Mr. Morrisson made a motion that the meeting be adjourned. Mr. Jakobsson seconded the motion. With no further business, Ms. Sammann declared the meeting adjourned at 5:40 p.m. Submitted, Sukiya J. Reid, Recording Secretary 5