EP 77: So You Want to Commission a Mural
Welcome to a special LIVE episode of Municpial Equation, NCLM's podcast about cities and towns adapting to change, recorded in December with a panelists about HOW public art is achieved, with expert voices from the realm of local government. This episode was recorded at the N.C. Local Government Budget Association's winter conference. Special thanks to them. 2017 episode: Government and Art Previous live episode with NCLGBA: https://municipalequation.libsyn.com/ep-54-a-day-at-the-beach-the-wild-intersection-of-govt-and-summer-vacation
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- mural 0.006
- chris 0.006
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Transcript
This is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Hey, it's Ben Brown, and welcome to a special live episode of Municipal Equation recorded in December. I'll get to that in a second. Let's go back in time real quick to set it up. In 2017, that long ago, we did an episode of Municipal Equation about the intersection of government and art. Why does government feel inclined to support or invest in local arts? Why is government involved in say the placement of a public sculpture downtown or the painting of a mural across a building? We talked with the director of a municipal government arts office and with a notable public artist who together painted a picture for us metaphorically speaking, but beautification, community pride, connection, attraction, inclusion, dialogue and big economic returns. They said public art also brings about important conversations for growing municipalities whose identities may be changing or as new public challenges emerge. And if you wanna go back and listen to that episode, that was episode 28 from July 2017, art through the lens of local government. Fast forward to December 2022, and we are again talking government and art. But instead of the philosophical stuff this time, it's more about the how. If a government wants to see a mural or place a piece of public art downtown, for example, how is that done? This is the practical side of public art. We want a piece of public art. What do we do? And we're talking about it with two government professionals live at the North Carolina Local Government Budget Association's Winter Conference in Winston Salem. I'm joined on a panel by Kelly Bennett, a certified planner and is the Winston Salem Forsyth County Public Art Commission Staff Liaison, and Chris Lange, art and transit program administrator at Charlotte Area Transit System. Introducing us here at the beginning is Elizabeth Harry, budget analyst with Gaston County, North Carolina. She helped to make this event possible. And we go to it live right now.
Welcome everyone to, So You Want to Commission a Mural. Our panels are gonna talk more about more than just murals today, though. They're gonna give us some insight into how public art gets made from funding to selection to installation and upkeep. And this conference session is extra special because we're joined by Ben Brown of the Municipal Equation podcast. And in fact, we are recording the audio from this session, and it'll be published as an upcoming episode of Municipal Equation. So in case you aren't already a subscriber, Municipal Equation, is a nationally acclaimed podcast produced by NCLM, which focuses on municipalities adapting in the face of change. It's a really good podcast. So, if you haven't heard it before, encourage you to check it out if you like this panel. So we will be reserving last few minutes of our panel today for questions. So hold your questions to the end, and I'll pass around the mic. But before I hand it over to Ben, I just wanna take a minute to introduce our panelists. So first, is Kelly Bennett. Kelly has worked with, the Winston Salem And Forsyth County Planning Department since 2008. And in this role, he's led several major projects like the legacy 2030 comprehensive plan, which won both state and national planning awards. Currently, he serves as the staff liaison for the Winston Salem Forsyth County Public Art Commission, which is a 10 member board appointed by the Winston Salem City Council and the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners. Mister Bennett is a certified planner, and he has both a bachelor's degree in art history and a master's in geography, urban, and economic development. We We were gonna have a third panelist today, Owen Daniels, but, unfortunately, he came down with the flu this morning, so he's not here. But, Chris Lane, our other panelist who's behind me, he's the art and transit program administrator at Charlotte Area Transit System, also known as Katz. And for the past eight years, he's managed public art projects from artist selection to fabrication and installation, including park and rides, bus shelters, street car, and light rail projects. Prior to joining Katz, he was program director at Alamance County Arts Council in Graham, North Carolina where he managed exhibits and educational programming. And in all of his experience, Chris has worked with organizations and municipalities to foster art opportunities to further advance local artist careers. He earned he earned his master's in arts administration and a BFA from Winthrop. Well, thanks. I'll let you take it away, Ben.
Thanks, Liz. Appreciate it. So my name is Ben Brown. I'm the host of Municipal Equation. It's a podcast The League has been doing since, I think 2016, at The League of Municipalities. We actually did this a few years ago with, with the budget folks in the conference in Atlantic Beach, which might have been 2019, I think, where we did a, we did, a panel about living in a coastal town or a resort town, and what does that mean for for budget folks, and how is that that a different consideration, you know, if you have a tourist population, which ended up being a lot of fun. There were a lot of jokes about Jaws, and we ended up doing we ended up doing a different episode on public art, several years ago, kinda looking at what is public art and the why. And today, we're gonna focus a little bit more on the how. Public art being would you say a fair definition would be art in a public space? Does it necessarily have to have a governmental component? I mean, is it there's a difference between that and, say, like, community art where the community gets together to put something together. This is where you commission an artist and the artist comes in. Would would that be fair to say?
Yeah. Just I generally give it the definition of art in the public realm, And, you know, you could consider art, that's privately funded in a public space, public art. But what we generally deal with is art that's publicly funded in a public public space.
Do you have anything to add to that? Yeah. I mean, there's I would say that, for us, you know, there is still that community component, just because it is publicly funded. So we do have, you know, community involvement when it, you know, is under design. You know, we do community meetings, things like that. So that's part of the two.
So to kinda get to the how, how does public art get funded in your government? Maybe what are what are some of the different ways that, that public art could be funded?
So in Winston Salem and Forsyth County, obviously, we're a city county organization. We have those two different funding streams. The county is typically more conservative when it comes to funding public art than the city. The city likes to call itself, city of arts and innovation. And so we have been funding public art. Our our organization's been in place for about seven years now, and it's mostly funded through the occupancy tax on hotel rooms. You know, I think it's it's kind of looked upon as a tourist amenity or can be looked upon that way. And we've kind of brought brought funding in other ways. We had an item in a bond referendum that was about one particular public art project. We have done a project that was funded through private dollars through a zoning district. It was one one particular zoning district where the developer of a commercial property had to give, had to agree to, you know, a basket of five of nine possible improvements to their property, and one of them was public art. And they chose public art, but instead of putting it on their property, they just donated the funding to the city to do public art kind of in their vicinity. And that turned into a really cool project on a water tank that was, a giant otter otter mural. And then, we have also funded it, in partnership with a developer who was building a residential building downtown and wanted to see public art nearby. And they said, if we can give you half the price of a sculpture, will you put the sculpt put a sculpture on our block? And we said, sure. And then, there's also percent for art, which we have not, not passed yet, but I'm sure Chris can can speak to that in-depth.
Alright, Chris. Yeah. What do you have to add to that? He mentioned a percentage? Yeah.
So, at Katz, we have a percent for our program, which is the way that art is generally funded. So that is through capital improvement projects. So 1% is allocated for art, and that is minus rolling stock and real estate acquisition. So it's actually less than 1%. And then, you know, we do some temporary things as well, that's funded through our operating budget. But, I will say the the unique thing about Charlotte too, though, is that, we actually have 2% for our programs. So ours is, specifically, centered around transit. So, you know, at light rail stations, park and rides, bus stops, facilities, things like that. And then the Arts and Science Council deals with, like, vertical constructions and bond packages, like like Kelly was just talking about. But, they are also, 1% of, those those funds. So
So, let's get into a project. Let's just say, an elected official or some other important person approached you and said, you know, we need a mural on this on the side of our Administration Building. Where do you kinda start with that? Is there a prioritization process, political process? Like, how how do you respond to a request like that?
So in in our, instance, I guess I would if a mural was on the side of a Facilities Building or something like that, we would initiate a call for artists, and that is, generally an RFQ process. We do it that way, so we're not requesting the artists to create proposals for free. That's generally not the the best practice when it comes to, to funding art, in a public space. And then from there, we will work with our advisory committee to, to form a selection panel. And then, once the deadline hits, we'll convene. And, usually, the selection panel is made up of people from around the community who have general knowledge or specific knowledge of art, around the area, or museum professionals, art educators, people like that. And then the the artist is selected, and we will work with them to develop a design, and, you know, put them under contract for, for all of that. Depending on, you know, if it's a larger project, you know, if it's a just a mural project, we'll probably just have one iteration of design. But for larger projects, we may have further iterations, especially if they're incorporating them into, you know, another built environment where it's, you know, fully integrated.
Is there anything more, anything different if an elected official approached you and said we need a mural on our administration building?
We we typically do do the same kind of, request for proposals or request for qualifications process, just kind of depending on the budget budget of a certain project. And, you know, for the for the larger projects, we're kind of, limited to our purchasing policy, which does require proposals. So it's something that's that's been difficult in public art circles just because, best practices are that you you want an artist, like like Chris said, not to have to do the work of a proposal just on the, you know, on the very small chance that they will actually get the, the commission. But on most of our smaller projects under the $20,000 threshold, we have, basically, a request for qualifications process where people send in their past work, and you can kind of judge, based on that how how well they fit with a certain project.
Talking about the process for getting artists, is there anything we can add to, you know, the the how to? How do you lure an artist to a project? How do you how do you pick one? And is there any weight given to, local artists or regional North Carolina versus, say, a national artist who may also be qualified for the project?
So there are a number of listservs that, you know, there's the Americans for the Arts is is a good one. There's the, North Carolina Arts Council has has a good listserv, that reaches out to artists. And, you know, if you're in the public arts, if you had if if this isn't just a one off thing for your for your town, you will you will be gaining, email addresses from artists who apply for prior projects. And before you know it, you'll have a pretty robust list of artists around the around your town and state. And then, of course, there's your your local local arts council who's, very well connected to to artists. And that's, you know, that's kind of where we started, just sending stuff out. And now, you know, we have we have a pretty pretty, pretty large list of of artists, who are who are on the lookout for our project.
Anything different, Chris? Anything you guys do that's, special to to lure artists or, you know, just anything to say about the process of getting an artist to our project?
Yeah. I mean, I would say that, trying to make those local connections is is really important. One thing that, you know, we don't weight it from a data standpoint, but we do give favoritism to local artists when it comes to to open calls. So we call it a concentric circle philosophy, so working our way out from from Charlotte. And so about, I would say, about half of the artists that we've worked with over our, we've done about 23 capital projects, since 2002 when our program was, was formed. And, about half of those artists, have been North Carolina or or or local artists. So yeah.
So let's just say we've purchased or commissioned an artwork. What happens then? Are there ongoing costs? Are there maintenance? You know, what what do we, what what's what's down the road for us?
All of the above. So, with maintenance, you really just want to make sure that the artist and the commissioning agency, is very aware of what they're getting into upfront, in the, in the contract. So there should be maintenance clauses within your contract that says, you know, after a year, if this starts to fall apart, you know, you've warranted it, so it's on the artist to fix. But after a year, the the city is gonna take on that responsibility. So it all just depends on your particular situation. For us, that's kind of how it works. And then, as far as maintenance goes, it's built into our operate operating budget. You can imagine on a, on a light rail alignment and, you know, multiple, you know, thousands of bus stops. And we don't have art everywhere, but we do have a lot of it. And most of the things that we deal with are broken glass, and from time to time we'll have tags, you know, on walls or wherever. But broken glass is the number one thing, and that's just within the transit shelters themselves. So, that's kind of number one thing that we, we deal with. But, I'll say that Katz is very reactionary to the, the type of maintenance that it does. So, if something breaks, we'll fix it. But, having that kind of forethought for building in monies for actual conservation is also very important. A lot of our pieces now are coming up on that ten year mark, and they're starting to show their age. So, the, the great thing about that is that, whoever is in that that art in transit role or art program manager role at the time, inherits all of that. So when you're building these programs or calls, you know, take that into consideration as well. Kind of, what would you say, Kelly, about 10% is usually kind of set aside for for maintenance. Is that a good number?
Sure. Sure. And, you know, we have a fairly new program. Our our program is not yet ten years old, so we don't have, we don't have that, that maintenance. But we we have been kinda squirreling squirreling away money more recently as we see what's on the horizon for us. And, we we had a project in the last couple of years that was not not our project. It was a city project that was done in 1999, I think. And, it's a wall behind the transit center, and it's it's a it's a wall and a bench, and it's 40 or 50 feet long. And it was it was like this community project, done in collaboration with one of the local art museums. And it's it's called the memory wall, and people brought, items, you know, like necklaces and toys and, I don't know, lockets and all kinds of things. And they pressed it into the concrete, and there's all these hubcaps and seashells maybe. And it's it makes for a really cool thing, but it doesn't age well. So this thing was falling apart after it'd been been there for twenty years. And literally the same week that I had somebody one of the city city managers come to me and say, this thing's falling apart. Can we just get rid of it? Somebody else emailed me and said, it's the twentieth anniversary of the memory wall. We need to restore it. So we had you know, we embarked on this $20,000 restoration. I don't know what it costs, but it might not have even cost $20,000 to to build the thing. And, so so that was that was one of our recent projects. So watch out watch out for maintenance.
What what about when it is time when, the let's say the lifespan of of the piece of art is is kind of up? You know? Is it a arduous decision? What you know, how does it go into, say, decommissioning?
Yeah. So, in, in the art world, it's called deaccessioning, because, you know, in the museum field, you know, pieces are accessioned into a collection. And so that is a process in itself for us. We take into consideration the original cost, and then kind of have it assessed as far as how much it would be to know, fully restore it to its original glory. And then, from there, just kind of do a cost benefit analysis, as to whether it's whether it's worth it or not. But the our Art and Transit Advisory Committee, ultimately, makes, the final recommendation. And then from there, Katz has the, you know, the final authority as the owner, to, to decommission it or or deaccession it. But I will say, deinstallation, is also a cost in itself. So, also bear that in mind.
What are you gonna what are you gonna replace it with? What are you gonna replace it with? And, I mean, people people get attached to anything, like, even the worst piece of art or I remember seeing on Facebook years ago, like, in my hometown, they tore down the Caldor that is it's like Kmart. People are like, oh, the the Caldor. The k the Kmart. Like so, yeah, watch out. Like, you're not you're not gonna take anything down ever.
So let's just say, I'm a another budget officer or maybe I work, in administration in a small town, and I'm thinking about getting into public art. You know, we're not a huge city. We have a few people working at city hall. Maybe what are some of the the starting points for getting into a project if we don't have maybe a huge staff, a huge, resource of funding? I mean, you know, where's a good place to start with something like this?
Yeah. I would say that, you know, with most of you living in North Carolina, you know, the great thing about North Carolina is that, each county has its own arts council. So making those relationships, would be a a great first place to start. And then, you know, as far as as staff goes, you know, we're we're all I'm sure we're all used to wearing multiple hats in in our various roles. But, you know, for for municipal organizations, sometimes, you know, that'll fall into, like, you know, a planning department or, you know, general services, where there's engineers involved, urban planners, things like that. So and I'm sure Kelly can, can echo that.
Yeah. Kelly, anything to add?
Yeah. So I mean, funding, I would say, you know, art art isn't free and it's often expensive. And, you know, just prepare your elected officials to actually pay for it. You know, people people are gonna gonna tend to try to go down the free tracks. You know? And I had somebody say, oh, what about could we get somebody to just do this for visibility? And it's it's the convention center. Like, if you can't pay for art at the convention center, when do you pay for art? So just prepare them for that. And, yeah, public art management is just project management. You know, I had this kind of romantic notion about it when I first started and quickly realized it was just me calling the city attorney all the time. It's like, can we do this? Why not? So, it's lots of contracts and, you know, getting getting things done on time and within budget and stuff
like that. Could each of you share a story about a public art project that you were involved in that was successful and maybe what helped its success?
I would say we just recently well, not recently. In 2018, we opened the Blue Line Extension, which is a light rail extension going north from Charlotte, connecting to UNC Charlotte. So we worked with 14 different artists, for 11 stations. And, I would say that the thing that made that project successful was involving the artists as early as we could in the planning process. One thing that, in the art world, there's this term called plop art. And it's, when, you know, you have a sculpture or or whatever, and it's just kind of inserted in the built environment where for no connecting reason. So there's no kind of backstory or community ties to kind of the the concept behind it. So ensuring that that's part of the the process as well will definitely make a project successful because, you know, the the public, you know, kinda takes on that ownership, of of the piece itself, in a in a, a better way. For example, there's a station, along the the blue line, called the Tom Hunter Station, and the, the artist worked with students from two different schools around the station, and incorporated their designs somehow into his final design. So he did workshops with them, after school workshops, because he's, he's a two d artist. And so they did collage workshops on their concept of home. And then at a at a middle school, he did a poetry workshop, about concepts of home again. And, so he took different words that they created or different words from the poems that they created, during those workshops and then incorporated them into the, the the shelter, column cladding. And then the the, the collage pieces that they worked on, he incorporated some of those, into his final designs of the the windscreen glass. So, you know, it's a a direct kind of reflection of of what's important to to that community.
What about you, Kelly? Was there a project you worked on that was successful, and what do you think made it successful?
So, we we've had a couple couple projects that I really, really have been happy with. One is pretty straightforward. But the the takeaway wanna leave you with is, is call call the references call the references because you'll have, you'll have artists, you know, who are who are kind of flighty and but you want the artists who are going to deliver you the the big project. So are you gonna ask about a project gone off the rails, or should I just incorporate Let's let's hear yeah. Let's hear a story about a project going off the rails. I'll start I'll start with just, like, a a good and easy one. We we just had a a a, water tank mural, pretty straightforward. Had some people apply, the finalists. This guy was you know, everybody said, oh, yeah. He's great to work with. And, I'll get your project done. And lo and behold, he did, you know, forty foot tall, you know, something like 150 foot curved surface of a water tank. You know, the 11 by 17 rendering that he showed us looks exactly like he painted on the on the water tank in three weeks somehow. Amazing. And then, you know, a year later, we're looking for, a sculptor to do some work in a park. And we have, three finalists. It's pre COVID. We fly them out, put them in hotels, food allowance, you know, have a great time in Winston Salem. Come visit us. See the park in person. And, one of our finalists, you know, she's not she's not there. I call her, and she said, oh, yeah. Just decided not to come. But I'll just I'll do it. You know? It wasn't Zoom, but I'll just do it remote. I'm just okay. So she's just, she does it remote. She emails. She uploads uploads her plans. It's beautiful. It really hits everybody. Everybody everybody loves this project. Let's go with her, but we do want her to come to town. We want her to see the space. So just have her have her fly out. I don't know what went wrong. So make that appointment. She doesn't fly out. I call her references and that she supplied to me, And they're both of them. The first one leaves me a voice mail. I'm going out of town for a week, but I just wanted to get back to you. Don't work with her. She's a nightmare. The other one's like, yeah. We had a lot of problems. She gave you my number? Really? Okay. So I go back to my committee, and they're just like, oh, you know, artists can be crazy. So don't don't worry about it. And then it was just one thing after another. We cannot get this woman to come The the third or fourth time we tried to fly her out, she calls me, or emails me about this long story about her mother who is a horse trainer in Guadalajara. This story has lots of lots of memorable details. Like, the doctor called me, but he only spoke Spanish. And I'm like, okay. So I I call back the the reference who who just left the voice mail. I'm like, can you tell me a little more? And she said, oh, it was this Make A Wish Foundation project, the sculpture in a playground, and we were afraid the kid was going to die because she couldn't deliver this project. Like, she just was late and late and late. And, she she just had the most outlandish stories. And I said, she's like, what? She said, one time, it was, like, her mother who's a horse trainer in Guadalajara and the doctor and I'm like and I'm, like, completing the story for her. And she said, yeah. She she told you that one too. And she said, a lot of times, an artist will get get behind, and then they'll they'll they they won't deliver a project, and they'll need to get the next one as the down payment to pay for the one behind it. And I wonder if that's what's happening. And try calling the city of Houston to see how I heard that she got a commission there. So I called the city of Houston. They said, oh, yeah. But we can't talk to you because we're suing her right now. So we were finally able to extract her, and then and then the all caps red font emails started coming from her. You do owe me $60,000. You owe me we're under contract. We're not under contract. You never signed a contract. So call your references. It might sound like, yeah, nightmare, but it was I got lots of pats on the back, like, thank you for saving us saving us $200,000 because, we if it was in the Zoom age, I think we definitely would have just gone with her unless unless, you know, if we hadn't listened to the the references because we would have Zoom interviewed, and she would have been great. And they would have said, great. Sign her up. Give her $200,000.
I mean, it it it sounds like, you know, a nightmare averted, but a lot of anxiety going along the way too. Chris, was there anything that, that that's happened in your career so far that's, that, where something went off the rails, and was there anything to learn from it?
Not like that. But, I guess mine is a little bit more technical, you know, more of a problem solving story. So with us, you know, we work with larger general contractors as well as artists. So we're having to kind of navigate that, aspect of it too, and tracking the work that's going on, and making sure that, you know, it's within, you know, the the correct scope and everything else. So there was a, there's a light rail station at one of the stops, where an artist had incorporated a mosaic. So the civil contractor, had created the retaining wall for that mosaic and made the block outs for it as well because, you know, you have to have a recess for the the tiles to go into. And at one of the, you know, the weekly update meetings that we have with the contractor, they're talking about, you know, different noncompliance issues. And one of the issues that they raise is that, the elevations at that particular station were a little bit higher than what they were spec for. And it rose to the level that it was actually cropping into the mosaic. So we had to quickly deal with that because, you know, we couldn't ask the contractor to to redo the wall because that's just not an option at this point. So, we went to the artist and explained the situation. And luckily, one of the artists that because it was an artist team that was working at that station, one of the artists is a stonemason. So he was able to actually cut out a section of the block out and chisel chisel out the concrete to be able to not crop the mosaic. And luckily, the retaining wall was high enough to where, we were apt, able to, to to kind of problem solve, that way. So Nice. Yeah.
So, I think we're gonna kinda lean toward the audience if you guys have any questions or be thinking. But, while you're thinking, I'll ask, you know, that we we just heard a couple anxious stories. But public art, I mean, I'll I'll I'll assume that you think public art is a good thing. Maybe some final thoughts on on, you know, why this is worth it, why this is a worthy endeavor for, say, a local government.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, public art is just a fantastic way to, to brighten the the built environment. You know, it's a it's a way to really have that community component reflected in a physical way, that's also visually appealing. And, you know, it's also an economic benefit too, you know, with artists that are creating public art. You have a fabrication, that goes into that too, and those are jobs, you know, within the creative sector. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of, a lot of benefit to public art, within the municipal environment.
Thank you, Chris. Kelly, any final thoughts on, why public art is a a good thing, why you believe in it?
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, now more than ever, people can go and live wherever they want, and, you know, we kinda have to give them a reason to stay in our towns. And, you know, it sounds kinda trite, like, oh, this this sculpture, this painting, you know, has an economic benefit, but but they really do. People people make make connections to their town. They're really proud of what makes their place unique, and this artwork goes a long way in doing that. And, you know, there's a Knight Foundation study about, you know, what what keeps people in in a town or a city, and it's pride, pride in place. And, so making those connections is really, really important. You know, you'd wanna differentiate yourself from every other every other small town or small city that anybody can work work from. So that's, it's a really, really good way to do it.
Well, thank you so much, to our guests. And we, do we have time for questions from the audience? Yeah?
I will pass the mic. So, obviously, art can be subjective. So what is the process for debating style and public appeal when using tax dollars for a
mural? I would like to take that first. Kelly, Chris?
So there's, you know, there's the the RFP process, that we're our city council, our county commissioners, our elected bodies are appointing or appointing people with an arts background to to choose the art. A lot of times and sounds like it sounds like for Chris, there there's a lot more more public a lot more room for public input and shaping of that. And I'll and he can, speak about that. But just, generally, having having a group, that can that can concentrate on art and also bring in community stakeholders. You know, if you if you're having a mural in a certain part of town, or, you know, on a certain facility, a library or a recreation center or something like that, like, absolutely involve involve that part of the community in kind of looking for what your, vision for for that is. Is it the history of this place? And and just and get that buy in early in the process, and that'll that'll help you go along a long way to doing that.
Does he have any thoughts on that question, the subjectivity and sort of picking what's appropriate?
Yeah. Yeah. I would say that, you know, definitely getting buy in early on, but also, you know, with us having that community involvement in not necessarily reviewing and approving the art, but being supportive of it. And, you know, whether that's letters of support from community leaders, A lot of times, that's an important thing to have in your design files. But, you know, working with those community leaders to really, kind of inform the artists as to what's important to that community, what connects and what they would like to see reflected in some way. You know, leaving the aesthetics up to the artist. But, you know, having that kind of contextual tie in to the community is really important when it comes to content.
I just wanna ask. I am in a budget office. I like, more and more, everything is performance based. We're working on performance measures. And, like, art is a hard one, I think, to show numbers behind, like, besides, like, number of pieces of art and things like that. What do you guys think are good performance measures for, for art and public art, and how do you justify the cost and that kind of thing?
I agree that it is very difficult to, from a performance measurement standpoint. We we, until recently, were just doing number of public art projects, but it didn't work really well. We were like we we did a series of bus shelter, artworks that were basically a thousand bucks a pop, apply with your artwork, and we'll print it and apply it to to the glass bus shelters. And it was like, our numbers went up, you know, like, from 10 to 30 pieces of public art, but it didn't really reflect what we were doing. So so it just it it turned into, how much money are we spending on public art? It's a pretty good reflection. Like, spend a million dollars on a 40 foot tall sculpture. Like, that's that's more solid public art investment than a thousand dollars on a bus shelter. But, you know, it's hard to measure, you know, how many people are interacting with it. I mean, maybe if you're, you know, like, if you're in a transit shelter or a transit station or something like that, like, x number of people use this. It's you just have to kind of commit, you know, in theory to to your city being a place of public art, I think, to, to and maybe not measure that. I don't I'm not sure. Bad answer. But
Chris, can you have any thoughts on metrics?
Yeah. I would say that another metric that you can take into account, outside of just the funding component, would be, you know, like demographics, for example, of the artists that you work with, or the the amount of pieces of artwork within a specific neighborhood, because then you have that question of equity, you know, across the city, and and whether, the art is funded in an equitable way. So, that would kinda be my my 2¢ there.
Not to insert myself, but I would also say that qualitative information is always helpful, especially for kind of subjective value. Oh, okay. Did you have a question?
So in terms of location, do you guys have prospective sites laid out almost like a capital improvement plan of where you want public art to go? And if so or if not, how do you prioritize locations? Like, do you wanna put art in places that have a lot of traffic or in places that you wanna draw people to? What kind of determines where the art goes?
So for for transit, we in our capital projects, we like to make sure that the art is gonna be placed in a space or location that is gonna be most visible, to the writers and to the, you know, general population. So, you know, we're not gonna put a mural on a retaining wall that is facing an industrial lot. So, that's kind of the way that we go about doing that. But we also work with our planning department too to identify areas that different zones that are have more heavily weighted, for, for pedestrian traffic, for example. So they'll, you know, instead of a chain link fence, you know, there'll be an or so grill fence there. And, you know, at a station, you know, there may be some art fencing instead. So kind of having it tiered in that way. But as far as, you know, other locations, you know, we just really deal with capital improvement projects. So wherever that capital improvement project is, we'll locate Artforum.
So we're we're looking at adopting a percent for art, policy that'll be I like to call it, like, art for the new city. It'll be capital improvement project going forward. So so those those projects will have an art component in it. So that kind of chooses where where it'll be for you. And those are usually bond funded projects that are approved by the city council. And we have a ward system, so they're very equitably distributed among the eight wards. And then we have, you know, our other funding. And, you know, I call that art for the old the older city. And, and that, you know, that also, you know, that has a has a word component, you know, when we do when we do the bus shelters that I just spoke about. Like, we're very intentional about making sure that each ward gets gets at least one one shelter. We did a project, and it was very early on. It was kind of our first project that wasn't kind of given to us. It wasn't like, give art to the convention center or put art in the library. It was, the public art commission running this project. It was called the Winston Salem Portrait Project, and it was meant to kind of bridge communities and have people, you know, kind of make connections. And that was also seen as a way to to show our elected officials in the city that, you know, that art is important. And it was one one main sculpture downtown and then eight other pieces, one in each ward, to kinda give them give them a little taste early on of the public art. But, you know, you see us really intentionally trying trying to distribute it around around the city, and it doesn't always make make financial sense to be able to do that. You know, you can't just do one. We're gonna do an artistic bus shelter soon that's like a sculptural bus shelter. And, yeah, my assistant city manager said, well, you're you're gonna do one. Right? Well, you know it's coming. There's gonna be they're gonna want seven more. So just be prepared for that. So there's so there's that kind of distribution. And then there's there's also this, downtown versus neighborhoods pull where, you know, you can really make the case for for for big downtown public art, but, you know, had a you know, city council also wants it in neighborhoods and neighborhood parks and rec centers and stuff like that. So, so it's kind of a push and pull to do that.
I have a question. So I'm curious if you can talk about, like, where do you think are the biggest sources of friction between, like, a public arts council trying to get art to happen and then our budget world people in the realm of, like, policy. Like, we talked a bit about purchasing policies or, you know, funding mechanisms. Where are the places that just kind of make your process difficult?
Wanna handle that, Kelly?
Yeah. So we've had we have a purchasing policy that was put in place. And, you know, I think it's it's meant more for construction projects. It's definitely not meant for it was public art was not not a big factor when they were coming up with this policy. And it it, puts a score matrix onto projects over a certain certain budget threshold. And you kinda heard how best practices in public art are to, for artists to send in their qualifications, which is basically their past work. And you can you can kind of match somebody with their past work and say, come up with a proposal for us. You three, please come up with a proposal for us, and we will pay you for that proposal, so that nobody is working for free. And then you will judge those three proposals. Well, in in this purchasing matrix, now we have, you know, if you are from Winston Salem, you get five points. If you're from North Carolina, you get three. And that's all well and good. And now if you're if you are a minority firm, you get five points, but you must preregister with the state. So that's not something artists do. That's something that construction companies do. So so most artists are already like, wait. I have to register to get these points. And then if you don't if you aren't registered as as a minority or woman business enterprise, you have to show that you are contracting with minority women business enterprise and 10% of your budget. So now you are now you now you have to do a proposal to get those points. And you don't have to get those points, but those points certainly make you competitive. So so it's it it just makes things really difficult, and it and it makes it so that, you know, the goal of this was to give priority to local and minority businesses. And what it does is it scares a lot of local artists out of the pool. You know, we had one project recently where, nobody could do the paperwork correctly on on that part of it. And the only one who did it was this company from, Oklahoma. They're from Oklahoma, and their artist, their main artist was so they were from Oklahoma, and they were registered as a minority enterprise. Their artist was from Tucson. And then they said, well, we're gonna do some fabrication in Raleigh, and they got three points. And they were they were one of our finalists, even though the artist was white and from Arizona, and they were from Oklahoma and Arizona. So, it's it's not doing what, what the goal was of the program.
Chris, do you have any thoughts on friction and the demand for art, maybe where the points of friction are? Yeah.
Kinda echoing the procurement kind of process, You know, for us, because we're dealing with, you know, transit projects, we get FTA dollars for a lot of that. So, you know, for us, the artists also have to abide by those clauses. So, you know, if they're creating a sculpture, you know, all of the metal that goes into the sculpture has to be by America, things like that. But, you know, all of those FTA clauses flow down to their contracts. So, you know, an artist that may be used to getting, you know, like, a 15 page contract, you know, that contract you know, it just makes it where they have to kind of swim through that legalese a lot more. And, you know, they really have to kind of rely on that kind of business acumen that they may or may not, you know, have, you know, a full grasp on. Which is why, you know, public art is very different from studio art, because you have to have those skills as well. But, yeah, as far as, other frictions with FTA, since 2015, we have not been able to utilize FTA dollars to fund the art, because the the FAST Act, which is the previous version of the transit reauthorization bill, got rid of art funding and decorative landscaping, as a eligible expense. So we've had to rely upon our, our local resolution and, to to fund everything locally, in that in that respect. So, yeah, just dealing with where the where the money comes from and how it gets spent.
It's made us really, invest in lots of, artist workshops and things like that. Like, you know, if you, you know, if you wanna if you wanna be a finalist, like, these are the things that you're gonna wanna do. You know, you're registering with the state of North Carolina. And then, you know, this this bid form is super complicated, so make sure you, you know, sign this, notarize this, and stuff like that. So we're we're really doing a lot of outreach about paperwork now, which, you know, can be a lot.
Cool. Well, thank you so much.
Yeah. Thanks everyone so much for coming. And thank you, panelists and Ben. This was fabulous. So, look out for the podcast. And, again, give Municipal Equation a listen, if you haven't already.
Thanks for listening. Thanks to Elizabeth Harry, Kelly Bennett and Chris land for joining us to talk through this fascinating and not always obvious topic of conversation for local government. I'm so glad they involve municipal equation in this session. It's the podcast from the North Carolina League of Municipalities about cities and towns adapting to change. We look at individual issues. Sometimes they're big and overarching. Sometimes there are those hidden conversations that aren't the issue of the day, maybe a virgin issue, and we just crack them open for a look. I hope you enjoy what we do here with Municipal Equation. I'd love your feedback and suggestions for future episode topics. You can reach me at bbrown@nclm.org. NCLM stands again for North Carolina League of Municipalities online at nclm.org. My name is Ben Brown, and we will talk to you on the next one.