 Now. And now I've got to read the thing. I've got it over here. Let's see pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. I'm going to read the numbers of the public who wish to access the meeting can do so by clicking on the live link to this zoom meeting that can be found on the public meeting calendar on the town of Amherst website or by dialing in by phone. The public is able to comment during the comment period. This meeting is being recorded and will be posted to the town of Amherst YouTube channel. Get back to the Senate. Okay, all right, I'm back. All right, so usually we do like a chair report first should we still go with that or would we feel more excited about learning about our new members and letting them introduce themselves and talk a little bit about themselves first. Do you want to do the minutes and get it out of the way. Oh yeah yeah let's do the minutes and get it out of the way. I move that we approve past minutes. All past minutes right. All on approves out past minutes. Yeah. Okay, second. Dar, do you approve. You're, you're on the. She's muted mute you're on the mute. Sorry. Don't we all have to vote. No just the ones that like, we should. I think we should have a people who are going to abstain do so so I can make it in the end, because I'm taking the minutes and I'd like to record that they abstained if that's what they're going to do. Okay, so the other three of you that aren't haven't you know been here in the past to know whether the minutes are are accurate or not. I abstain. Okay, you're free to abstain. If you would like. I abstain. I also stayed so I don't have the minutes. Okay so wait a minute so we got yeah we got a quorum. Okay. Yeah for the first time in a very long time we actually have a quorum. Exciting. Okay so the minutes are just going to say they were approved. Okay. Finally. Okay and then all right now let's have introductions. On mine my first, the first one in view is Terry Terry do you want to. Sure. I'm Terry Holt. I'm really happy to be here. I work for the town of Arlington. I am a contractor working with their commission for arts and culture. I just moved here to Amherst from Arlington. I've been working with them for a long time. I've been loving Amherst so far. And I applied this position because I saw there were lots of vacancies and I'm hoping to meet some people in the arts and join the community and hopefully make a difference in public arts. Yay. So great to have you here. I'm really excited. All right. How about Mikey, you're next in my view. Mikey cutting also because I have a show at the town hall right now. I'm listed under Michelle Burnett to all the same person. I've lived here for 20 years. I've been involved in the Amherst history museum, as well as the Pelham Historical Society. My sister was an artist and I show her work. And I'm a beginning artist, but I'm very involved in arts. I studied at Christie's in London, so my background is in arts. Could you please spell your, your other last name. So it's cutting CUT, TING. And my main name is Burnett, B, E, R, N, E, T. Okay, so I got two letters wrong. Thank you. That's all right. And Laurie, thank you, Mikey, for. Hi. I'm Laurie Friedman, and I've lived in Amherst for almost 29 years. I moved here from New York City where I had a career in the arts. I was director of an art gallery and SOHO at the time, and prior to that, it went on the Upper East Side. So came, came here with a strong career in, in the arts in galleries. I also did one of these courses in London. I did the Sotheby's course in London, so, and was an art history major. Since being an Amherst, I've done some independent curating and I've managed a couple of artist studios and do work right now in artist legacy planning and estate planning. But I also have done various different things in my time in Amherst because there wasn't the kind of opportunity here to do the kind of work that I did in New York City. So currently I am the coordinator of marketing and development at Jewish Family Service in Springfield. And I have kind of sideline business that connects into the arts. I'm excited to be here and joined because I also knew there were openings and wanted to be more involved after all of this time living here. Excellent. Thank you. And Robert, you made it in. I did. Thank you. Yeah, we're having the new people introduce themselves. So you're, you're next. Sure. I'm Robert Brennan. I've lived in Amherst since 2008. And actually met Jim during my time at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School. I worked there as the CFO for a number of years. I spent most of my career in nonprofit finance and worked in performing arts organizations and schools and community development corporations and have become very interested in the intersection between arts and community development. Obviously these days there's a lot of attention being paid to place keeping, place making various terms, creative place making, but using the arts as a means of community development. And a friend actually had encouraged me to join the CPA committee and when I was looking at the different committees that were in the town. I landed on the public art commission and started reading about it. I thought it sounded like a lot more fun than the CPA committee. So I'm, I'm excited to be a part of this and look forward to working with all of you. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Let's see. Let me see if I can pull up. The next thing would be chair report. All right, so I don't know how much you guys have been keeping up with this poetic dialogue situation that's been going on. But we had the poetic dialogue if you're not familiar it's you know those like black silhouettes of Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson on the rocks over kind of near the, the museum. We had those restored because they were like really rusted out and they just look terrible. And the artists that restored them accidentally put them in reverse order and they had Emily on Robert's rock and, and Robert on Emily's rock. And there was like this big outrage it was. It was big. It was in the newspaper, if you want to look it up. So he fixed it. And within a week, somebody went and ripped Robert Frost down so Robert Frost is once again not on his rock. Oh boy. Emily is missing too. I haven't gone by in a couple of days. I just dropped by there yesterday and because I was going to the framing gallery across the street from the Dickinson house that there were neither Silhouette was there. Oh jeez. All right, I'm guessing that she is also with the DPW because when Robert Frost was ripped down he was left in the grass. They, the DPW got him and he was in safe hands and they were making a plan to reinstall him. I'm, I suspect that they took down Emily so that she wouldn't get stolen too but I'm going to have to call them tomorrow and make sure about that. If they wanted to install the Frost when they were taking Emily down because she was in Frost's place. Right. No, she was, it was restored back to the original spot. So it was restored with Frost was it in Frost's place and Emily was in her place. Yes. And then they ripped him down anyway. Yep, they ripped him down anyway. I don't think that was probably in any way thing. It was probably different people that you think. I didn't say it was the same person. I mean, possibly be the people who complained about the mistake. Oh, just random vandals probably, you know, I don't know if you guys have heard about this. Yeah, I don't know if you guys have heard about this. Yeah, I didn't hear anything. Anything that's not occurring. This is actual. People like destroying kind of. Yeah, you can tell when you look at it, the like, the bars that were holding him up are, have been like bent, like seriously. Then he was ripped down. That's too bad. on and I went into the town hall and they were like, oh yeah, he's, you know, this whole thing happened and he's with the DPW and everything's okay. Well, what we should figure out is what are we going to do? Because if we fixed it and then something, people for whatever reason, whoever it might be, they ripped it down again. So we going to put it back up and risk ripping it down again or what are we going to do? I talked to Alan Snow and he said he wants to make a plan to make it less ripped downable. He wants to have like some sort of like the postings that are in there. He wants them to be sturdier so that they, it can't be ripped down. Okay. So who's ultimately responsible for this? Is it DPW or what is, what is this commission's responsibility? At this point, it's the DPW, but I just feel like, you know, we should know about it. Because it's, we're somewhat involved. But at this point, it's the DPW that's dealing with it. Oh, good. So this kind of installation, is this meant to be a permanent installation or is this one of the kind of, one of those kind of installations that is meant to come down at some point in nature? This one's meant to be permanent. This is permanent. Okay. Yeah. And how much did this cost all together for the town? The restoration, I think we got 2004, all in all. We got a grant through the Amherst Cultural Council. Right. Okay. And we were actually trying to get a grant for a very long time, like several years with different entities. And it was finally the Amherst Cultural Council that gave it to us. Okay. All right. And maybe I should get you guys up on what's going on the town hall gallery, even though Mikey already said. Mikey has a show of her sister's works up there. Right. And the front is my sister. She passed away 10 years ago. She didn't live around here, but she was a very good artist. And so I have four of her works, her G-clays on the wall, and then down the hallway are mine, and up on the second floor, they're mine. So either in caustic or oil and cold wax. And that was your sister, I forgot, or your... Yeah. My sister was Meg Burnett. So she has a show too, right? Well, it's both of us. That's why my maiden name is used and not my married. But at Amherst History Museum, I go by Mikey Cutting. That's not going to be confusing. I know. My husband even said that's confusing. Yeah, so just so you know, James is taking our minutes for us. That's why he's asking those questions. I know. Okay. All right. I also got Amy Crawley's information when she was the head of the town hall art gallery. So I have all her information. Okay. Are you interested in taking on the management of town hall gallery? I don't want to do it alone yet. I'd love to do it with somebody else, say two of us to take it on. So we could both learn how and do that, but I don't want to do it wholeheartedly alone because of my other position at Amherst. Okay. And we'll have to discuss if we want to go back to the way we used to do it back before the Rona. We used to do a thing where like once a year we'd have a call for artists and then we would pick the ones that we want, which were essentially all of them. And they would have shows in the town hall. And since then I've just been kind of like hunting down people because it's just been like the three of us. And it's too much to do a whole call for artists and everything. But if you guys want to go back to that, that's an option for the group. So I can make sure to send this to everybody. It's the town hall art gallery workflow. And it's from June 3rd, 2021. Okay. And my plan is to leave the art commission in March. So I want to make sure that I get you guys squared away on what you guys want to do and where you want to take it and feel comfortable doing the things that you're doing by that time. I'd love to go back to the old way of doing things and put out a call for artists and try to get as many opportunities for new artists we can get. Yeah. That's valid. Where do you usually promote that? Is it just on the town of Amherst website or do you put on the Facebook page, Twitter? We have a Facebook page and we have an Insta page. Okay. And we will need somebody that wants to or multiple people that want to be like managing those the Facebook and the Insta. So think about if you want to be part of that project. I will think about that. Thank you. Okay. But there's no Twitter. We don't have a Twitter? No, we don't have a Twitter. Oh, probably. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having a Twitter. Just nobody's done it. I think maybe that time has passed. Yeah, it does seem like there's less Twitter these days, more TikTok. Yeah. Would it be possible to have a rolling submissions for the gallery so that people wouldn't necessarily have to do it just that one time a year if it could be something ongoing or four times a year just to give people more opportunities to hear about it? Yeah, whatever you guys want is, I mean, I don't think there's any rule in place. It was just that was the way that it was done before. You have submission guidelines someplace that we can look at? Yeah, Mikey has them in paper form from Amy from before. I can send them to everybody. Thank you. I got them from Amy, who used to be the Town Hall Art Gallery. She was in charge, right? Yeah, Amy was like, yeah. She totally had that sewn up. It was good. Right, and she also did the Thursday Arts Night. Yes. Okay, okay. But the Arts Night plus is kaput now, there is no more. Right. Shishona. Yeah? So does anybody have any good connection to someone who writes about the arts for the Amherst Bulletin? I don't know, does anybody? I don't know either. No, but I'm sorry, Jim, go ahead. I'll check with my wife. She seems to know anybody in the cultural, everybody in the cultural. She does. Truth. Because that's what we need is somebody who's radar, this commission can get on and then we'll lead to another if we pay attention to her. That's the plan. Yeah. Yeah, good idea. All right, so Jim, will you hunt contact down from Gigi? Oh, okay, so maybe be very precise. What am I gonna get contacts for? For like a newspaper person that would be a good contact to have for the art commission. Oh, I mean, just in general, not for any specific. Yeah, that's what I was asking. So a person who regularly writes about the arts. Yeah, I think that would be great thing to cultivate. That sounds like a really great thing to cultivate. I wasn't sure if you were talking about a particular projector. Just in general. Yeah, that's what I ask. Okay, so I'm gonna see if I can find a newspaper contact regarding writing for the on the arts if I can. Be great. There are also for the Hampshire Gazette, which is connected to the Amherst Bulletin, when you have an art exhibition, you can put it in their events. And it's just an online submission and you go in and you put all the details in and they will list it. You know, who's that guy that writes making, there's a guy that writes about the town or some kind of column like that that you can, he writes for the Hampshire Gazette. I can't remember his name. Oh, well, I'll get it. Quick question. Do we use Arts Boston at all for their arts and culture calendars? Do we have, we don't ever use that tool? It's free. I was just wondering if we ever use Arts Boston calendars. I think we did when they were doing Art Week. Okay. And we were participating in Art Week, but they haven't done Art Week in like two years. Yeah, but they still have the Arts Boston. There's like a, you can submit events, gallery, you know, announcements to Arts Boston. And it goes, you know, it's on their website always. So it's away from you or the find, to find exhibits in your town, it's free. So that'd be a good thing to add to our media relations list. Yes, definitely. Here we go. Sorry, the guy I was talking about was for our, so if you had, if you have something in the arts, like what my book was published, he did a thing on it. The Steve, his first name is. We have a chat that we can post anything in. I have a link. There's also the Valley Arts newsletter, which is updated weekly. And it lists everything, you know, happening in the arts we should be submitting there. Yeah. Yeah, we should. There's a chat in this, in Zoom. Is there a chat? I don't see it at the bottom. Oh, you know, I don't either. Yeah, you're right. I don't see it either. I wonder if it's because it's being recorded, like a chat and show up, so they don't want to. Nevermind. I can certainly send you all the link to the Valley Arts newsletter. But I guess what this is about, this discussion then is about creating a outreach list, really a mailing list for any press releases we do and promoting any events, anything happening in Amherst that we want to get help from. When we get the minutes to look over later from Jim, there's going to be all kinds of great stuff that we can refer back to also, because we'll get like the draft minutes and we'll see all this stuff. So just put it out there. Let's definitely look at that. And you will get them in the next couple of days. Great. As distinguished from two days before the next meeting. It's so easy. All right, we're also going to need a treasurer. Where's the treasurer? That would be under Treasurer's report. I gather since we don't have one. Well, I kind of feel like we're kind of going through like things that need to get done, like it feels appropriate, but we're going to need someone to do that too. These are things I just want like everyone to be thinking about. I mean, nobody has to be like, I'm going to do it right now. Like just be thinking about these are the things that are going to have to get filled soon. And let me see the actual agenda again. Actually, the treasure report is right after the cheer report. All right. So do I feel like we got cheer report stuff here? All right. And then the big project on the horizon is making it public. And that I had a meeting in like late August, like at the very end of August with, with Maureen Pollock and some other people in town, but Maureen Pollock is essentially like the spearhead of this. She's in the planning department. She's really into like public art and stuff. So she's like a good, oh wait, it looks like Maureen Pollock is here. He's here. He just raised her hand. I didn't know that she was there. I didn't either. How do I let her in? Wait a second. This is never. I don't see her. Huh. Well, okay. So I guess. Wait, there it is. A lot of talk. Yay, Maureen Pollock. Hi everyone. Hi. Can you hear me? I'm so glad you're here. If I knew you were here, I would have had you speak like right away. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I appreciate you coming in and talking to us. Oh, no problem. I've enjoyed the discussion so far. So you are in a webinar. So I'm happy not to have a camera, but if you guys want to like meet me. I would love to have my camera on if possible. We'll see here. So if you click on the, there should be like a list of people in attendance. I forget what it looks like. And then you can expand it and you can look at all you guys. Like a list. Does that pop up? I don't mind. And you're, you're called panelists. And then there should be a button called attendees. Yep. Yeah, I see there's one. You're the one attendee. Yeah. So if you hover over my name and right click it. Oh, wait, there should be a button. Say, okay, here we go. Yeah. I can fix my camera. Yeah. And then also that way you can see who else is in attendance from the public. Well, I can't see them. And it's kind of bothering me because I need to know if the public is attending the meeting for the minutes. Oh yeah. So now I can check for you. So if again, at the bottom of your screen, it says participants. It says eight panelists. And then if you click over on where it says attendees, it says zero. So no one's here. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, so. I can, I'm happy to give sort of an overview of this project. That's helpful. Yeah, that'd be great. Great. Okay. Yeah. So my name is Maureen. I'm one of the staff planners. With the town of Amherst. And Paul. The town managers found a grant program last. Perhaps December or January. That he wanted the town to apply for. Which is to provide a training to do a call to artist for a temporary art. Installation. And so a former public art committee member in the chair person, Bill Cason and I. So the town got this grant was to provide this, I think it was five weeks of training where you learned more details about doing like a call to artists or an RFP. And, and then at the end, the incentive of going through the training is, is that the town awards. Is awarded $10,000 to do a call to artists for temporary art installation. So it's kind of like. Doing a homework assignment at the end of the semester. So we need to do the town needs to do a call to artists by the end of this calendar year. And to put it out to the public. And then next year calendar year. We need to actually install it. The grant is through the New England art foundation. And I think they're called a fork for past art. And great organizations. And. They can provide us a couple more trainings this fall while the town and you in this committee creates a call to artists. And so I'm really here to sort of pitch that project and. And ask for you to review a call to artists that we could either work on together or I could come up with a draft called the artist and maybe the next meeting we could talk about. What works or what doesn't work if you want to see any revisions. And so there's a couple of things I would like to discuss with you, but first, do you have any questions so far? I have a question. I'm wondering, are there any materials from the trainings that you'd be able to share with this committee since many of us are new. And it seems like. That would be useful for us to be able to review. Absolutely. That's a good, good idea. I'm happy to send that materials to you by email. Thank you. I just want to confirm what I heard that this call has to go out before the end of this calendar year. And the. Whatever the installation has to be done next year is, is there a designated place for the installation at this point? No, and actually that's. There's four things I want to talk about. And that's the first one. So I have like. So you've got some, I'm not clear on what's what you're, what, what we're dealing with. So I heard you say that you had gotten some training on called artists and then it turned into a discussion about a project. And I. I'm not clear about whether your training was because for this project or I'm not clear about the relationship between that. And the project you're talking to, plus. I'd like to know where the funding is going to come from. Yeah, sure. Good questions. So the training is really geared towards grand administrators and people. For grand administrators that work with municipalities to. Explain what is a call to artists. Process administratively. And to talk about how do you engage the public as part of your overall project? Cause here we are trying to promote art for the public. So how do we reach out to our residents and different. And within our, our residents, different demographics. And so that was big themes of, of the training. And it touched upon how do you select? They gave us ideas of how do you select. Locations. And so I was like, I'm not sure if it's like a downtown if it's in like a downtown or in village centers. And think about, and then they talked about, you know, different art mediums and themes. So there was like, it was like a poo poo platter of training. I definitely don't feel that I, I, I definitely feel like I'm a novice. So I am very much. I did learn a lot through the training, but it seems like I've learned a lot through the training. So I'm, I'm, I'm the new kid on block. So I'm definitely coming to you all for assistance. And so, so at the end of that training. The New England foundation for the arts. Provided the town of Amherst $10,000 to do an actual call to artists to put it, installation of art that is temporary in nature. It could be installed or there could be an event or it could be lighting, it could be, it's very open ended. Such as art is in general. So, yeah, so hopefully I explained that better. So was that New England foundation for the arts. Yes. And are the artists when you put out the call for artists, is it limited to artists who live in Amherst? Or is it broader than that? That's a good question. So let's start. It seems like, let's start at the beginning. So, you know, I've spoken to. The planning director and DPW and the town manager's office and, you know, we would like to, if possible, focus in the downtown as a possible overall sort of location. And so we're wondering if it would make sense if it, you know, if we wanted it to be sort of like a sculpture or something physical that's going to be installed. Would we want it to be at Kendrick Park? Or Sweetser Park or the Tom Common? And, and those are just some ideas. And so I was wondering if you all had any ideas. Yeah. If an event or a physical tactile art installation would make sense. In any particular location in downtown. So are we going to be brainstorming this right now? Or can we write down our ideas and back and forth? Like throughout the week. Cause I've got a bunch. Of ideas. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So then the next question is, and yeah, that's a really good suggestion. Cause you know, you got to sort of unpack what I'm saying and think about it. Before responding. So the next question is, is, what kind of art mediums would you think would be something fun for this project that, and keep in mind it's $10,000. Unfortunately, I don't think the town has money to add to it. So it's 10,000 max. That's a good amount of money. It is. Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. And then what is, is there an art theme? So if we did a call, do we want to say. We really like fauna and flora. You know, could there be some art installation based on plants and wildlife for, so that's just one example. Or is it open-ended where it's, you know, where we want a sculpture. At this location or, and then get into the call. And then the fourth item is what kind of public engagement strategies should we implement? And, you know, would we have a selection committee. That would jury the selection of the art. Or we do a sort of, some sort of creative. Um, maybe people would walk and look at the different designs or there would be something on social media that people could vote on. Um, things of that nature. And other, other ideas that I'm definitely not thinking of. And so those are the four. Four main things that I'm. Seeking input is project location, art medium, our theme and what kind of public art engagement strategies should we implement for this project. Um, I don't know how long it was, I don't know how long it was needed. It was temporary, but what, how long. So very open-ended. It could be a one day event. It could be up for a couple of years. It could, if the town and residents really like this temporary art installation, perhaps it stays. So that, and that would all have to be agreeable upon the town and a particular artist, a very flexible with what kind of art would be provided here. So, and who's in charge of this project? Well, I think it's a collaboration between you. All in myself. And whoever would like to help. Oh, excuse me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Maureen. Could you send an email with those four points in it? And any other notes you wanted to help us with. To. Yeah. That'd be great. Yep. So might we be interested in collaborating with other town commissions to come up with some themes, because I think this speaks to the whole town. We could, we could bring in other commissions that. We could bring in other commissions. We could bring in other commissions. We could bring in other commissions. So messaging, I think it'll be really good for us as a commission to collaborate with other commissions, right? So it's not just us and our little echo chamber. I think we could bring others in and really get a great message out. We could do sustainability or we could do. Diversity. And there's so many different things we could talk about, but bringing in other voices from town might be really, really helpful. So we could bring other commissions in. Like who? Just give me an idea. We've got a bunch of commissions, you know, we have had it. There was a meeting where we met with different people in town. And it felt like at the end of that meeting, it was just a, let's do a completely wild call for artists and see what happens. But we got like a conservation commission. I mean, we've got lots of different commissions that could probably use help with their own messaging. We might be able to join, you know, join together. Yeah. That's an interesting idea, Terry, with, with it. Just shooting this, just thinking out loud. Since so many people, you know, people have busy lives and they're sometimes over committed to go to other board. Board meetings. But like, such as the Com Com, but I do really, I like that concept. What did, what would folks feel about if I emailed various boards and explain the projects and said at your next meeting, if you guys want to offer any suggestions about themes. For instance, please provide us your top. Maybe instead of just, that's a little, a little general. Maybe we could focus in as a commission first. Cause I, I think I'm having a more targeted ask would be, you'd probably get a lot better reception. I agree. I think we need to as a commission narrow down the focus. Yeah. I don't think you want to say, Hey, give us the theme. I think we need to say we're thinking about these themes. How do you think you might want to join with us and, and help us focus our message and help, you know, help yourselves too. If we came up with like as a, as a team, if we all decide on our theme, and I think that'd be really wonderful and creative and fun. And then ask for, you know, more targeted input. Maybe. Yes. So a couple of thoughts. So one, I'm wondering about. Collaborating potentially with the business improvement district or the downtown Amherst foundation. There are a lot of empty storefronts and, you know, a lot of towns do pop-ups. Often are themed. For a night or a week. I think it could be a way. I mean, I think of Hastings as an institution in town, which is now empty and, and fairly sizable space. It could be. Potentially. Kind of an exciting thing to think about. Some sort of event or, or installation there. But also just. I'm wondering, stepping back a bit more in terms of. I guess understanding our charge as a commission and. The idea of. I forget where I was reading. It was another town. I don't know if it was in Massachusetts, but there was a photo of a sign. That the city or municipality had just put in a spot in the city. And it said, you know, what kind of public art do you want in the space? And so they were soliciting obviously responses from anybody who happened to pass by. And so I'm wondering about. How we. I guess democratize the process so that it's not really our responsibility to come up with these themes, because then we'd have, you know, six or seven people in town coming up with the idea. What should or shouldn't be public art necessarily. So I just think as we go through this process. You know, I guess it speaks to the public engagement piece and how are we really going to. Ensure that the diversity of voices are being. Heard and involved. There's definitely a calendar challenge. I like the idea that you have to pick the spot. You have to pick a place. First. To put up a sign like that. But I like the idea of letting it be. You know, I don't agree to anybody who wants to respond. I like that. I think you can also accomplish that with a survey. I don't know how you'd get that out to all of the citizens that you want to target. But you, you know, we could put out a survey and collect responses. Marine, I'm worried a little bit about the time element here. If we need to call for artists out by the end of the year. I think that's a good idea. I think that makes me a little worried about, about getting that public input. Like. As you know, that's a bit of a schedule crunch. It is. We only have three meetings. Essentially. Maybe. Yeah. I'll stop talking. I'm curious. One thing I. I looked on our. On the town website and. I do live here and I see things in town. But I'm looking at in terms of. Sculpture that was installed at. You know, I think Kendrick Park. Over the years, there's just been a lot of different things that. Some have come and gone. Some are still there. I don't know what came through the town of Amherst. What were, you know, gifted. So is there a place that kind of has the list of what we do have currently as public art so that I can kind of. Think about this in context of what's already here and then think about what are we missing? You know, what don't we have? What would be in something to add in using this grant. To add to. What we have, what we've done. And I just. Even though I've lived here, I feel like. I don't actually. Yeah. I can name off a few things I've seen. I don't know. I don't know. I bet there's things I've missed because I just didn't know they were there. Yeah, there's a pamphlet that you can download that's on the. Amherst public art commission website. They also have printed ones at the, at the bid. Great. I will get that and download it. I may need a link. If you can just send me the link to download it because I didn't find it. Okay. I have a question. I feel like it was mentioned in a meeting that I think I've watched prior to joining the commission, but there's. I understand is there's a little space. That was designated as the public art commission space right in front of Amherst connections. Yeah. And the power. That would be realignment. What is it called? Realignment Park. Realignment Park. Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of a, it's almost like a natural amphitheater in the way it's. I don't know if it was intentionally designed that way, but. You know, it. It's right by the cow and down, you know, with a weird cow is. It's just down the street from, if you know where. Share coffee shop is it's, it's. Maybe half a block or. Isn't it really small? It is. Yeah. It's small. It's like 15 feet by. Like 10 feet. Something like that. Perfect for buskers. Well, I was going to say, you know, I, I, when I first saw it and walk by, I thought, wow, you know, this would be great spot for a poetry slam or some sort of spontaneous performance. But I mean, whatever happens, but I think one of the things that had also been discussed previously is. Sort of raising the profile of the commission because I'm sure there are plenty of people in town who don't realize that there actually is a public art commission. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, it could. I don't know. I guess when we're thinking about location. Yeah, that's definitely a location that popped in my mind first and foremost, if we were getting like location specific being that like we actually own this space in town. I think I watched underutilized. Yeah. That'd be a fun place to make public and. It's a great idea. I would love to see like a work day there where like, maybe we could go and if anyone's down with this, we could like do some weeding or whatever, because it's. It's kind of raggedy. Yeah, I visited it last week and stood up on the porch of the building right next to it and just stared at it, you know. It is, it's really small and also the cow is there. Yeah. So whatever you do, it's going to speak. They're going to speak to each other. They're going to speak to each other. They're going to speak to each other. But if it's something that is physical. Tactile really there. So it's a kind of. It's a slightly tricky space unless something is very abstract. From my point of view. You know, but it's really worth going and standing on the porch of the shop called home. And looking out at it and this orientation of it to the street. And to the cow. So what I think is my, my point, I think we need a list of steps that we need to take. Very concrete steps. That's great. Yeah. So we could have available for our next meeting to focus the discussion. And a timeline. Oh yeah. And a timeline. Thank you. Yeah. I'm happy to provide that. Yeah. Yeah. Worst case scenario, if. For some reason, the time. Timing is not met and we don't have a call by the end of the year. Does that mean that the grant is forfeited or is there any. They gave us $5,000. So far. Once they actually have to review the drafts call to artists. And once it's finalized. And once it's finalized. And once it's emailed out and you know, whatever, you know. Sent out to the universe. Then they give us the additional $5,000. I see. And when, when did the process begin? I'm just wondering why. Were there some. Obstacles. The training was in the spring. Unfortunately. Although I am very happy to be part of this project. This is not my primary role. But I'm very happy to be part of this project. I'm very happy to be part of this project. There's been various other pressing projects to work on. So I'm getting to this now. So sorry. No, no, no, I wasn't trying to play. I was just curious if there were things going on that, that prevented it. Yeah. So I am very happy to oblige to the idea of something like a survey. If we were, and I can take some time to kind of think about this between now and the next meeting. I'm just going to move this forward in a quick manner. I like Robert's idea of it being like a performance space. And if we did something like. Like we split up the money into like, you know, every weekend for like a big chunk of time, we. Sponsor. Like some performer to go in there and do whatever kind of performance they want, like some sort of, you know. Like, maybe you're going to have a small performance fit in there, then maybe that would encourage it to like naturally turn into, that's the spot you go to do like some cool thing or to go watch some cool thing, you know, but like, once the habit is formed. Like it would continue on on its own perhaps. At real life. Is that the space you're referring to? Yeah. Cause like, as it is, you know, if it was just like a one off, you know, you know, you know, you know, you could get into the habit of being like, oh, let's go check out realignment park and see what's going on. But if it happened like enough times, it would make a habit. And that would be like in the spirit of the community building. Just. We have three meetings left. It sounds like we need to kind of move things along pretty quick. Do we, can we maybe. I know time is always of the. You know, we have a lot of people here. Do we have any brainstorming happening or do we want to throw out some ideas and talk about them or do that on email or. I don't know if it'd be helpful, but just to let you know to fill you in. Shashana, I can't remember if you went to the meeting with the cultural council district. Yes. Yeah. I wanted to reach out to the artists. That are part of the cultural council district committee and a few gallery owners joined together. And the Amherst bid and I could email this to you, but we talked about their ideas for brainstorming. And then public engagement strategies to implement. I don't know if that would be helpful. Don't be really viable. Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe just go through it right now. So possible project. Project locations. Art on the train bridges. Realignment park, such as sculpture or plantings. The town common right in front of town hall. Two sites there. One facing town hall. And one facing Hastings. Okay. Entering the town line, such as route nine. And one facing town hall. And one facing town hall. On the town green, such as the East town common. Big white board. We are one people. Someone said. Put an outline of a mural and paint by number for community members to paint. Welcome in multiple languages in downtown. So some sort of art that. That's speaking to that message. Yeah. Artists walk along. The conservation trail backdrop for youth. Brigade. Native American medicine wheel at roundabout at like triangle in. East pleasant street. Was the one that they were referencing. And then public engagement strategies to implement. Advertise call to artists that's inclusive. Hey, it's a great project. And it's about the same thing with design and demographics in town. And to all ages, mobilities and, you know, Rachel and in educational background, building community through the arts. Must engage the public through the process. Don't be prescriptive. Leave it open ended for the artists to choose. And so I don't know if that's what you're talking about. But. I think it's a, it's a really accessible and. And make it safe. Selection committee should be diverse. With. Public art committee members and members of the public. Okay. Thank you. So can you send that to us? Oh yeah. Yup. Awesome. That's you. Thanks. And what. And so. Yeah. So I'll send that to you and. Okay, all right. And if there's no other questions or I don't know if you guys still want to stay with us topic or. I'm just going to throw out an idea I've had a lot of involvement with it. Um, UMass University Museum contemporary art, and they've, you know, engaged with a lot of local artists and, you know, have just so. You know, I think involving someone who is really on the jury committee who has that kind of broad knowledge of who the artists are in our community and can kind of speak to diversity in that in their selection is going to be really important. Great point. Yes. This is actually a pretty big project so I think it could be really it's it needs to get really at some point soon really narrowed down right into a very clear focus and then making sure that all of these different issues that we want to make sure you know that public whatever the product whatever we think we think it would decide that you know it involves public engagement and diversity and speaks to the town and so all of those things but I feel like we really sounds like a really short amount of time to me. Well this is October and the next meeting is November. Yeah, Lori that's a really great. I'm really glad you said that. I think with our time with our time challenge. I mean I think if we chose like something like a mural, and we had a basic theme that we thought would be really welcoming. And then we would ask we would get that jury together to come to come up with the best artists for this and then choose an artist and let them have the reins and you know that would be a great opportunity for our town. We can pull something else together so quickly by the end of the year. If you want to do it quickly than I said, having spent my career doing things under pressure. Then my suggestions would be that you need to have a very focused presentation in writing delivered to us as soon as possible, preferably within a week. I know that's asking a lot but then on the other hand so is getting this project done by the end of the year. And then we can study that and then have a meeting earlier in next in November because we'll get into Thanksgiving. If we don't, and then we if it's very focused and very precise and maybe, maybe the author of it has three suggestions for different projects that we could do. Maybe somebody would help that person so it's two persons working on and not just one. And then we'll have something that we can actually discuss. But right now what we're doing is we've got a lot of ideas are very general ideas thrown out because we haven't heard the project before so that's what people do. That's what I would like to see. So, Maureen, could you look into if there's any leniency at all for a commission to ask for an extension of the time frame that you gave us just so we happen to have that knowledge. Yeah, sure. I'm happy to ask. I should know that no, but I'm happy to ask. It also depends on why we're asking for it. If, if someone's asking for it, why would it be being asked for, because we, this is the first time this has been focused on and all the details have come up so it's really helpful to know so much about it. It's great. Thank you. It would be nice though to maybe, you know, say the commission has been in a lot of transition. And that the, I mean, I think that it's a good idea to be able to have all these great ideas that people are offering about the value of it and about the organizational difficulty of some of it. You know, to be able to feel good about that and not feel under the gun. Maybe we can make it a schedule for something next week, if maybe we can all kind of people who are interested in talking this out and throwing some ideas together. Just in case that doesn't pan out. We can think you'll be better off with two or three people because when you get more than two or three people is very hard to move quickly. It could be a subcommittee formed a subcommittee could get together and talk about it and not have to deal with the being so rulesy right with the public meeting law. I want to be on this. Not necessarily don't. Maybe maybe not. I would love to be on that. Regardless of whether they do or they don't I think we should have a subcommittee. Lori join me. Come on guys. Well I was, I was just going to say, you know, there's an organization called Commonwealth murals that is involved with the was it called fresh paint springfield and I think she still lives in Amherst. You know, who is the executive director of that and I, you know, hearing the obviously the time constraints. I forget who mentioned something about, you know, maybe it makes sense in this case to go with something that's already somewhat packaged you know they they have a model. You know, I think it's really important to engage an artist to create the mural and then the community is invited to participate actually it's like a big paint by numbers on the side of the building. Yeah, actually about that project though, because I had, I had brought that one up at at that meeting that happened in August and Gabby, the, the director at the BID said that she was going to resurrect that project on her own with her friends. Oh, okay. So who could we get to help Miss Pollack. So we got one volunteer Terry Holt. I'll volunteer. You too. No. No, I'm very interested. I unfortunately this next month, time wise, but I mean, depending on how much, how often you're going to meet or discuss, you know, what about, what about if we volunteer to have the net rather than you're volunteering to see the whole thing through to the end. The two or three of us that we volunteer to meet again, talk about this, because I think there's a lot of information we don't have that is going to be sent to us. We talked about Marine, you said there were several things you can send to us. We can review those, and then we can meet and really come up with kind of like all these things we talked about the timeline and some of these just come up with something that to really narrow this down and then come back to the committee. We got three people right now. We got three people right now right. What do we have me and Terry. Robert and Michelle everybody. Yeah, great. I think we should meet next week about this get all the information I think I agree or Robert I'm also super busy right now but we do, but I'll make the time. I think hopefully together we can narrow something down enough. How many people we got now. Four people. Okay, you just put yourself into an open meeting law issue. Four people cannot get a form a form cannot discuss matters in front of the commission without complying to the open. So there's a maximum of three on the subcommittee. Well, you know if it's if it's a formal subcommittee then you still have to comply with open meeting laws because now it's a formal subcommittee of the. The only way you can get around the open meeting law office legitimately just three people getting together to form their own proposal, unofficially. And then they can talk to each other they can't mail it to the whole committee because then they communicated with the form. And you can then present it to the committee commission. So we can't come together with an idea and email it to everyone you have to. You can, you can, you can email documents they're going. You're getting, you know, I don't really want to, you know, you're supposed to be able to email documents that are going to go for the committee on on the, as long as there's no discussion but if the document is a discussion and, and I can tell you from somewhere that Robert knows about that the attorney general has a bunch of very young lawyers and is dying to find violations open meeting laws so that even if you have a group of people who are not a committee. I mean there was one incident where they open meeting law attorney decided that there's a violation without talking to anybody giving nobody an opportunity to say anything. And he turned to a group of people who are not actually a formal committee until a formal committee for the purpose of finding a violation. So, I mean it's very fraught, the open meeting law is very fraught. I'd rather get guidance from somebody official at the. Sure. So, so for a seven member board. I can double check tomorrow but if I believe three would not make a quorum. So we could bring members we could meet next week. I can email the whole board. The meeting minutes that I talked about that I had with the Amherst bid, there was someone from the cultural council in the cultural district and some gallery owners, and then just more information about this grant. Overall, and then everyone would not email me back if anyone had any questions or comments to send to me that they would need to send it to me individually not copy all. And that's advice that planning staff gives to all board members. Okay, there's a footnote to that. Have you got somebody you can check with at the town about open meeting law issues. Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay, so you're, you're, if so, if the three people are not a subcommittee. Supposedly, they can meet and discuss things. Yeah, I can, I can talk to the planning director tomorrow confirm if it's three or two. And you understand what I'm saying because I'm not sure I got my point across yet if they decide that the three people are a subcommittee the open meeting law applies independently to the subcommittee and now the quorum is to Okay. So that's the problem that I would like. Yeah, I think this me honestly sounds like a subcommittee. So, in which case you would have to notice it and have public and it's much harder to function so I'm not I'm suggesting we do not take a vote and then. I think we should check because I don't want to see a violation open meeting law. And, you know, I hear you, you know, it could be. If this, if the discussion so far has turned this into a open meeting law subcommittee then you're going to have to comply with all that stuff. Could we meet again as a committee in a week with whoever can join us. Well, you could the subcommittee can meet, you know, the same way we're meeting right now about zoom and everything. Okay, as long as Angela is contacted and we make it like an official zoom meeting and everybody can see it like in the right. Yeah, that's the safest that's the safest way to do it. Okay. Hey, Maureen, do you want me to talk to Angela about that or do you want to go through your evidence. Yeah, I can actually you can contact her about when you have the date and time and you can ask her to put it on the calendar. Okay. So should we discuss now what what are good times and days for that or do we do that on email or do a Google doodle doodle poll or what's the best way to do that. You're doing it right now it's going to be a subcommittee. I think it's safer to treat it as a subcommittee anyway. I don't see any problems figuring it out right now. Everyone like is Monday the same time good for those that wish to join this Halloween. Oh my goodness. I can't do Tuesday I could do Wednesday this second. I don't want to be a nudge or anything but I think you should keep it to three people. And then other people who joined are joining it as spectators. Does Maureen count as the third person or is it three. I don't know three or four but the more you get the harder it is to get something done. Okay, so if three, if three commission members join Maureen that'd be okay. You know it's a judgment call. Yeah, we'll talk to Angela about it. As long as it's a newly noted average posted on the town calendar just needs to be advertising the town calendar for him. I'm free November 2nd also at six o'clock. I'm free November 2nd at six does that work for two to other members. Robert. Yeah, so Lori Terry and Robert. Now unfortunately next week is not good. I can go. Okay, we have Michelle anyone else. Great. Tell you what so I will talk to the planning director and see if two members can meet without needing to post this on the town. It is not safe to do that. Okay. I mean you can talk to her and she says if you get somebody say definitively fine. But this discussion right now. She needs to know that it was decided who was going to be on this group. Okay. I'm sorry. At this meeting. Because I think our next official meeting. Sorry. When is our next official meeting. We haven't decided that yet. We can decide that after we're done. Doing our other stuff. But I mean, if we wanted to take about it right now. So, I think we can talk to Michelle that are agreeable to meet. And I could call it. What? I think Lori also wanted to be. I didn't see you. Oh, so war. I think that we could let me confirm whether that meets quorum. If that meets quorum. If that doesn't meet quorum, then I guess they'll still just have to be postponed to the next. Regular schedule meeting. We only need 48 hours. Yeah. Okay. If you guys could just keep me in the loop on that when you're meeting and stuff, just so I know that you're meeting. Just for, I don't know. Kicks and giggles. Okay. And then what's, what's your next regular scheduled meeting. Okay. So, I just want to actually look at that right now. Since we have our calendars out. Let's do that. Do you want to do Monday, the 14th. That's before Thanksgiving week when things get crazy. I can do that. Or at least I think it is, is. I can do it. Thanksgiving is on the 24th, right? I believe so. Okay. I think we can start thinking about Thanksgiving. We even start thinking about Thanksgiving. So. The 14th at six. I can do that. I can do that too. 14. That's six. All right. Actually, do you want to figure out December while we're here too? Or actually, let's wait until maybe we want to like really. Work on a deadline kind of thing. So let's leave. Okay. November 14th. 14th. I got it right. Okay. It's six. Okay. Okay. And we're running a little long already. Okay. So we'll wait to hear back from Maureen about. The working group thing. And do we have to have an official vote to make a working group? Let us not do that because the minute you do it, you have no wiggle room whatsoever. Okay. All right. And then. Okay. So I guess we're all set with making it public. Thank you, Maureen, for your time and expertise. So much. Yeah. Okay. I look forward. Working with you all. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Being that we're working on. We're running. Long here. Let's not talk about logo. We'll talk about that next time. But I did want, I did have an update about boltwood gallery. I talked to the Amherst cultural council and they're willing to. Let us bump our grant to next year. So next year, like in the. In the new year, we'll be thinking about. How we're going to be putting out a call for artists for the boltwood walk gallery project. And I was thinking actually, maybe we should have a field trip sometime. To get you guys into the boltwood gallery so you can see like what we're actually talking about. I'm out of town. I'm out of town. I'm out of town. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Is there a time that like. We could just like me. At, at the parking lot behind where like Judy's used to be. And I could like get you guys in and show you guys. What we're talking about. I'm new to town. So I don't know what Judy says, but. I can look up Burnett gallery. It's on Amity street. It's on Amity street. It's on Amity street. I don't know where that gallery is in the library. Okay. What is it that space that Judy tried to turn into something and. No, it's, it's like the top of the parking garage. There's like this. Like utility closet, but there's windows looking into it. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Poetry in there. Like ages ago. Yeah. Yeah. So that's ours now. Yeah. Yeah. Is that, is that the mass cultural council or the Amherst cultural council? That's the Amherst cultural council. Thank you. So yeah, I would, I would love it if we could just like take a look at that. And I would like to give the key. And I've got a box of files too. That should be with somebody else because I'm going to be out of town a lot. Even during this time before March, I'm going to be out of town a lot. And so it would be really awful to need access to, with the key to the. To the portal gallery and not be able to have it because I'm out of town. So if somebody else wants to be the, the key master. You're very welcome to it. I know we don't have much time. So, but I'm confused about the Amherst cultural council and. The Amherst cultural council. The Amherst cultural council. The art this commission and that space. Are they all connected? We have a grant from the Amherst cultural council to. Essentially give an artist some money to do an installation. We have in the past, we did one last year. And it was very cool. It was like very kinetic. We had an art field trip. And so there's an opportunity for, like all kinds of like things in there, it doesn't have to be just like flat art. Okay. And the town hall. And Amherst cultural council in terms of. Maintaining and. No, the, they just gave us money for it. given to do something else with it. Right. Okay. To give to another artist to do another installation. I see. Thanks. Thanks for the clarification. Okay, do we need to come up with a time to do this field trip? Yeah. Does anybody have any time, some time this week to go just take a little peek glue at this? What day are you thinking? I'm, I'm versatile. Well, kind of. You're not feeling very good right now. Yeah. I missed that. I missed I came at the tail end of something that happened for you. Oh yeah, I was in a car accident this weekend. I'm sorry. Yeah, it was not fun. Oh, this weekend is looking kind of, you know, this week is rough. I've got some time next week, but I don't have any time this week. Okay, what about it? I might have some time Friday. Anybody? What Friday? This Friday, the 28th. Yeah, I do. Anybody else have some free time on Friday? No. Late, late. Yeah, this, I mean, let me explain long. Sorry. Late afternoon, possibly, but not, not in the early part of the day. I can't. At five o'clock, I turn into a pumpkin on Friday. That's a good weekend for that. Yeah, right. So I'm free around four. I work at the Historical Society on Friday, so I can't, but I've been there. Okay, so I know where the space is and all about it. I know the space, so I don't know if I need to see it, but Robert, what about you? I don't work in town and I'm a fair amount of distance away. So I mean, you know, I can probably figure out the time to at least walk by it on my own and then scheduling is a challenge. Just look in the windows if you do it because it gives you an understanding of what's behind. So just again, where is the space? It's like that space. Do you know where Johnny's Tavern is? Yes. Okay, there's like, there's this stairwell that leads down to the parking garage that's in front of, that's the spot. And we have the windows, but there's also like a utility door behind the windows. We have the key and that space too. Oh, okay. Right in front of where the white hut used to be. I forget what it's called. Yes. Okay, okay. I'm 10 minutes away if you want to call me and see if I can get down there whenever you do it. If you want, I can maybe get down there, but it's up to you. What would you be telling us if we were, because I can't probably can't get there, but I get there on my own. I would just give you a tour of where the power is and how far back the little shadow boxes go. And you could take a peek in the back room and see the maximum space available and just stuff like that, just to get familiar with it. I would be happy to join, but I don't think I can do it this Friday. I could do it Friday and then we could go at a different date and I would have the key if Shashana can't make it. Right, yeah. I'll give you the key and then maybe other times might work out between the two of you. Why don't you email me separately, Shashana, and just give me a good time for you on Friday. I'm pretty available after noon. So give me a, just tell me what time to meet you there and I'll try to find my way there with these weird directions. I will somehow make it there. Yeah, it's a weird spot. I don't even really know exactly what to call it. I knew my town. If everywhere is weird, it's okay. Half the things downtown are named to Boltwood, so it doesn't help. Yeah, just send me a good time for you. We'll sort it out. Okay. All right, and I think that's about it for today. I actually am running late for another thing that I got to do, but does anyone else have anything, any like pressing issues, unforeseen 48 hours before the meeting? I'm going to adjourn. It was nice meeting you all. Yes. I second that we adjourned. I third it. All right. Thank you everyone for coming. It was a pleasure to meet you all. I can't wait to do some more work with you guys and definitely think about like all these different roles and opportunities that are coming up for all of you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night. Feel better. Thank you.