HomeMy WebLinkAbout02.16.23 Public Art Committee Agenda
Public Arts Commission Meeting Agenda
February 16, 2023, | 3:00 p.m. | In-person and Remote Meeting
The meeting will be held in Council Chambers on the 2 nd floor of the Historic City Hall.
The entrance is the first door on Madison Street, which opens to the elevator.
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Join by phone in listen-only mode: (360) 390-5064 ext. 6 access code: 155-675-573#
Submit public comment emails to be included in the meeting record to:
publiccomment@cityofpt.us
I.Call to Order
II.Roll Call
III.Approval of Agenda
IV.Approval of Minutes
V.Public Comment (3 minutes per person)
VI.Sub commission Business
A.Review Letter for City Council about Public Markers
B.Discuss reaching out to F street artist for sculpture maintenance.
C.Review Capital Project
VII.Correspondence
VIII.Set Agenda for Next Meeting
IX.Next Scheduled Meeting
X.Adjourn
1 ***DRAFT letter to City Council regarding the state of public art in Port Townsend***
2
3 17 NOV, 2022
4 To: Port Townsend City Council, City Manager Mauro
5 Fr: Port Townsend Arts Commission
6
7 OUR PUBLIC ART CRISIS
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9 Port Townsend’s Council-Manager structure is common government strategy in small towns
10 like ours that rely on open communication between citizens, staff, manager and city council.
11 Key to our form of government is the reliance on citizen advisory boards, committees and
12 commissions to assist and advise on various city matters. Some advisory boards are pretty
13 universal to most small towns, including ours: Library Advisory Board, Parks/Rec &
14 Trees/Trails, Transportation Advisory Board, etc. These advisory group members are
15 appointed based on their knowledge and experience and regularly meet to discuss the matters
16 related to their respective areas. Their recommendations are then forwarded to City Council
17 and our City Manager so that the city can be run knowing it’s receiving the best advice
18 possible - advice cultivated from the very citizens those decisions will affect.
19
20 In addition to the traditional commissions and boards most small cities have, it’s easy to see
21 what special priorities a city has simply by noting what their specialized advisory groups are:
22 Ellensburg has a Rodeo Board, Sequim a Sister City Association, Bainbridge Island a Race
23 Equity Advisory Committee. These specialized committees then convene to take up the
24 issues deemed particular important to those individual communities.
25
26 The Port Townsend Arts Commission (PTAC) is one of these specialized advisory bodies,
27 created to address a subject so important to Port Townsend that we flaunt it on a large sign at
28 the entrance of town and broadly tout it in our marketing strategies to communities afar.
29 Established in 2001 by city resolution 01-029 its declared purpose is to “…have available to
30 the city and its citizens a degree of expertise with respect to the performing, visual and
31 literary arts and to act in an advisory capacity to the city government in connection with the
32 artistic and cultural development of the city.” Since its inception, PTAC has funded hundreds
33 of thousands of dollars toward vital community arts programs large and small, undoubtedly
34 contributing significantly to the quality of life we all enjoy here. PTAC has convened several
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35 Artist Selection Panels (ASP) and by utilizing the city’s Art in Public Places Policy and
36 Procedures document as a guide, has successfully accessioning numerous celebrated works in
37 to our permanent collection including: Gerard Tsutakawa’s iconic bronze sculpture Salish
38 Sea Circle that lives downtown at Pope Marine Park, Matt Babcock’s regal heron-clock Great
39 Blue keeping time in the Uptown neighborhood, and the late Russell Jaqua’s majestic axial-
40 symmetry sculpture that prominently punctuates the Visitor’s Center area. Each of these
41 projects were properly accessioned through the Public Art Committee and the Port Townsend
42 Arts Commission and as a result, enhance our town’s character and livability, buttress our
43 reputation as an “arts town” and have been generally maintenance and trouble-free since their
44 siting.
45
46 However, over the last couple years, the expertise and services made available to the city by
47 PTAC have not been tapped in our time of need. Instead, regrettably, PTAC has been grossly
48 underutilized, outright ignored and intentionally circumvented. Years of excellent work to
49 fulfill our duties in the selection and siting of public artworks prior to two years ago have
50 now been overshadowed by the perceived impression that we dropped the ball on the art
51 markers project, even though the selection and siting of them was none of our doing. As a
52 result of proper procedures not being followed, mistakes were made and messes remain.
53 Years of admirable work as a competent advisory body has sustained damage due to the
54 misperception that we were responsible for the markers. This misperception has also harmed
55 Port Townsend’s overall reputation as an artistic enclave, the very trait in which we base a
56 large portion of our city’s image on.
57
58 But PTAC realizes that we are an integral part of the overall government structure that our
59 town relies on to function and have a duty to stand united with councilmembers, city staff,
60 and with each other to weather these issues. PTAC realizes that our charter responsibility is
61 to advise council on art matters and also to further the development and public awareness of
62 and interest in the arts, but PTAC also recognizes that we have a duty to cooperate with
63 council and other city-team members…since we’re all in this together. This is likely best
64 done by trying to understand what happened regarding the errors made and understanding
65 what should have been done - if for no other reason than to know how to navigate forward
66 and steer away from similar mistakes made over the last couple years. We therefore
67 welcome a frank discussion about the current status of public art in Port Townsend and
68 consider it our mandated duty to let council know what we think should be done about it.
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69
70 PURPOSE OF THIS LETTER:
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72 This letter intends to explain: 1) What went wrong with public art over the last couple years
73 (to learn from our past), 2) What should have happened with public art over the last couple
74 years (to better understand the proper procedures), and 3) What to do about public art now
75 (to mitigate the harm done and get back on track with how things are supposed to be).
76
77 BLACK LIVES MATTER STREET ART:
78
79 The first circumventing of PTAC’s code-established role (in recent history) occurred in June
80 of 2020 when Council was approached by an impassioned citizen group wanting to install
81 street art on Water Street for the Juneteenth celebration, coinciding with similar events
82 happening nationwide. An urgent “special meeting” was called and within a couple days,
83 PTAC convened to address the proposal for the funding of the work. The proposal however
84 was not presented to PTAC as an artwork seeking siting in the public realm (as required per
85 City code/policy set forth in Art in Public Places Policy and Procedures), instead the request
86 presented to PTAC at the special meeting was only for funding. Council had already,
87 erroneously approved the placement of the art on the street at their regular business meeting a
88 few days prior, essentially circumventing their own public art policy requiring that such
89 issues first be sent to PTAC (incidentally, the funding request was reviewed by PTAC a few
90 days after council’s passing of the proposal and was passed by PTAC: 6 “yay,” 2 “nay,” and
91 1 abstention).
92
93 It’s worth noting now that the proposal presented to PTAC at our special meeting had
94 claimed that “chalk” would be used, even though paint was ultimately applied to the street
95 instead. Concerns raised by PTAC during our motion deliberation over harmful runoff toxins
96 in to Puget Sound were therefore not taken in to consideration, pictorial imagery/subject
97 matter questions and advice offered to council at the PTAC meeting were not taken in to
98 consideration and defacement/vandalism questions and concerns that PTAC raised were not
99 addressed by council. And most discouragingly, and clearly as a result of wanting to
100 circumvent PTAC role in future quick-response art proposals, Port Townsend’s code was
101 changed in the months after the mural placement to further reduce PTAC’s advisory role in
102 assisting the city in making wise and informed decisions when authorizing public art
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103 installations: PTMC 3.50 has since been changed to allow the City Manager sole discretion in
104 the placement of temporary works “not to exceed 1 year.”
105
106 CODE CHANGE PROPOSAL:
107
108 Upon further reflection of this code change and in consideration of recent art-placement
109 errors, and knowing that precedent shows that a quorum of Public Art Committee (PAC) and
110 Arts Commission members could meet at short notice in a similar quick-turnaround situation
111 to address such public art proposals and supply city government with the expert advice it
112 needs on such urgent matters, PTAC proposes a change to 3.50. It makes no sense to have a
113 panel of experts to advise the city manager and council on public art issues if the city
114 manager can unilaterally place art in the public, even if just for one year. PTAC therefore
115 recommends here City Council, or the City Manager, or any other city department not act on
116 the selection, citing or funding of art in the public realm without first seeking the advice of
117 the Arts Commission and the Public Art Committee, as prescribed clearly in Port Townsend’s
118 Art in Public Places Policy and Procedures. It is therefore our recommendation that the
119 PTMC 3.50 revert back to its prior form, requiring input from PTAC before the placement of
120 any public art, for any amount of time.
121
122 ART MARKER SCULPTURES:
123 It’s important to first acknowledge that PTAC realizes that everyone involved in the initial
124 placement of the art markers that are sited on public property around town were well-
125 intentioned and everyone did their best to help broaden the awareness of the arts in our
126 community and celebrate working artists. It’s also acknowledged by PTAC that the Creative
127 District citizen group, City Council, city departments and the artist himself had a lofty vision
128 of a successful and celebrated solution to the challenge of providing creative signage to
129 commemorate our new Washington State Arts Commission designation as a Creative
130 District. Part of PTAC’s job however, and that of its subcommittee, the Public Art Committee
131 is to sometimes temper art proposals’ big-idea optimism with the grounding-reality of
132 maintenance issues, vandalism concerns, liability factors and overall public perception,
133 among others. It’s not uncommon for creative visions of art proposed to the city to then be
134 tempered by the reality check of PTAC’s policy-prescribed checklist of what can be funded,
135 sited and maintained for many years to come. What may look like a really good idea on the
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136 surface are sometimes rejected for logistical reasons beneath the surface - the those
137 determining factors can only be provided by the experts tasked with knowing such things if
138 public art proposals are first presented to the Arts Commission.
139 PTAC believes that Jonah Trople’s art marker sculptures are in themselves of reputable
140 quality, conceptually sound are successful as standalone works and as a group, arguably
141 exactly what was being asked for by the Creative District jury that selected him. PTAC is not
142 making a negative judgment on Mr. Trople’s acumen as an artist or offering a critical
143 analysis of the sculptures per se. But had the selection process that all public artworks are
144 supposed to go through before their placement in the public right of way had been managed
145 by athe policy-mandated Artist Selection Panel (see Art in Public Places Policy and
146 Procedure pg. 4), surely the glaringly obvious error of selecting artwork with a non-cleanable
147 surface would have been avoided. Subsequently, as a result of rampant embellishment and
148 continuous vandalism that could have been predicted by a more experienced selection body,
149 they’ve been painted over and over again as a haphazard solution that has essentially changed
150 the art itself. They are now a color not originally intended by the artist. They have had
151 additional signage added to them aside from the original QR codes that was not intended by
152 the artist. The repeated repainting of them has and will continue to undermine the surface
153 texture design element that was one of the cornerstone-concepts of the works when they were
154 unveiled: that his “whitewashed” forms would weather naturally over the course of their
155 intended lifetime of 20 years.
156
157 Further, it is important for council to realize, and likely the duty of PTAC to now point out,
158 that certain copyright violations have occurred in the manipulation of Mr. Trople’s works as
159 they apply und the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (see Port Townsend Art in Public Places
160 Policy and Procedure, pg. 6), referencing United States code 17 US section 3, subsection
161 (1)(B) which states that artists retain the right “to prevent the use of his or her name as the
162 author of any work of visual art which he or she did not create,” and section 3, subsection (3),
163 that the artist “shall have the right to prevent any destruction, distortion, mutilation, or other
164 modification of that work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation, and
165 which is the result of an intentional or negligent act or omission with respect to that work,
166 and any such destruction, distortion, mutilation, or modification of that work is a violation of
167 that right.” PTAC further considers it it’s duty to relay the concern that the City of Port
168 Townsend may be complicit in this violation since The City is currently listed as being
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169 “partners” on the Creative District website’s information about the art markers, information
170 directly linked through the QR codes mounted on each of the sculptures.
171
172 PTAC would also like to inform council that once an artwork is accessioned in to the public
173 art collection in Port Townsend, the city then owns the artwork, even though the artists
174 retains certain rights. Generally, once a municipality has accessioned a work in to its
175 permanent collection, it then has the right to sell, trade, move or destroy an artwork in its
176 collection, but is statutorily prohibited from altering it, as has been the case with Trople’s
177 markers and the Creative District’s mitigating attempts to rebrand them over the last few
178 months. Painting over someone’s artwork is insulting – being an “art town” we should know
179 better than to have even considered this abhorrent “solution.” Even though the Creative
180 District may own his works, they do not have the right to change them.
181
182 PRIVATE ART IN PUBLIC VS PUBLIC ART IN PUBLIC
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184 So the question then arises as to whether these are private artworks or public artworks. They
185 unquestionably are on public property and problematically sited in some of the most high-
186 profile locations in the City without the input of the citizenry, as required by PTMC 3.50.
187 But are they public art or private art? Again, we may turn to our Art in Public Places Policy
188 and Procedure document for the answer: page 2: Definitions: Public Artwork: Any original,
189 decorative, functional, discrete, site-integrated or freestanding object created by an artist for
190 permanent display in a public setting.” Clearly, Trople’s art marker sculptures tick these
191 boxes and are therefore public art. Since PTAC knows of no policy or code-backed provision
192 in Port Townsend that allows for private art to be placed in the public right of way without it
193 going through either our prescribed accession procedure or the city’s gift policy in accordance
194 with RCW 35.21.100 which allows for acceptance of conations by a municipality, they are a
195 problem. Through either accessioning method however, both acquisition procedures must
196 result in the city owning and maintaining the artworks; both require ample opportunity for
197 public input and inquiry and both require the participation of the Arts Commission.
198
199 WHERE THINGS WENT WRONG
200 PTAC reiterates that we understand that those involved in the siting of Trople’s art markers
201 were well intentioned. But if we are to know how to avoid similar problematic incidents in
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202 the future, we should clearly understand when the procedural detours occurred. PTAC’s
203 examination of those deviations, and our report of them offered here, are intended for the
204 betterment of our city and its function. It’s important that council get the most accurate and
205 truthful information possible, as council relies on the information it gets from every advisory
206 source as it engages in the act of leading us. PTAC acknowledges that citing faults can harm
207 teams, but also realizes that everyone who participates in city government, including Arts
208 Commissioners are held to a higher level of accountability by the code of ethics we are duty-
209 bound to follow and that honesty, transparency and professionalism at the highest caliber
210 should be strived for and expected by each of us. PTAC therefore wishes to clarify two
211 occurences that, in our opinion, significantly led to the mishandling of the art markers.
212 First, the assertion made by Public Works Director Steve King at the March 14 2021 city
213 council meeting when the proposal for the art markers was being presented, considered and
214 subsequently passed by a majority council vote happened without adequate information being
215 provided to council during the deliberation phase of the motion. At that meeting Mr. King
216 presented a thorough and detailed proposal, complete with several images and maps of
217 proposed locations for the art markers, including documentation from Historical Preservation
218 Committee (HPC) revealing that at least HPC was appropriately approached and their input
219 was asked for. But after his explanation of the process gone through to acquire HPC’s “sign
220 off,” Mr. King regrettably dismissed PTAC’s role by telling council, “In the case of art,
221 section 3.50 of the city code gives that final authority to the city council.” What Mr. King
222 did not cite during his circumventing of PTAC’s role that evening is the second sentence in
223 that paragraph from PTMC 3.50 which states, “The city council indicates its intention to use
224 a selection process and public process which incorporates members of the city’s arts
225 commission, and which provides an opportunity to citizens to comment on any aspect of
226 funding, purchase, erection, siting and installation of works of public art.” While it’s
227 understandable that Mr. King may have interpreted the words “final decision-making
228 authority,” to mean that council could or should decide on its own without Arts Commission
229 input, it’s important to know whether or not he made his misinterpretation based on his own
230 reading of the code or if he was misadvised on the matter. The latter seems to be the case
231 since at our November PAC meeting at PTAC’s October meeting, City Attorney Greenwood
232 responded to this very question raised by arts commissioners by asserting that her
233 interpretation of 3.50 is just as Mr. King stated, that council has “final decision making
234 authority” and can unilaterally decide on art matters without input from PTAC. When asked
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235 if the word “final” might infer that prior steps could or should be taken, Ms. Greenwood
236 reiterated her position that council may act as it did and that she would continue to advise
237 them as such. Consequently, and as a result of Mr. King’s singling out only a portion of the
238 code to present to council on the night the motion was made to site the art markers on in the
239 public right-of-way without arts commission input, and without a clarification at that time as
240 to the correct contextual intent of code 3.50 being provided by City Attorney Greenwood
241 during the presentation, the council motion passed unanimously. PTAC does not agree with
242 City Attorney Greenwood’s interpretation of the code to mean that “final authority” means
243 unilateral privilege, and recommends that council reexamine the wording of 3.50 to either
244 expand, clarify or reaffirm that council does indeed intend is to seek advice from their
245 appointed art experts on all arts-related issues, as 3.50 clearly indicates such procedures
246 should be our best policy.
247 Second, PTAC feels duty-bound to bring to council’s attention City Attorney Greenwood’s
248 assertion at our November PAC meeting that 3.50’s requirement that there is a “public
249 process to provide an opportunity to citizens to comment on the installation of public art” was
250 actually satisfied by the 3-minute comment period opportunity at the front end of the council
251 meeting where the art market presentations took place. Problematic in her reading of the
252 code in this way is that if the 3-minute comment period (in which questions can only be
253 responded to at the discretion of the mayor) is that it is a huge departure from precedent set
254 during consideration of prior public art placement (downtown’s Salish Sea Circle, Uptown’s
255 Great Blue). In those instances, the public had been given plenty of notice and information
256 via the local press, an “open house” had been arranged in which citizens were invited (at the
257 Pope Marine building, or Cotton Building) and a Q&A session was held and hosted by the
258 PAC with city department officials and even the artist in attendance. PTAC can comfortably
259 advise council here that if such courteous community outreach exhibited in those prior public
260 art projects were to be replaced by Ms. Greenwood’s 3-minute comment period plan as an
261 adequate method of engaging the public in public art discourse, that our 2023 strategic
262 workplan also be changed – to cross out the words, “Invest in our people. Build and nurture
263 the capacity of our staff, teams, volunteers, advisory board members, Councilmembers and
264 partnerships and provide them the toolsets, skillsets, and mindsets to achieve more together.”
265 If limiting public involvement to 3-minutes is the advice council follows, we should change
266 our 2023 strategic workplan to eliminate the phrase, “Engage our community. Build beyond
267 notification and response to more deeply and inclusively engage ground civic dialogue and
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268 civility and kindness.” We can either go back to Port Townsend’s backroom methods of
269 government, or embrace City Manager Mauro’s new, lofty vision of inclusiveness,
270 cooperation and transparency, but not both.
271 CODE CHANGE PROPOSAL:
272 It is the recommendation of PTAC therefore that this portion PTMC 3.50 be expanded and
273 clarified to include verbiage that ensures that all public art proposals entail adequate time for
274 citizens to consider, comment and inquire about works of art that are intended to be placed in
275 our public spaces, art that for all intents and purposes will be sited for the rest of our current
276 governing body’s lifetimes and beyond.
277 ART MARKERS: WHAT PTAC RECOMMENDS NOW
278
279 After discussion on the topic and a careful analysis of the codes and policies that inform our
280 government on the topic, and in consideration of the liability and copyright concerns raised
281 herein, and after a vote by the Public Art Committee passing affirming the following: is it
282 the recommendation of PTAC that the art markers be removed from their current location.
283
284 F STREET SCULTPURES “MILESTONES”
285
286 Port Townsend has de-accessioned art before. Most recently in 2009 when council voted to
287 remove the mid-80s era, $200,000 Ruth Seavey Jackson Bequest-funded Tidal Clock behind
288 the old police station, now the Cotton Building. De-accessioning is often utilized as an
289 answer to problematic works of public art that can’t be easily re-sited or if excessive
290 maintenance or faults of design or workmanship are apparent or develop over time. Works of
291 public art may also be de-accessioned if there is overwhelming public objection to the
292 artwork.
293
294 WHY THESE RECOMMENDATIONS NOW
295 Council might ask why only now PTAC’s recommendations are being made to address some
296 of these issues after it’s been since March 2021 when things started to go awry. Though the
297 issues have been brought up for many months at regular PTAC business meetings, the public
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298 art-nature of the subject matter was deemed to be the business of the Public Art Committee,
299 whose policy-driven path forward is to make recommendations to PTAC, who then reviews
300 and forwards those recommendations to council and the city manager. However urgent we
301 felt the need to advise council earlier though, the Public Art Committee was not allowed to
302 meet until just last month. We’d been told by city staff for almost a year that there just were
303 not enough staff resources available to allow for a Public Art Committee meeting in addition
304 to the once-monthly regular Arts Commission meeting already on the calendar, even after our
305 repeated insistence that a “public art crisis” was being faced by our city in relation to the art-
306 marker problem and the public response to them – a problem that clearly indicated to us the
307 urgent need for the city’s art experts to formulate recommendations to best advise council.
308 Frustratingly, not until the hiring of new City Clerk Lonnie Mickle a couple months ago was
309 the Pubic Art Committee given the go-ahead by city staff to convene to take up the
310 discussion about the art markers and the state of public art in Port Townsend.
311
312 A FULL PLATE
313
314 PTAC realizes that our plate is now full with the issues we’ve reported on here along with
315 their associated recommendations to council. We acknowledge that there are other pressing
316 arts related business matters we need to address, some more pressing than others. One major,
317 pressing topic is that of the 1% for the arts policy that is written in to our city code for all
318 capital projects. It is our recommendation that council revisit PTMC 3.50 and be proactively
319 reach out to PTAC in a cooperative manner rather than waiting for us to initiate the transfer
320 of the funds to the municipal art fund, funds earmarked for the advancement of cultural and
321 artistic programs in our city. When Councilperson Rowe brought this up at the recent
322 reading of the proposed 2023 budget during a council meeting, no one present seemed to
323 even know what he was talking about. It’s not just the job of PTAC to identify these capital
324 improvement project funds, but also the responsibility of city staff to be acquainted with what
325 3.50 says so they can assist us in keeping council informed of the law.
326
327 COUNT ON US
328
329 Dear City Council, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re competent, knowledgeable and up
330 to the task. Yet we’re hamstrung by only being able to meet once a month and for a short
331 time to do a ton of work. Additionally, our every-other month funding schedule means that
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332 we have only 12 hours per year to dedicate to non-funding issues. It is our recommendation
333 that council instruct the City Manager to allocate more resources to help us manage the
334 workload we’re now faced with after being prevented from meeting for so long. We are art
335 experts, not legal code analysts or violation investigators. Let us do our jobs that we’re meant
336 to do. Please direct city staff to assist us, support us, work cooperatively with us. Help us do
337 the research and presentations on the capital improvement 1% for the arts projects, for
338 example, would be a smart move forward for everyone.
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