Public Art Commission February Meeting Minutes - Approved
NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
Public Art Commission
Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 6:30 pm
City Hall Annex, 98 Washington Street, 1st Floor
~ MEDIUM SIZED MEETING ROOM ~
MEETING MINUTES
- Roll Call
Kurt Ankeny - Beauchamp, Janine Liberty, Carly Dwyer Naik, John Andrews, Julie Barry
- SRA Member Update & Vacancy Posting
- - DRB position vacancy
- - J Michael Sulivan has resigned
- - Mayor has allowed for DRV restriction removed but seat will need to be a resident of Salem
- - Woman from Landworks design studio recommended by Andrews
- Artists’ Row Application Finalist Review and Selection
- Voting postponed - asked if can be done remotely or virtual
- Artists’ Row subcommittee will reconvene again 2-24-2020
- Special meeting will be called for final approvals
Motion to postpone artist row selection review made by Andrew, Carly seconded motion unanimously passed
- Websites and Social Media Presence
- Barry will be hiring a consultant to consolidate media presence
- PAC needs to review which elements to keep and which they should remove
- PAC agrees that one site to umbrella would be idea, Method chosen has to be wholistic, but the multiple websites is not useful
- Artists row is a Squarespace site
- Barry has the hope to have all these listed under one tab under the City website
- Having a municipal branding is important to the Salem Public Art
- Should Salem Public Art site redirects to City Hall website?
- Barry confirmed that the layout of the website can be created attractively
- Redirects need to be cleanly and not overwhelming
- There is a discussion of hiring a social media contractor
1. A training will happen for Barry on how to update the city held website
2. Branding would be difficult to manage because a city website is treated as an index
3. Who will the site be accessible to, in order to handle the amount of information updates
4. In past experience the city website’s back end access was difficult to manage
5. Facebook artist row group will likely die out
- Barry would like to remove
1. Salem Old Town Hall.com – blank page
2. Salem Public Art.com Held as a place holder or umbrella
3. Remove Old Town Hall Facebook
4. Keep Salem public art as an umbrella for artists row and Old town hall
- PACs Role as ‘vetter’ of projects
- Naumkeag Portrait Project Update
- Naumkeag portrait call will be released
- Key criteria wll be
1. Experienced portrait artist
2. From or willing to work with indigenous peoples group
- Partner Projects
- PEM - Blue Trees (full proposal by Kate Luchini at March Meeting)
- Bates Design - PhotoSpheres
- AR 4 Everyone - Ghosts of Essex County
- Proposed Projects
- Ken Reker – Charolette Forten Park
- Terry Bastion – Blue Wave
- Support would consist of putting PAC logo on project
- Helping navigate through city hall permitting
- Shakespeare Summer Performance Series – Approve call
-Changes
• Should there be specification that the series should be Shakespeare
• Remove the language “Series”
• Liars and Believers was wonderful, but no one showed up
• Shakespeare worked because they were local, and each actor brought friends and family
• Changed from performer to Performance series
• Should the lighting and audio installation be removed
• Keep outdoor theatre
• Immersive theatre performance
• Dance performance
• The $5000 limits groups for purchase of playwrights
• Shakespeare attracts people because people recognize it and allows people to be comfortable to walk in and out of a performance
• There could be an open call for all types of performances
• Must have one rehearsal in a space – with OTH a place to store equipment and for rain
• 4 events over 2 separate weekends in August
• Suggest times working around Lobster Shanty Jazz Fest and the Derby Flea for example
• The preferences are that this be an auxiliary performance to an existing show it
• One performance group will be chosen
• Delete marketing support requirement and require performers to markets themselves
• “Remove document the residency”
• Share Photos of performance
• Remove the proposal in person
• Work Plan requirements should be kept for clarity, and to be sure that all requirements are available.
• Approval for release first week of March
• extend deadline to April 6th
• Specify that priority given to local North Shore groups
• How many performances
- 4 performances
- Matinees are difficult because of summer elements
- Saturday night performances
Ankeny - Beauchamp made a motion to approve call, Liberty seconded Motion approved unanimously
- Mural Slam - Approve call and formalize PAC role in event
- 12 paid spots
- Make sure plywood is reprises
- Applications due May 8 at noon
- Review would be the week May 11
- Subcommittee
1. Liberty
2. Larsen
3. Andrews
- PAC pays for Stipend for artist and prizes
- Old Town Hall Assessment Update Brief
- History Alive proposal would like to broaden their scope for use of the space
- They will be monthly renters at a higher cost, making them almost a tenant
- Their scope has expanded but the days of use hasn’t increased
- The hope is that additional theatre companies would be able to utilize the space as well
- One organization may be able to use the space during the day
- History alive may use only the first floor
- Barry would like to move OTH away from event rentals and move more towards an arts space
- Would it be possible to have history alive move upstairs and split first floor into 4 separate artist spaces to accommodate some of the artist that proposed for the Artists Row Residency
- Pub Art planning position seems to concentrate largely on the facilities management and this model would free up bandwidth for the planner to work on other public art projects.
- There are some markets/events that will still need to maintain
- Answers the cities request to provide year round activation
- Liberty Will it create a competitive hierarchy with Artists Row
- A flow through out to the back toward artists row
- Andrews History Alive is very geared toward tourists, they will be able to create more plays.
- Can we ask HA to perform their Charlotte Forten play at the Charlotte Forten park
- Applicant pool for Artists Row may not be a good pool to draw from there may need to be a separate call
- Can we ask the wayfinding arts
- Andrews would like to know if history alive be comfortable with additional people noise
- Kurt Pushing the idea of moving the use of OTH as an artist space is a good idea before renovations
- Is there an OTH timeline for renovations
1. Assessments have been done and renovations will be happening in 2021 or 2022
- Other Business
- South Harbor Garage Window Banners Update
1. Larsen will confirm payments with Kylie Sullivan
2. Larsen will review south bay garage details and forward to Barry
- Request for Letter of Supper for fountain renovation from Public Library
- - Letter of Support Approved
- Public Comments
- Adjourn Meeting adjourned at 8:41pm