 Okay, so we're now recording pursuant to chapter 2g of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so on zoom on via their telephones, or after the fact no in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to make sure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by technological means in the event that we're unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite that best efforts will post on the Amherst media website as well as links on the town website and audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of the proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. I'm calling to order the Amherst public art commission meeting of March 21 2022 to order, and I'll call everybody's name to make sure they can be heard and they can hear me. Dara wire. Yeah. Shoshona King. Yes. Yes. Okay, great. And Bill case. So today we only have three things on the agenda. Public comment. Nobody from the public here so done chair report, which will be very, very quick. And then discussing the opening relaunching event for the poetic dialogue sculpture. So I think the only thing I should really say for chair by way of chair report is that last week was the first of these making it public meetings. And it was pretty good. The best part of it were the, it was all one zoom but the best part of it were the breakout rooms where I got to socialize with people from, let's see one of the towns is low. Another was one of the towns on the Cape. I'm not going to remember all the other there's 10 different towns that are that have sent representatives to be involved so they didn't because it was the first meeting it was mostly breakout with networking kind of introducing yourself. So it was very valuable. I'm hoping that the other sessions where they're going to have people come in and talk more about community outreach and hopefully, you know, more brass tacks on RFP writing. Those kind of things will will happen. So we'll see. But it was, it was worth doing, and I will report back as it progresses and bring hopefully anything I learned back to share with you guys so it was good. It's called making it think it's called making it's either making things public making things public I think we're making it public. Let me look. Making it public. Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess I'll mostly let their take the lead and fill us in. Basically, we are planning some kind of nice relaunch events. As we discussed for the poetic dialogue sculpture. And there has been doing a lot of planning. She's got some great stuff cooking. And she has been working with Alan snow to figure out the planting. So I'm mostly here to just listen and be excited and give you any help or advice that I can. So, yeah, take it away. So do you want to start with the stuff you had to say about the planning and stuff. Alan and I met with Alan last week, or the week before recently anyway. Yeah. And we looked at the grounds and we saw what they would need to do to like restore it back to normal be like a lot of like re edging like this little path with some pebbles and such. In order to get the funds to him so that he can execute this. Does he need to give me a invoice to get it like how are they doing those funds this year is it is it invoice first or is it a get the stuff to him first. Yeah, so I reached out to the, the Amherst cultural council, and we have $600 that's carrying over from last year but the rules from last year apply, which are reimbursed rules. So I did emails Robin to see if there was any way because it's a town entity if we couldn't somehow get them the money beforehand she didn't she said she didn't think so but she would check with Holly. But typically, we would put the money up and they and then the then this year it changed but because that's when the grant here we need to get as far as I know up to this point I emailed with Robin. Like, Friday, Thursday Friday so it was pretty recently. Okay. Do we have money in our account if we need to pay out the 600 to them beforehand. How quickly. So tell us more like how quickly can they get to it is that what. Yeah. Hold on my computer is doing all kinds of weird stuff right now. Like I can't see you guys at all. There's this big screen talking about. Can you guys hear me. Yeah, we can hear you. Well, what was your take on it. Um, it was great. Alan, I think was ready to get started whenever he, you know, had an opening. It was pretty muddy the day we went so I think you know hoping for a little bit more dry. Dry conditions. We could trace, we could see the edging. So we were able to see exactly sort of where it was going to go. It creates sort of a semi circle from the sidewalk. Alan would have to prune. I forgot the name of the tree, which I should know. It was a Japanese lilac, he said. Yes, you have a good memory. I think it would be great this spring to just really take a close look at the, the daffodils to see if we need to fill in anywhere once they're blooming. But you know, I could see them. He said it won't damage the tree though. So that was good. And yeah, the daffodils were already popping up. And so, you know, I think we, it would be great this spring to just really take a close look at the, you know, I could see them sort of scattered around. So, so that was positive. Shoshana, since you seem to have a better memory. What did Alan say about timing? I think you had given him like the last week of April was when we were hoping to have it done by. Yeah, yeah. And he felt confident that that could happen if he got the funds. You know, in a timely manner. So what do you remember at least roughly? I mean, I feel like we had about 1200 in our account, didn't we? Let me go into our thing and see. The sculptures look great though, up close, really, you know, such a difference. Hopefully they'll stay that way for a few more years. But yeah, just a really nice matte black finish. So I was, I was pleased with the result. I'd driven by them, but I hadn't gotten up close to them yet. Yeah. Yeah, I came by and saw the one that Kamal was reinstalling them and I also thought they look good. I'll reach out to Holly and get a up to date. So that was the actual balance. I was like, after like that weird snafu that we had and like the fall, I'm like a little spooked about stuff. So I like really just want to like make sure from Holly. So we need to, we need to be careful because we're going to have money coming in to our account. That's going to be about $2,500 that needs to be set aside just to be used for the portal project. Yeah, yeah, I'll talk to her about that too. Okay. And it but assuming we have 600, which I'm pretty sure we do. We can get it to Alan as quickly as we can, I guess, and get him working on it, right? Okay. Yeah, I'm going into town hall on Friday. Anyways, okay. Some gallery stuff with, with Isabella hold said her art up in there now. Like having that like a little opening on Friday. Oh, great. Oh, they're allowing that that's good. You know, like a, yeah, we're just an official opening. It's going to be at three o'clock until like four. Well, I would hope because it's town money going into another town department, you know that the controller who ever could just transfer the funds to Alan's budget. Hopefully it won't be a complicated thing, but yeah, they may want some paperwork, you know, backing it up. We're going to need, we're going to need paperwork to get reimbursed for it from the cultural council. So they'll have to be some kind of yeah. Yeah, so we need a paper trail. Okay. Yeah. What else. Well, you sent around to everybody the outline of the plan. I don't know that I did actually why don't we do that right now. We can also share your screen you want to share your screen or you want me to share my screen and bring it up. It's really up to Shona and Ellen, since I have it in front of me. Yeah, if you can, you can share your screen. Don't bother to send it right now or anything. I'll, I'll give you the final draft after we talk today. Okay. Okay. Because that'll make it August. It's not a big thing so I can go over it with y'all. Okay, so we agreed if this is still agreeable for Saturday, April 30 and 1130 am to be the actual event, starting at 1130 was suggested by the Emily Dickinson museum people, because they think that's a good time for people walking around town to just stop on their way to get lunch and stuff like that. Emily Dickinson contact Brooke Steinhelzer, offered to find some music, just to have some kind of music she suggested a group from Amherst college called their string quartet, but I think that might be ambitious for this spot and for these people so I'm going to get it. I'm going to have an understudy of ready who will just have an acoustic guitar or something like that because we're not going to be able to have any kind of amplification or electric stuff or anything this is stand up, very simple event. I will have three chairs available for people who can't sit down. I mean you can't stand up, you know, or something like that but otherwise it's just come take a look, have this thing and then it's over. So, we'll gather the people who are in it will gather at 11 to go through one time just the core choreography of it. So that shouldn't be a big deal because it's three students from the Amherst High School who are putting together a fictional dialogue between Frost and Dickinson, based on collaging Dickinson and frost lines. They are Paul. So I, the high school person who's helping us with that is named Chris Herland, and he identified the three students got them to sign up. I have a donor who's going to pay them $100 to split for that no money has to come from our commission. And that will give them incentive and make them feel professional about what they're doing, which is good. And, yeah, and I like that that they can feel that and he asked me for a starter kit, which included lots of lines from Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost to get them started. And so I created a constraint to be just first lines. And after we've been doing just first lines for about an hour we realize that mainly Frost was going to say, and we went to the woods. And I said, we know that could be really great. It could be really funny. Let them do it if they want to do it. Well, however, because there's no, there's no rules about what they make up. It's really for them to have some fun with it and whatever they do will be great. And they know it's supposed to be no longer than about seven minutes long. So that's actually a lot of words. And he's going to have that draft of it to me on April 1. So that's in a little over a week. So I like that that's really good. Because then the next part will be at 1130, the music will start and that will call the audience to attention in some way. But for about five minutes, that somebody will do something with that. And the welcome will be facilitated by Bill. Thank you for saying you do that for us. And that'll start just five minutes after 1135 or so. And then at 1140 the performer writers from Amherst High School will do their read their and perform their dialogue. I'm having made for them. Reese to put around their necks while they perform it's they want to, but to put them on the statues at the end of their piece, just to make it have some kind of something. Then they finish about. Oh, a little, you know before noon and then the music starts and we say thank you. And Bill says thank you. I think that's it does that sound okay to y'all. Yeah. Questions or suggestions are really helpful. No, I think it's great. I'm so glad you're you've involved some high school students. And that you're paying them is incredible artist should be paid. So I think that's just a really nice gesture. I'm just sad because I will not be here this weekend. You know, and actually, Shashana knows we also have a tree of possible tree event that weekend too because it's the Arbor Day celebration so I made plans a long time ago before I realized all this but I'm happy to do anything in preparation if it helps. I think we're fine. You know, I'll get one of the local florists to make the Reese. I'll probably order them this week. I'll, I'll, my, my donor I have who said they would help with this is going to pay for that too. So we don't have to go through the commission for that. And then I make the my little press is called factory hollow press, and we're going to make the program. Nice. And I contacted collective copies today and faith who is a person who's worked there forever and is worked for us forever worked with us forever. It gave me the timeline she needed to have the copy by and stuff to get the program printed. And the only thing I need for the program other than what Bill sent me a great bunch of pictures and PDFs of the original proposal and all the documents that bill has at his in his records, and that there are enough for me to use to write a little history in the program. And the only thing I don't have is I need a bio for the two men who were the original people in the proposal. So, what are their names. I don't think of the guy's name. Michael Rizzi was the conceptual somebody. Yeah. Yeah, this is the picture of the proposal. Yeah, and I'm going to use that as the cover of the program. And with the date and stuff and then inside will have the all the coffee we need on the back will be reproduced an excerpt from the dialogue that the high school students right. Right. So that that'll kind of take care of it but I need die I need box like a sentence or two bio for those two people Michael. Viersey. Yeah, Reezy. I think Reezy and Scott Charlton, I can see what I can come up with I yeah I hadn't really. Michael Reezy we've been in touch with it, but not the other guy so I can see what I can come up with. If you could do that and get that to me by April 1 to that'd be great. Okay, I'll make a note of it. Okay. Bill, did you have luck finding Michael, I did not have any luck online tracking him down anywhere. Really. Okay, yeah, I thought I found a website at one point but maybe not. That would be great if you did. When I started when we made the first proposal for funding, when we got rejected. I, that was what three years ago. So I could not find anything on him, but you may have found something or he may have appeared online since so that that's great. I mean, it seems like it'd be good to invite them. Of course, even if they can't come for some reason. I'll see what I can do. I wanted to ask you all to like, will the commission as a body be able to send out some kind of invites to the appropriate people. I think. Like email invites. So, so what'll happen we what we need to do is do a press release that'll go out to through the town. And the sooner we can get that the better in fact, you know, I haven't even let the time manager know that this is coming up so in fact we should do that right and let Angela know and then to her the town manager and just get the word out. Council counselors know. Yeah, so that's because it's not that it's not that far off. So now's a good time in the next week or two to be getting the word out. Yeah. And our stuff with the Emily Dickinson Museum said they promote it too. So, really go to them. Yeah, it's great. Bill, do you want to write the release that'll be worded like a commission release would be worded or do you want to send me a sample. Yeah, I can draft something and send it to you we can just both it doesn't have to be very long paragraph or something. Yeah, okay. Well, if you can do that as soon as you can I'll get it right away back to you. Okay. Okay. I'm happy to edit anything. Okay. Well we can CC you on what's going on. Bill can CC you on what's going on that's okay. Open media open meeting law creates issues so. Okay. I mean, you can, you can. Yeah, I don't know. I mean you can comment but we can't discuss. I mean, you can, you can, you can, you can, if it's more than two of us, people can mark up a document and send it, but there can't be back and forth. So you could, you could look at it, but I don't think it's, I think we'll be fine. Okay. It's a funny, funny role, you know, it's ridiculous, but it's amazing really. I hadn't even thought of it as a possibility until you tell me about it. Yeah, but we can talk freely in a meeting like this. But yeah, we all have to, but because this is a public meeting. So it was announced 48 hours. So anybody from the public who wanted to could part to show up and listen. Yeah, I mean, that's another thing is we may be able to start meeting in person again. I forgot to ask Angela. So for our future meetings, we can think about that. I was checked the Amherst farmers market starts outside on in April. So there should be, if it's a beautiful day there should be a lot of people in town that on that Saturday. Yeah, that'll be nice. Yeah. And if not, I'll bring all the umbrellas I have. So, I think, I mean it sounds like you should plan a really special event that means it's going to be, you know, great. I'm excited. I think it's sweet, I hope. And I have, I have some people who promise to come and be in the audience. School kids should attract their friends should come to hopefully. Yeah. What are your thoughts? It sounds like a great event. I can't wait. Yeah, I'll have to squeeze it in in between tree duties. What's the tree, what's the tree stuff that you have to do. We're hoping to have like a booth at the farmers market and give away tree saplings we do it every year. Usually, it's usually at the sustainability festival though but that is kept put. So, last year we did it at the farmers market instead. One question that I forgot to ask. So, this program we're going to have printed up about I think 50 copies is plenty. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay, great. I mean it could, I mean, if we get a dozen people that's great. I'd like to have a copy to to give to the Jones library they have a whole folder on poetic dialogue and this should that that should be added to it. I'm not sure for the history of the of the piece. Yeah. What is the what did the restoration of the piece consist of. It was the the two sculptures were very. They had a lot of rust on them. There was some damage and graffiti some spray paint, not graffiti but some spray paint. It just did not look great. We have some photos. I have them on my work computer I think not everybody. Somebody went and took a bunch of pictures of it for me the other day and the pictures look. Okay, I mean the space look good. You know, so it was good. Yeah, it's a big improvement. Garrett had mentioned to me that she heard that the sculptures were stolen and part of the sculptures were stolen at one point but I thought that maybe that was getting confused with the rabbit sculpture that that I knew I know was stolen. Ellen did you mean to share your computer. Yeah I'm showing the photo here. Okay. So, yeah just a lot of water damage it looks like. It looks like a family sculpture. And I think I have. Do I have Robert. Yeah, there you can see how badly rusted. It was. It looks looks like me now. Looks like what it looks like it looks new. Yeah, yeah. And it looks, I'm realizing here because this was in bright sunlight it looked very gray too. Yeah, that's a nice deep black. Yeah. So who should so come all obviously somebody we need to invite who else do we need to and brook and and Jane. Dickinson, who else do we need to invite. I think you look. Is there an Emily Dickinson society, I think there is. That's a good idea. I think you're right bill that the town counselors, Paul Bachman. Oh, the people. I'm sorry I don't know them at the historical society that have a lot of Dickinson material there at the strong house. I would also invite Cindy harbor. I have to look. She helped me do a lot of the research on the piece originally at the Jones library. So some of these people we actually want to thank it would go beyond just inviting them to both invite so that's good to as I'm putting my thing together, we can review, but you know, so, yeah, definitely. Yeah, please thank Cindy. And also Jane walled wrote a letter of support for us. And I think also the DPW and Alan snow, because they're providing the labor to re gravel. So they, they should be thanked. So the cultural council. Of course. Alan Alan is spelled a la and it's not like Alan, it's like Alan. So, are you just making a distinction between who we think in the program and who bill thanks in his comments at the event. We have to figure that out I guess, but it might probably be the same I would think. I think it would be a big overlap right there. Well I think it would be accepted people. I don't know you, you'll know what you do. Just make sure I have the copy that I need to have, you know, around April 1. Okay, and Kamal, I mean he was. He, I mean we paid him but he should be acknowledged at least. Yeah. Who's yeah, he's the restorer. Okay, who fix them up. Trying to think if there's anybody else. Should I make a note, a special note of that person as the restoration, you know, I think so. Yeah, that's what I need is notes. I need notes like that with the film and stuff like that because I don't know the people. Yeah, I'm making notes here I'll pass them along to you. Right. Hey, who else anybody else I have here's what I have on my list right now come all Peters Jane walled Brooke. What's your last name Stan Heiser. Steinheiser. Councilors that's that's a separate list. Time manager separate last. The cultural council, the cultural council. Yeah, they should have their logo on the brochure, and they should get thanks. For the speech to. So I just need to get a logo from, we probably have one right bill for them. I don't know. Probably just get it on the internet. Let me see. DPW Alan snow. So he's not he's separate he's not he's not he's not DPW he's his own thing, isn't he. He's the tree warden and grounds and what's the other word that goes with that. Does he work under Gelford is he is he is he DPW. He is but he's also the town arborist. Right. Yeah, it's, it's, I don't know exactly how the hierarchy between mooring and him is. So I think Amherst cultural council just uses the mass cultural council. logo, which provides them the money so I think that's the logo we can use. Let me see if I can copy it right now. Copy image. You want me to try to get in touch with somebody on the Amherst cultural council and see if they have something. You can ask sure. I mean, if you're sure I don't want to bother to ask, but it's pretty blurry. I got to find a better one. I also don't know that we have to have a logo for them. We could they could just be listed in the thank yous. I mean, this is just a, I don't know a lot of times like when you're actually applying for the grant. There is like warnings about like, you know, yeah, that's a record. It usually is a requirement here. I found some. There if you just do mass cultural council logo under Google and just go to images. There are a lot in there. Okay. And you can just copy and paste. Okay. We could check the. I know we like at the museum have to use the logo. When they. We'll make the logo work. They're not funding the brochure. No. All right. Yeah. Okay. Do your best. I mean, we can't, we can reach out to them. I mean, I email with them on a regular basis. So. That's all I have for now. So if anybody thinks of anybody else who should be added to that list, either of invitees, thank yous spoken or thank yous written or both. Let it let me know. Or and or Darin the next couple of days. Okay. Yeah. And it's probably okay to put on like invited in terms of like the press release and inviting everybody just to make it known that the commission is. Doing this. Yeah. We were talking about, yeah. Does the commission have a logo? No, that's been an ongoing discussion that sort of trickled the long and been laid down. And I keep saying we should pick it back up, but we do not. So rebranding. It's sort of keeps getting kicked down the agenda from month to month, but it is something that we could. Discuss again in the future near future. Probably if you're going to start getting a serious amount of money from that percentage building thing that passed, you're going to have to have a lot of more professional stuff. Yeah. Because the accountability from the people who see all that money is going to be big. I don't know if that money will go to any kind of marketing or things like that, but it'd be nice if it did. I don't know. The town seems like the town's going to need to. If you're, if your commission is getting a significant amount of money. That's a big deal. Yeah. It's great too, but it's also like a lot of responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it's going to happen? What do you mean? It's already half. Do I think what's going to happen? Yeah, I think it's going to happen. I think that's the thing you talked about about the town council passing that percentage of building amount of money, certain amount of money has to go for public art. It's passed. It passed. So when will you, when will you first see the money? Well, the first projects that we may see the money for is the North common. I'm still waiting to hear the school, but school project budget is, you know, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I almost guarantee that the percent for arts, well, which is really half a percent will not be half percent. We'll be lucky if we get a quarter of a percent or a 10 to a percent, but that'll still be a pretty large chunk of money, especially on a hundred thousand, a hundred million dollar project. So. Yeah. People are people are. Very. I don't know what the right word is. So, you know, they're looking to find savings wherever they can, and certainly dialing down, hopefully not turning all the way off. The percent for art is something that's already being discussed. So we have to, we have to advocate that it not be turned off completely. I don't think the time is yet. I think people are just getting their heads around that hundred million number. And whether or not that's hard and fast at this point, but there's been just massive budget escalation. Because of just general construction cost escalation in the last couple of years and the last estimate they had gone is already three, four years old. So we went from a project of, I don't remember what the original numbers were, but, you know, 40, 60 and now a hundred million. So it's a lot. Yeah. And, you know, who's going to pay for that is the taxpayers because it's going to be an over. It's going to be an override. So. Yeah. So, okay. Anything anybody wants me to be concerned about as I try to finish up the details of this. Thank you all for all the good ideas. Thank you. Yeah, I think we have, you know, I have a few jobs to do. I will get on those. You'll, you'll, you'll figure out the money stuff and get out on the money and get, get him. So to let him know that the, you know, we really would like to have this done. I think it's going to be April 30th. So, you know, before April 30th. Yep. Why so our today's the 21st. Should we try to meet again on the fourth or no later than the 11th, I think. In terms of just making sure everything, all our ducks are in the road for this. Does that make sense? Sure. Okay. Yeah. I think the 11th. Either the fourth or the 11th. What do you guys think? I think the 11th, maybe. Okay. So work tentatively for people. This time. Yeah. Okay. I will. I'll see if I can book that with Angela. And I don't show that, you know, I was, I know I need to get the. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do the RFP for the portal to you, but I'm holding off a little bit because I'm hoping that. This seminar that I'm in this, making a public seminar will address some of those questions. I have some questions I have about that. So once, once I. See if it will or not. I will. I'll get to work on that. And I'll share that with you. Okay. I don't think there was much else. I don't think there was much. Not anticipated 48 hours in advance. Anybody else have anything. I was just wondering if the. Sunrise. Amherst sunrise group had come back with anything. No. No. A lot about sunrise. Yeah, because I didn't, I had vaguely heard about it, but I didn't really know. So it was fun to read about it. Yeah, I assume they will come back at some point. It took them a little while to get back to me the first time around. So. Okay. As soon as I hear from them. Well, you know, I will let you all know. All right. Thank you all. Thank you. Actually. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Can you type up minutes? Yeah. Okay. What do I do? Send them to you. Send them to Jim. Okay. Yeah. And I'll just send. Us a little summary of who's doing what. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.