 And I will make you the host. Okay, usually I start the recording, but that's fine. So I noticed that and we've. We're fine to do that. Moving forward, we just noticed for a few of the other committees that I set meetings up for that if an outside host was starting. The recording it didn't always work. Okay. And they would record to their hard drive instead of recording to the cloud, which makes it tough for us to post. Eventually to the YouTube channel. Okay. I'll let people know they're already being recorded. Everything is on the record. All right, thank you. Great meeting. Thanks. Hey, before I go, are you ready to have me schedule some, I noticed you haven't had a lot of new applicants, but we did just put out a call for more applicants. So I'm ready to do interviews to fill your vacancies. Oh, sure. But I think we're expecting that Ellen Kiter is going to be back today. She had sent an email. So that's, that's great. And, but, but, but we could, if we do have anybody to interview, we could do that. So right now you have one vacancy or two. We are. So we'd have two, I guess, even with Ellen back. Yeah. All right. Perfect. Thanks so much, Bill. I'll be in touch. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Ellen. Speaking of the devil. Just talking about you, Ellen. All good things. Yeah. Yeah. Why Angela was asking about vacancies and such. And I said, well, we're really helping Ellen's back today. So welcome back. Here I am. Thank you. Just so everybody knows Angela already started recording. We're not officially meeting yet, but we are being recorded. So FYI. How are you doing, Ellen? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you. Grateful to be healthy and back at work back here. Doing my usual things. So you should meet Dara, our newest member. Have you guys met before? No. I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. I've met a very important member of the public art commission. Because she has lots of great professional expertise. And there is a local poet and patron of the arts, I would say. Great. Eric, Eric, can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you fine. Okay. You don't have a picture up or anything. That's the way you want it. I didn't put it up like, you know, I will if you insist, I will. I will. I'll give you your privacy. Sure. All right. So we, we, we have a quorum. So I guess. Let's see. It's four o'clock. So I guess I'll read my little spiel and we can begin. So pursuant to chapter. Chapter two G of acts. Of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted by a remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so in the following manner. Either via zoom or afterwards on YouTube. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public. Can adequately access the proceedings in real time by a technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite our best efforts. We will post on the Amherst media websites. Slash YouTube and audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of the proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. All right. So. We're not the agenda. One second. So I'll look down here. Okay. We usually start with public comment. And it's as usual. No members of the, there was somebody from the public. It seemed like before, but now we're at zero. So. We got, we got Eric and we got Georgia Barnhill. Yeah, but that's not for public comment, Jim. I'm saying later. I'm looking for, I'm looking for public comment. That's separate. Jim, are you taking, are you taking minutes? Yep. Great. All right. So I think because we have two guests here and town council does as often. We can jump down on the agenda. Directly to the thing that concerns our two guests. Gigi and Eric. They want to talk to us about the community embracing community project that you've developed. And getting some extra support from the public art commission. Eric, you know, you sort of laid it out for me in an email, but the rest of the group doesn't really know what's going on. So do you want to fill everybody in? And I can sort of back you up as need be. Or Gigi, of course, could welcome. Sure. Briefly, the project we're doing is called embracing community. It's a large mural project that involves the K-12 students and Amherst public and private schools. To put large, basically eight by 10 feet murals. On triangular structures on the East common, which is the common as opposite for river schools. 10 of them sent the total of 30 murals. And it involves a fair amount of fundraising. The project is probably about a 10 to $11,000 project and all. And we will be doing a go fund me campaign for it. We expect to get some money from the Amherst cultural council. But we are. Probably going to be going for sponsorships as well. And it seems. Important that we provide an opportunity for people who want to donate to this project that they'd be able to take tax deduction for the contribution. I'm talking to Paul. He suggested that the public commission would be in some ways an ideal fiscal agent. If you will, for the project, since the commission has already given a letter of support for it. And it is certainly a public art project for the town of Amherst. So we're going to be talking about the public art commission. And it is certainly a public art project for the town of Amherst. So the purpose of our presence today is essentially to ask whether the public art commission would be willing to do that. And frankly, I'm not entirely sure how that works. Paul seemed to be in favor of it. Maybe somebody on the art commission knows how these fiscal agent things work. Or am I 100% certain that we'll need it because it may be the. That we would be raising enough money through the Amherst cultural council and through the GoFundMe campaign, but Gigi assures me that if you want to get money from banks and other large organizations like that, they won't donate to just individuals like Gigi and myself, but only to an organization. And if the public art commission could be that organization. All would be well for us. Yeah, let me. Break into background. Basically Paul Fockelman said that it's easy enough to do it basically is adding one line. To the non-existent budget for the public art commission, but basically the town can receive tax deductible donations. Particularly I did speak to one of the banks before this came up or when this came up and the bank basically said, we really need an organizational background. To give money and for individuals, you know, it's nice to get a tax deduction if you can itemize deduction. So if we. I don't want this. Kind of fiscal. You know, you know, you know, it's a piece of work to make it impossible for you for the public art commission to apply to the cultural council for funding in the fall of. Yeah, in this fall would be that cycle. So. Eric and I will apply to the cultural council as an, as individuals. So that won't compromise your. So I think about this project. A lot of the money goes to hardware. IE the structural pieces. Oh, that's a good look. Yeah. So it goes to hardware and that means the town would own the hardware. And I think the public art commission. Could really make wonderful use of it. I mean, this is not a one-time thing. It's not a one-time thing. I use, you know, one unit. In Kendrick Park to announce something or to displace some artwork or whatever. I can foresee a great installation down on the. The golf course. Is it Hickory Ridge that. The town will be taking is taking over. I mean, but a fabulous place for a temporary show of landscape art and the public art commission to act as an agent. Yeah. So from what I read in your email, Eric, in my understanding of the budgeting process, they could just take the code that we use for, for our, and you may be able to help out here since you've been treasure. And they could just add a sort of sub subcode, like at another couple of numbers on the end of that, that would then be set aside for you. So. All right. So from what I read, our account would set aside for you guys. Does that, does that. According to what you know, Shona. I feel like. Jim probably knows exactly this person, how to proceed with this, because he. Part of that process with getting that money for the opening. for the it would come to our account but be marked for their project isn't but I'm I'm thinking how it would work easiest for us for everybody probably but like have it marked for that and just make sure that you know everyone's in line correctly right I was just gonna say with with the dog park for private donations we just made checks to the town of Amherst and in the subject line wrote you know for the Amherst dog park exactly you don't write the check to the dog park right that doesn't exist yet so I think that's how you would do it for this yeah that's a really good point Ellen because I was wondering you know what if we approach a sponsor and ask them to write a check for this project who how did they make it out whether they made it out to embrace community care of the public art commission but I think what you're saying is makes a lot more sense if they just make it out to the public art the Amherst public art commission the note in the memo line where it goes actually I think you would make the check out just to the town of Amherst I did the dog park and then again we should talk to the finance manager about that but that allows you because the town of Amherst is like an incorporated you know the the arts council isn't a you know yeah 301 see whatever so um that way you can people can take a tax donation for that yeah I would say to make 100 percent sure talk to Holly Drake her last name's Drake now oh and she'll she'll know yeah wait we haven't gotten any checks yet but I need an opportunity to say I'm accusing myself from this problem because of obvious situation I will say that I don't think the factual information I concur when I did the thing earlier I just wrote a check to the town of Amherst and and I wrote funds restricted for use by public arts commission so you know I don't see much downside here for us maybe a little extra administrative work but I'm actually even wondering like if it's if there's other ways we can contribute or you know like have it be a more collaborative project or there are other ways we could potentially help you guys as you're developing this there are absolutely ways that you can help us I haven't started recruiting volunteers yet for different aspects of the project but I mean everything from helping fundraise to helping erect these structures when the time comes I mean they're they're pipes that just get screwed together essentially and the murals will be would be attached to those pipes either by some kind of bungee cords or wiring to the to the outside structure and then erected and there will be also a a some sort of celebratory event once it goes up in the next May year from May and it would be great to have the public art commission involved in that as well and of course we intend to give all the sponsors everybody who's participated do credit on the publicity so you would get some visibility that way as well yeah and Eric will there be a jury is this going to be a jury selection or how how are you determining okay that's a really good question and the short answer is yes we're having a zoom meeting with a bunch of the teachers who are participating tomorrow and we're going to talk to them about what their role would be and I think their role would be making initial selections from their students to that they think are worthy of being enlarged eight by ten feet and hopefully they will get way more than 30 total and then yes there we expect to put together a jury we haven't done it we haven't asked people yet small group that would could involve someone from the art commission certainly uh one of us certainly Gigi or myself somebody um maybe from the town council I don't know and uh it's it's an open question of what the jury how big it should be and not too big obviously it's probably the work will probably be judged online there will be submissions um online and so it wouldn't be too onerous in terms of you know looking at things but yeah probably we need some help with public relations and you know publicity that kind of activity and I'm sure we'll think of some other yeah one thing um I know when when we blow um artwork you know small eight by ten inch illustration up to 12 feet uh for for graphic murals at the museum um you know we we use a super super high res camera and actually photograph it in pieces and then digitally stitch it together so that it it doesn't pixelate and fall apart when it's blown up that big so that's just something else to consider if these are going to be eight by ten feet you'll need super great photography well how many pixels per inch you're talking I can find out I don't do it personally we we do it at somebody else does it at work but yeah do you have such a camera Ellen um we do uh we have a digital photo lab at the museum um but again um it does take uh you know uh software to then put the piece all the individual images together to make it into one giant work or maybe it gets vectorized so it can expand exponentially um I'm not the expert in this I just I just know that in order for a small work to really hold um you know it's image uh when it's blown up that big it has to be photographed you know very carefully so that's an interesting point and not one that the printer that I spoken to a couple of them actually told me that basically all we had to do was scan the artwork and this probably this artwork would be like eight and a half by 11 pieces of paper that kids are working on at 300 dpi and they could blow it up to eight by 10 feet and it would hold together so what you're saying is like in order of magnitude more than that and I'm not sure I guess we'll have to look into that more yeah I can find out exactly what um our digital asset specialist does um I can get you some of those specs um it also may not need to be the quality museum quality if you're seeing it from a distance um we will you have sort of the uh the thing you want it clear to people who are driving by but you will also want it clear for people who are on the green oh yeah yeah yeah I'll ask I'll ask our um specialist to just get some general specs um but I think that will at least provide a little bit of a guideline for you thank you for that and I can also check back with Sarasota and what they did which is our model for this they've been doing it in Sarasota for 20 years um I'm glad you raised that point so I'm happy to uh send an email to Paul which is what you had requested Eric and asked him to uh tell I guess presumably Holly to set up the budget line for for this um I don't think we need to put that on the floor to a vote I mean I can but uh if there's no objections and that was the one concrete thing you were asking of me right now is was there anything else you know right that was you just wanted to make sure that when we went out fundraising you know what we could tell people how they should make out their checks and uh whether we actually were allowed to do this and Paul said yes it made sense but of course it obviously needed your endorsement yeah this is great and we will of course list you folks as up as one of the sponsors um at the very least and if we want to work out something else between now and may of 2023 we could do that okay just send me an email whenever you um put anything in so I can um take a note of it yeah maybe I'll see you when I when I email Paul and just note that I'm including you because you're our treasurer okay um okay uh anything else Eric or Gigi no that's great thank you so much this really makes life a whole lot easier right and you yeah it's nice to see places that I know from the old days at the yard all right thanks guys okay thank you I'll disappear now stay in the background literally literally so Bill what did you say you were gonna do I didn't get it for the month yeah I'm gonna email Paul and ask him to set up the budget line as Eric could request it with me yeah and then I'll I'll include Shona on that uh cc with her on it so she'll know as treasurer what's going on all right so yep I'm assuming that a lot of this work went on before I was part of your group and that you all know a lot more about it than me so maybe if you have a piece of paper or a proposal I could get sent it so I could read just read it so that if anybody asked me I don't sound like I know nothing yes I will forward it to you Eric I presented a proposal forward and we had written or I had written on behalf of the commission a letter of support um this was six months ago or so yeah and uh and then I think that they had not Jim correct me if I'm wrong but they had applied for a cultural council grant for this year and not gotten it and that one of the issues was that they hadn't yet met with the teachers and you know so they're they're now working on that is that team of correct Jim well I know they didn't get the funds I wasn't I didn't I can remember what the issue was but it was correct I'm sorry call yeah so we're so that that was one of the reasons why Eric then started thinking about well how can we fundraise for this project and I think when he approached Paul they sort of worked out this possibility for us to you know kind of holding some of the money for them so wait I understand that now like that's what I assumed yeah you know um it was hard not to um be thinking about that eat that big proposal you sent us today since he was talking about a mural and they're looking for some stuff that starts that at like startup type mural stuff yep yeah so I was gonna that's what so our agenda the next thing is a chair report and um I guess uh that's probably the biggest well actually no I have I don't remember if I hadn't I think I had found out last time that we got accepted into the making a public program and that I and Maureen are going to be the two representatives from the town participating in that we we no did you guys know that yes no no okay I'd love to hear about that so yeah you didn't so you weren't even here around for any of that stuff but the state is running this really great program for helping municipalities towns develop um uh public art projects are gaining more knowledge about how to do it they're called making it public and it's a series of online seminars from march through april towns had to apply and get accepted uh they had to have two staff members uh willing and able to participate so um Janet McGowan from the she's uh on the planning board had sent me the notice I hadn't even seen it and said hey heads up check this out um the exciting thing about it is at the end of the program the towns that got accepted each get a $10,000 grant to produce a work of of public art and so we were chosen and myself and Maureen Connor are the uh two town staff members who are going to participate um and so that's that'll start in march um so I'm very excited about that and I think the way we spun our letter was that while we've been producing public art events programs for many many years with a percent for art by law we're going up a huge order of magnitude right so the north common project we're looking at probably a minimum of $50,000 project versus hey two thousand you know we work in the order of several thousand dollars so that's a very big difference and there's a lot there's going to be a lot more visibility for those projects and so um there's just a lot of uh you know professional standards and practices that would be good for for for me to brush up on and learn more about and I think it's all new to Maureen so for her to learn about as well so we're hoping that's what we'll get out of this um it's not entirely clear to me what will happen on a session to session basis I'll give you guys reports as a as it goes on um but anyway uh it's pretty exciting so great congratulations great does that project you was calling what making it public thank you um so it's sort of connected to that but but sort of to one side the um the the state is gosh I don't remember the number now some multi-million dollar pile of money Charlie Ellen you might know it's just signed on for recovery art culturally related recovery grants but they don't know how those are going to get distributed yet so they're taking comments from from towns um and from organizations and so that came across Paul's desk through the cultural council and then he sort of passed along to Maureen and myself and um we had a meeting today it was Maureen and Chris Brestler from planning uh myself Claudia Pazmani from uh the um the the she's not in the bid it's the um what's the other one sir I'm sorry chamber of commerce chamber of commerce thank you and then uh and then and then um uh Gabrielle Gould from the bid just sort of strategizing how to uh write a letter sort of saying what we're looking for here in Amherst relative to potential grants um anyway in the lead up to that Maureen forwarded to me the document that I then passed along to you which I had never seen never been invited to participate in and what kind of my jaw kind of dropped right at the um amount of discussion surrounding public art there was in this document that was put together by the town George Ryan X town counselor um planning department and and and Gabrielle uh the bid without having us participate in anyway um so I was and I'm not happy about that on the other hand there's a lot of great things in there um so uh you know Daria you looked at it already um but the problem is that there's a lot of duplication of work or a lot of stuff where we really need to be working together with them and not be shut out of the process which is what I feel like we certainly were when that was put together and so I'd like to have that on the agenda for next time so we can sit down and really think about how to reply to that and how to work together with the bid and not be shut out of all of their many um importance uh plans you know to put it nicely that they're working on because we really we're supposed to be the advocates in town for public art and uh we haven't been invited to the table and we should be kind of leading these conversations in a lot of ways or at least certainly be in the room when they're being had um let me just say that one little tiny thing you might tell them that is on page page 10 of that document yeah in making a big case for it being a cultural and art center the Dickinson Museum's name in the spelled right I picked up a quite a few pieces as well I found some too I saw a few myself yeah yeah and I it the whole document to me read like a boilerplate template that can be applied to many places with insertions of an individual towns step facts you know and so it was a little shocking too to read it knowing that you hadn't even been told about it yeah I I was surprised about there wanting to make a a map of the public you know to to locate all the public art that exists already and I mean we have all that you know I mean I would hate for them to spend money doing things that have already been done so we we definitely should reach out to the well and they have that map in the visitor center I believe right well I think one of the things they're trying to do which actually I think is a great idea is is not just map places where there's public art already but try to identify all the places where public art could go public and private I think that's a fantastic idea actually and I really would love to work with them on that because then we can understand well this is a great place for a mural it's a private building oh here's a public building where and then you know we sort of have purview over the public stuff and they tend to work more with the private stuff but like you know I think there's a lot of great stuff in there I was just distressed that we weren't part of the conversation so I think we need to become part of that conversation do you have any idea why not I have some ideas but not I'm willing to discuss now here oh all right well I just my thinking is you know what the problem is you you can't solve a problem until you know what it is yeah I mean I'm not sure that we have a problem I just want to make sure that we are participating as fully as we can be so and I think you know I don't think I don't think there will be a big issue with that I just I think we need to just make our voice heard so so next so for our next meeting everybody can look at that closer I mean if we want to schedule a meeting sooner than four weeks out we can do that I mean I don't think there's an incredible sense of urgency here but but I think there's a lot of good ideas there too so I think maybe what we can do is read that with the idea of you know crafting an email or something or or response and saying hey this is great wow like look at all the work you guys did here's our thoughts on some of these ideas you know something like that well I don't but see I don't even know who this is well it was put together primarily was put together by the bid but hey you know sort of working loosely with the town and what when you say with the town who does that mean oh well if you look at it against a George Ryan was the representative of the council on it and other people from planning were on it and I think they had a consulting group work on it so I read the list of names that I recognize some of them but yeah it's still like those were not the people who wrote the document they were consulted I think the well yeah I don't know who actually sat down and wrote it yeah because that's good to know yeah and and if they were a consulting outfit of some kind paid to do it yeah we can try to find out it looked like it was yeah I can try to find out more yeah that kind of stuff is just good background because if they mean what they say about arts and culture and Amherst it's all positive for a group like this to have a good good way to try to be some force within it somehow you know but you don't really know what the motives are or anything right now not right you know I mean I so many things struck me as like really contradictory within it you know they say one thing then they say another thing and they didn't really fit yeah yeah well these kind of planning documents get produced periodically for various reasons and then what happens is the language in them gets spun off for example into a so they want to take the language from this and spin it off into a response to the state about how to spend some of this or you know how the state will hand us some of that grant money they'll spin it off into other grants that they're writing the bid or the town so that's that's what tends to happen with these kinds of things they you know so there was a bunch of state grants that came through that that the bid won in the town won and in fact that the Amherst cultural district won for COVID recovery or for sustaining businesses and activities during COVID so the money we got for the portal gallery came through the cultural districts as one of these recovery grants last spring summer and so I don't think this document wasn't written at that point but you know it's a kind of document that then would be used for these different organizations to apply for for recovery money okay good to know yeah I think that's all I have for chair reports stuff any treasure reports stuff Shona we have I heard from holly we've got a thousand all right i'm 1200 dollars in our account wow that's pretty good for us oh wait a second though we is that because that is that because we got money paid from the new that wouldn't include the new oh so I guess well we'll get to this but we did we did win I don't know if that counts because I haven't sent over for it I think like to get it sent to you you have to ask for it beforehand I fill out a form to ask for that because you have to fill out a special form at least I did for my personal one so I took care of that already oh you did okay yeah so we got so we applied for five thousand dollars for the portal gallery from the Amherst cultural council they gave us half that which is 2,500 so we applied for five thousand for two exhibitions for next year expecting that they might only give us money for one so I went back and forth with um some folks on the on the cultural commission about well should we just apply for one or should we apply for two and that way you know you could always just give us one so we ended up applying for two they gave us money for one so we got 2,500 which you know is great I mean we'll be able to do at least one show at the portal gallery next year so we do need to get working at working on that and thinking about that and so this year they changed how they're distributing funds they're not reimbursing they're giving you all the money up front and then you just write a report at the end and that's one of the reasons why I asked but we would have presumably we have the full 25 in there if that money had come through right which that is not as much right yeah so we just need to keep an eye on that and and find out when that comes through okay um all right we can we can talk about that I guess a little bit later North Common is the next thing on the agenda I still have not heard uh last I spoke with Paul about that he said that um they're still working on it the question is seems like pretty clear that the percent for a bylaw will apply um but they need to get further along in the process he was supposedly going to put together a committee over the summer which didn't happen I've spoken to him about it a couple of times since and every time he says you know it'll happen so um just waiting for word from him um but that's something for us to think about you know that uh that is going to be our first really really big project that we're going to be involved with with percent for arts and hopefully this making it public program will help answer some of the bigger picture questions that I have in fact I might reach out to you guys and and say well questions do you think we should be asking of these experts um as we move into that so that's something to keep in mind obviously um being being you know having equitable uh applicant pools having an equitable jury pool those are first and foremost in my mind um but there's lots of other questions I'm sure we'll have so if you want to be thinking about those things now maybe we could even put together some kind of google document just to start kicking around some ideas okay and that goes hand in hand with percent for arts the school project is also moving along but that's not they're still in a visioning process um let alone that you know they they did pick a project manager but um they have to be a little further along in their process I think it's going to be at least six months to a year before um any concrete percent for arts issues will be coming up with them obviously they know that that's going to be part of that project um but you know until you have a sense of how many buildings exactly and what configuration on what site I mean they have to do all of these preliminary studies that get some of them again to determine whether it's going to be at Fort Riverside or Wildwood I mean until they figure that stuff out they're not going to even begin to get any intending nuts and bolts things that would bring percent for art into play so quite a dialogue restoration next thing on our agenda um where we left that was that we were going to um try to get the groundswork done and and you know maybe have some kind of event surrounding that in the spring um we're thinking about reaching out to the the Dickinson and um Shona you would say you would say something to Alan Powell when you saw him were you able to just sort of you know pat him on the shoulder at all I haven't seen him yet actually oh yeah um we have our meeting on Tuesday okay like next Tuesday like not tomorrow right Ellen that's the deal it's next Tuesday right because that'll be um Tuesday it's always the second Tuesday so if you guys see him either or both of you just pull the side and say hey we want to do the plantings in the spring for that and get that into shape you know what do you think or where could where will we end up just sort of get some info um and then Darryl you had said that you might want to be involved if we want to do like an opening or some kind of event potentially with the Dickinson yeah I can help with that okay so um you know I can send a any I can send anything to Jane Wald yet um what's that this one yeah I could I could send an email to Jane Wald at the Dickinson and just sort of touch base with her and see what she thinks I mean she was on board already we don't everything's still kind of very vague right now but just to maybe let her know we're thinking about doing something in the spring early summer as the flowers come out assuming we can get everything planted um and then you know if you want to um be involved in that conversation as it evolves Darryl that would be great um because it's sort of like a blank slate in a way if we want to have poetry readings that would be really cool I think at the opening um or something along those lines could be really fun events it'd be really nice to have um some of the high school or younger people in town reads read something up by Frost and Dickinson that could be really cool something of their own possibly mm-hmm but it ought to be something like real small like that sure okay we can work on that I'll be that'll sort of putter along I think through the winter and then hopefully we can it can pick up in the late winter and then really get something going in the spring um boltwood gallery so uh that's the next thing on the agenda Ben Cowden's installation is de-installed um I sent an email about having a sign taken down for now because it has I did one of them to do two signs a top sign that just says boltwood gallery and a bottom sign that had the specifics about the installation unfortunately they didn't do that they just made one big sign so the whole thing is going to kind of have to come down otherwise it's going to be very confusing to people as to why it says there's a work of art there that's not there um so I sent an email to Jeremiah to that effect um who's head of facilities I haven't heard back from him yet but we will get this money uh $2,500 to do another installation there um so we do need to start thinking about that um and about how to get the best again the best possible applicant pool for that unusual space and um what we think would work best there because I think when we put our uh our call for proposals out really holding it so that we get things that work in that space is going to be crucial um so I can lead the charge with that a little bit um but I think uh oh maybe I can try to distract something rough um in terms of what the call might look like um any any thoughts on that the next round of portal gallery I hate to bring up trivia but I'm kind of disturbed that we paid for a sign that didn't get built the way we said is there a way we can avoid doing that in the future because it would really be nice to have the sign up there permanently we didn't pay for the sign the town paid for the sign oh well okay so so I'm not personally offended but how can we prevent that from happening again because it still isn't a good idea yeah I I'm going to ask to have the sign we want up and hopefully we can get that well do you know what the glitch was I mean you know it's a good idea so something just something happened that I don't know I mean I sent the specs to Jeremiah I think he might have misunderstood what I was asking for or it wasn't clear so I'll have another conversation with him about it well it yeah it obviously needs to be redone so we'll make sure it's done the right way when it gets redone so um yeah I guess we should look at um our RFP for last time and and go off of that um we did sort of invite certain artists um I think we had a good pool we might want to re-invite some of the people who didn't weren't selected um but you know I think there was interest in there in their proposals um but I'd love to see a wider a wider group um it is a tricky space though you know we didn't we actually didn't put out a we don't think we put out an all right we didn't really do it okay we actually just tapped those three people um because we were calling it a pilot so I mean this is a question right you can't you can put out a call or you can invite a pool to select from um so that is I mean I my certain thinking was that maybe we would put out a a call this time and allow allow it to be more open and see what we get um then that we might end up with a broader base of people to pick from I mean sometimes in those situations you actually don't get you get better results by actually going to people whose work you think will work well and and inviting them right yeah yeah I think um that's why we got such good um entries because they were very very good entries what was that because of why because we invited so it's like that like what kind of caliber of art we wanted to put in there went after that rather than just like you know throwing it to the wind and seeing what land so we were specific about the specific set of the proposals we invited three artists to make I think it was three three or four artists to make proposals as opposed to putting out a public call for oh I see okay entries yeah I'd forgotten that thanks Bill right I mean if if people wanted to brainstorm a little bit between now and our next meeting and if they have ideas for people who you know we want to invite as opposed to doing a public call we could certainly consider that as our as our format for this again as well um you do get I mean you do get a much stronger pool that way and I think that if it's an open call a lot of times people who are strong artists don't want to apply right because they just fit you but if you're inviting them and it's going to be a smaller number of people and you know they know that they'll have a good chance of getting picked then they're more likely to apply and put effort into the application that's right that's right so why don't why don't we mold this over in the next 15 hour next meeting and if people have specific artists they think would work well in that space that they would want to invite I guess the question we might want to ask ourselves is are we keeping it focused on sort of area artists or you know could we go broader the problem is that the honorarium will be able to pay is so meager that I don't think any uh yeah big name artists worth their salt is going to want to do this for a few hundred bucks so we wouldn't be able to cover transportation and lodging and all that yeah how much would it take to get their interest going well I think at a minimum of a few thousand dollars plus you know place to stay and you know I I like thousand dollars each what do you mean each for each artist do we need to just type there needs to be a few thousand dollars well there's only going to be one artist okay so it needs to be a few thousand dollars for one artist yeah that's right sorry okay I like featuring area artists if we can I I think there's you know I like that that Ben was a Amherst resident so I don't think it needs to disqualify some people but I think we should just give consideration to area artists it does make things a lot easier in a lot of different ways and it showcases the culture cultural you know producers in you know here so but I think we could take area being broadly I mean I think area can be western Massachusetts I mean even somebody wants to think about coming up from Boston or Connecticut or Vermont you know I mean I think that would be fine all right so let's let's ponder that for our next meeting and then we'll try to make some progress on that hopefully the funds will be in our account by then so we'll keep that money Bill I'm sorry can you just remind me it was 2,500 2,500 so that's better than we had last time last time we only had 2,000 okay so we did 2,000 for the installation and 500 was for the event so now we can either do the 2,500 for the installation and hopefully fund raise for the other 500 for the event or you know 500 for the event and you know so but it's nice to get a little more money anyway so if we got 25,000 how much of that goes to the other than to the artist well it would be wonderful if we got 25,000 unfortunately we only got 2,500 we wouldn't be ignored if we had a budget of 25,000 yeah we could we could actually yeah 2,500 how much well so what we did was we I don't remember the exact structure but I think it was you know the artist spent what they needed on the project and got to keep the rest well but you know you said it was only a few hundred dollars for the artist and I got confused because 2,500 is not a few hundred well but we looked at what they what they spent so Ben ended up spending so we had 2,000 last time and his budget was like well it was like $1,200 or something or $1,500 so he only ended up walking away with a few hundred dollars for himself after materials and certainly that's not even counting his time so you know yeah anything else about that all right town hall gallery show anything on town hall gallery yes I have someone is interested in displaying and I need to get them the contract and it's not in our Google drive so does anybody have access to that that document that could and I would like to be able to have it in the Google drive for the future so that's the contract yeah the contract um between like you know the town and the artist that says like you know if you make so many sales we get a percentage and you know the fee that you pay to get in and all that kind of stuff yeah I just opened the folder on my computer called town hall gallery and I do not see it in there um Amy Crawley would be somebody to reach out to potentially as well if nobody else has it I can look more closely in my public art commission folder too but you need that ASAP is that right yeah yeah I'm not seeing it here but it might I might have it on my work computer I don't have it on my home computer I mean I would shoot an email to Amy surely she has a copy of it in fact um it would be yeah we should really have that obviously accessible to all I know I've seen it so that's why I'm thinking I might have a copy of it somewhere do you want to are you okay with emailing Amy Shona I am I feel like I've been pestering her a lot though lately like over this last I don't know a couple months or whatever so I feel bad that like if we could find it without pestering Amy that would be super awesome okay all right well everybody look through your folders and see if you can find it if not you know and then email Shona if not then I can pestering me if you don't want to okay I haven't I haven't reached out to her much lately so um so this is person who wants to exhibit um let me I have to look in my I have to do all this on my phone because my computer is out of Isabella Del Olio oh yes I know I know who she is she um she's the one who did that slideshow behind uh like the bike shop in that little lot there I think that's where she did it yeah yeah yeah she'll be she'll be great that'll be great person to have um exhibit there so uh anything else with town hall gallery uh we still have uh Chris Bordenka up in there and there's been a little bit of sales I think so far we made like $30 that okay excellent how much has he made um I don't know whatever percentage we get off of that event you but I'm not even sure what the percentage is actually because is it 30 don't worry about it it's in the that document okay that's pretty much it for agenda plans for moving forward I don't think anything beyond what we've talked about already unless anybody has anything um there's other business I don't think we have a lot of extra other business there anything that anybody else wanted to chat about relative to public garden town oh grinspoon um update on that is um we have the agreement the previous agreement with them Paul and I looked at it and updated it um the only issue is that they can't take the old um so Ellen to fill you in the grinspoon sculpture that's there now broke so it lost one of its limbs essentially they took it away um they suggested a bunch of pieces we could put in its place we weren't happy with any of them we said oh just let's leave that one there even though it's broken but they really came back to us after a month or two and said it has to come down um so they sent us a few more suggestions and we agreed on one our last meeting um and we agreed to have it for one year period only and that would be it because otherwise we felt like there would really have to be significant public process um you know and we can't just uh plant a work of art permanently in the part his works aren't meant to be there permanently anyway but um you know we just felt like one more one more year would be appropriate and then that was sort of it for him unless we decide to more permanently put a piece there in which case we'd really like to have a you know do a bigger public process so the only issue is that they can't take they can't take the one out and put the new one in until the ground falls so it'll be in the spring and then it'll be a year from whenever they do the new piece in the spring um but the date is sort of to be determined but everything else has sort of been placed at this point and do you have a picture of the new piece going in yeah I can uh I can email it to you um we all looked at it and decided on it at our last meeting okay thanks uh so should we just plan our next meeting okay do I have to include the dog barking in the minute we'll make you know what he's saying it's crazy he does this all day I think the dog sounds very intelligent she's all of nine pounds but she is so loud so a month from now ish would be uh the 28th uh Monday the 28th at four um unless we wanted to meet earlier I don't feel strongly like we need to meet earlier um unless you all do I'm good uh I have a doctor appointment that day that would interfere with four o'clock it's actually at four o'clock could we do earlier in the day it could do noon like we used to that's fine with me yeah I cannot um the week what is it I've got a week off in February yeah there's winter there's winter break but you know we might go away you know you sort of uh yeah the week before you mean yeah what what is that like the 21st through the 25th I have off so I could meet on the 21st or anytime during that week actually yeah I'm I'm away that week what about the first which would be a Tuesday instead of Monday at four oh no I can't do that sorry I have uh I have to take my kids to after school I could do an earlier day on the first day on Wednesday what's that I worked till five on Tuesday and Wednesday so um well we could have about the seventh have what we push it further Monday the seventh before I have a meet I have a thing on that day well could we meet without you on the 28th yeah you can meet without me all I could send in like any like special info I mean it's just for a shot so I might you know it's at four and I have to get a shot so I could probably just like miss the first half hour or something okay these meetings have been going very quickly I like to keep them cooking when it's on zoom so we we haven't really gone over an hour in quite a while in fact we're a little bit under an hour now um but we'll we'll drag our feet for you if you want so we just agreed on the 28th at four is that right is that that work for everybody else it's good for me all right I will let Angela know let me just get it my calendar before I hang up with y'all um anything else I mean all right well thank you all um good to see you again Alan so glad to have you back on board good to be back and good to see everybody else and you know it'd be great to do this in person at some point I don't know I know right whether or not we're allowed allowed to meet in person yet I can find out does it do is there any interest in meeting in person you know we'd have to do it in town hall with masks on Jim saying no there saying no keep it on zoom I'm saying that the projection is good but now it's too early all right all right we'll give it a couple give it another month and we'll check in on that again all right thank you everybody okay thank you