 Okay, so good afternoon, everyone. This is a meeting of the public art commission for the town of Amherst. My name is Angela Mills and I work for the town manager's office. At this time, we have not reached quorum for this group. And if one more member arrives, then they will reach quorum and be able to take substantive votes. And if that does not occur, I would ask the members who are present to remember that what's discussed here should not be discussed outside this meeting, and that you encourage other members of this group to refer to the minutes of this meeting for further information. So, at this time, Terry, if that's all right with you, I will make you the host. Yeah, that's fine. Thank you. I'm good with that. All right, thank you Angela. Welcome to our recording. You're good. Thank you. Welcome to the universe public arts commission meeting of June 5 2023, June 15 2023 minutes. I'm Terry Holt chair. In light of the ongoing covert 19 coronavirus outbreak, then governor Baker issued an emergency order on March 12 2020 allowing public bodies greater flexibility and utilizing technology in conductive meetings and the open meeting law. In pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access access the meeting may do so in the following manner by clicking on the zoom link. This recording gets uploaded to the town's YouTube channel promptly after the meeting. No in person attendance by members of the public is permitted but every effort is made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological process. And the event they are unable to do so, or regardless we will post this on the town's YouTube channel shortly after the meeting. All right. All right, so that's about it. Let's go ahead and go forward. I hate to miss. Yeah, but we've got some things to discuss here so we'll just we'll just move forward. Okay, first let's take a look at the minutes and approve the minutes did you all get get a copy of the minutes. No, did you send that. I said I'm not right after them soon after the meeting. Oh, then I probably did. A while ago. Yeah, it's a while ago I think I have them up somewhere I had one, one, one mistake I found. I can share my screen if one take a look at it hold on a second here. All right. Just to kind of everyone can take a look here. Right. Yeah. Not that one. The other one. I swear this is so tricky. All right, one second. Okay. I'm on the wrong screen. Let me try it again. Sorry, this is always so confusing killing me. All right. I have the minutes a few. You've got it. I've got them. Okay, so if you can see my screen. The one thing I found Jim was just you have Miss King read the script concerning remote dissipation. If you just change that to miss hold. I'm sorry. Oh, everything else looked, looked fine. Whoops. Sorry about that. Laura, did you have any changes? I was. I think I was there. So it doesn't say I was there. Yeah. Yeah, you're up there and members present. The first line. Oh, I'm looking at the wrong ones. Okay. Okay. You're looking on my. Okay. I do. I see it now. Okay. Sorry. I'm looking at the wrong ones. Okay. Uh-huh. That's all I saw. We can't approve the minutes at anyways without a quorum. So we'll just note any changes for the record. And we'll vote it before it for the next meeting. Okay. Great. Okay. So we'll move on then because we can't exactly approve this. Okay. Okay. Okay. And do you have the agenda for this meeting? I do. Do you want me to, do you want me to bring that up? Is that easier for you? Um, Did you send that too? And I missed that. That was sent by Angela last week, but, um, I can send you. Oh, look in my email. If you look, I just let it look up Angela Mills. It's right. It's the, you should have got a reminder yesterday also. I got the reminder. Okay. Um, Yes, I think it was on both of them actually. I'm going to share my screen again so that we are all on the same page. Um, going by our agenda. Um, So invite public comment. No one is here. We cannot approve minutes. So I can go ahead and read my chair report and I sent that to you, Jim, so you should have that. Yep. Um, okay. Just one second. Just for future. So. I've got these emails from her about how to join, but I don't have minutes. So when you mean agenda. Agenda, I mean. Um, if you will search your email for Angela Mills and then agenda. I think agenda is actually in the subject line. But I can make sure you get it. Okay. I don't believe I'm getting that. I have all these reminders from her, but no agenda. So in the future, if she can send the agenda out to everyone, that would be great. She should have. I don't know why that's what you didn't get it. So I'll, I'll check with her about that. Okay. So, uh, chair report. I just want to update you where, uh, where we are here on, uh, things that I've been working on. Um, uh, poetic dialogue. Uh, I've been in contact with Camel, who's, uh, really nice guy. He's also applying to be making a public grant, which is really great. Um, he is going to be doing a repair on Robert Frost. And he's accepted our $500 proposal, which is fantastic. Um, I told him that we need a written invoice and a W nine on file before I can get a check. I talked to Holly about that. Um, so when he has those ready for me, I'll go pick them up and start working on the process to get him paid. Um, he plans to do the work as soon as he can. So I'm looking forward to getting that done. And then I think this may be the last repair we do on poetic dialogue. I don't think, uh, after this, if, if more repairs are needed, I think we're going to have a conversation about ending that project. Cause I think it's costing, it's costing more than it needs to be costing. Um, the town website, I just following up, I talked, we were talking about the, uh, commission's presence on the website and how we were, um, lacking a place to put our calls. And so I talked to Angela. Um, and I was, um, I talked to Angela and requested a new page. I was very detailed about what I was asking for. And Angela work with the communications director, Brianna's son, son reads. Don't know how to say her last name. To make the additions that we requested. And, um, so all the recalls for artists are now on the site and you can take a look at it. If you like, it's live. Um, they've also done some changes to the, uh, tour. So it's a little bit, I think that might have been broken before. So I'm really grateful to the town of Amherst and Angela and I'm really excited to be here. For making a public, uh, I'm very excited. Gabrielle is here to talk to us about that. Um, I put a boost out for the call and I submitted it to the Valley arts news and put it on our Facebook page. Um, Gabrielle got our list of potential judges and she has in turn asked who on our, on our commission would be interested in, uh, helping out with that being a judge. So I kind of, I'm going to put that out to my commissioners and I'm going to talk about that in a minute. Um, so you'll discuss among yourselves and we'll figure that out. Um, Gabrielle reports that there are applications in and she's going to talk to us about that and just a minute. Um, for the portal gallery, I created a Google form for submissions and I submitted the call for artists, uh, with the link on the application for the application to the Valley arts newsletter. It's up on the website and I put it on Facebook as well. Uh, we have one application already and I've got, I've got a couple of them. Um, I'm going to go ahead and fill out the grant project amendment request to extend the deadline for payment. Um, this came from, um, Amherst. Um, The folks at Amherst cultural council and that'll give us some time to view the applications and work with the artists to finish that, finish that work and get that done. Um, I'm going to go ahead and fill out the grant project amendment request to extend the deadline for payment. Um, I think that was all I had in my chair report. So, uh, I would love to move on our treasure is not here. So we're going to reach past that. And we can't talk about town hall without. Mikey being here. So, um, I would love to move right on to Gabrielle. If you would talk to us about making it public and we'll. I'm going to stop my share. And if you want to share something, you can. Great. Thank you. Um, so. We extended the deadline. Um, Terry, you sent it out. We sent it out. We had Brianna at the town put it out. Um, in the end, we have three applicants. Um, and I think once we know who our panel is going to be, we will send this out to all the panel lists that the panelists, I think. Um, you know, the rubric will help and that's going to be a great starter point. I'd love to see a panelist that's, I'd love to see a judging circle that's very diverse. Um, and, um, hopefully well versed in the art world. So I have met with a couple of faculty at Amherst college who are in the art department who are part of our BIPOC community. And then you guys put a great list together. So I think the next step is we reach out to this group and ask who would like to be part of the judging. Um, part of the judging circle. What I think the easiest way to do this is to share the information with the audience. Um, and then I think we can get us all together. Um, and one of the questions I have for this group is, does somebody from this group want to be a judge or would you like to be with me to be the, um, liaison and just the, the sort of, um, we'll oversee the, the meeting when we get everybody together to pick which of these three artists are going to be the ones that get the grant. Um, and that's pretty much all I have to say is that, you know, it's time to reach out and see who wants to and has the time. I think one joint meeting after they've done the rubrics, and they can kind of get together and, um, talk amongst themselves and ask us any questions. Um, I don't know who is on your panel, but I believe that we all identify as, um, white. And I just want to make sure that this group is part of the BIPOC community, um, unequivocally. I think that that's very important for this, um, particular art project. Um, and that's pretty much all I have to say is that, um, I think that we all need to get together and talk amongst ourselves and ask us any questions. Um, and then they can make their vote. That's, that's wonderful. I've got, I don't think I should be a judge. I would be thrilled to work with Gabrielle to make the, um, To oversee in liaison as needed. I'm happy to help run, you know, run that meeting. Um, that's where I would like to step in if that's okay with all of you. Anybody else wants to be a judge. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great timeline on this. Well, we've, you know, we've done so many extensions. What I'd like to do is after this meeting tomorrow, send a BCC email to the list of people that you had put forth and a couple of people that we added to the list. See who responds and who's invested. Um, basically tell them that the, the commitment that we're asking from them is their ability to meet in person. Um, to meet on a Zoom. I'm fine with either. I feel like in person allows people to communicate better, especially if they're talking about art, something that I think this group will be very passionate about. Um, and then we would have one meeting. Um, and again, it's, it's three. So the rubric may be the simplest thing that they all come in. It's one clear, you know, the rubric said that this artist hit all of the salient points. And there it is. But if it's a little bit nuanced and they want to discuss and have, you know, change each other's minds on the rubric, they can. And then I think we announced who the winner is after we, after we go through the artist and invite them. Um, to be the artist of note. Um, I know that, um, Our DRB. And our DAAC. Um, and a couple of other people have to be brought in. So I think once we have a winner, we should go, um, to them as well. But I'm also a little bit worried about, um, I don't know how you ask. Um, These groups to, to decide whether they. Like, I think the DAAC is very simple. If it is handicapped accessible, meaning it can be seen from all sides. And you know, this is not a climbing structure. This is not. So I have a feeling the DAAC, it can just be a simple, you know, open and close. Um, what I'm worried about. And I, and I think we have the most fantastic DRB committee right now. I'm just worried about, um, again, people looking at art that is BIPOC, that is voted on by BIPOC judges and having any, um, You know, say of whether or not, you know, it's appropriate. For Kendrick Park. So I'd like to speak with Erica Zeke post about that. Who's the, the chair of the DRB. Board and see how she feels about it. And then we can go back to Paul and ask him his advice on that as well. So I need to ask you what those acronyms stand for for the minutes. The design review board. And the disability. Uh, I have that somewhere. Thank you. I'm sorry. I don't know what. Disability access advisory committee. So we had a disability. Disability access advisory committee. Okay. I think we had it first considered asking one of the committee members to be on our judges actually. And one of the reasons was that there would be kind of a buy-in for giving us advice on how to make sure that access is addressed. And with the proposal that we accept. I think there would be like any kind of. Position where there would be a yes or no, like no, you cannot do this. I think it would be more advisory, like, you know, this, this would, this would work, but we have to consider these things. And that would be, that we would work that into the proposal with the artist. So yeah, I don't. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not sure. The next DAAC meeting is at the end of August. And I'm not sure when the next DRB meeting is. So those, those things always get thrown into the works as well. And at this moment, it is my understanding that all of these groups are self-identifying as white. So again, it's, it's hard to ask them to be judges on this panel because this is a BIPOC art piece. So. I think it's very sensitive to who the judges are of the art that is representing. Not my people. Right. Right. If you, you're reaching out to these potential judges, how will you choose? Is there a limit to the number? I believe that. In the grant or can. Me too. Everyone you reach out to says yes. I mean, I, that's probably not going to happen. But I think that's just how you're handling that. I think if it's okay with you, I'd like to look at the list again. And if they have an art background in some, in, in their bios, I think we'd like to start with that. Because I do think it's important. It's, you know, it's, it's, you know, having a singing competition, but not having any musicians in the room to decide, you know, if they're on pitch or tone. So I'd like to see, and I think several of the people that you introduced and the other people that I introduced are in the art community. So I'd like to start with them. Okay. And I don't think this has to be laborious. And I don't think this has to be a big panel. I think five would be an amazing number. Okay. I know that in our, in our first ask, we had a larger number than that. Yeah. But that was the, the town planner was kind of working with us. Yeah. And we had two APEC members, one. Representative from the ACD. Two members of the public town staff. I mean, there's very specific what our town planner was asking us to look for. And maybe she, I think she already had people in mind, right? But I think five is plenty. I'd like to move this along. So. Do we have to vote on this or is this just going to be like, do we have to. This doesn't seem to be. You can vote, but if everybody feels comfortable with this progression, we can start to move this forward. I'm a little bit worried. I'm away for three weeks of July and two weeks of August. So I'm also very like trying to, you know, get us into a good place with this and schedule this in a time that can work for all of us. And Terry, I'll throw the doodle poll at you before we send it to any of the potential jurors. Great. And I worked on some, some verbiage with Lori for sending, for sending out emails to our potential jurors. I'm going to send that to you. So I want to use any of it. You can. Yeah. I will send it from the two of us. So I will CC you on it and we'll start with that. Okay. I will copy what we came up with. And I'll call email it over to you. Okay. That's great. So what was your timeline? When do you think you're going to get the judging done? I'd like to reach out to the judges tomorrow. It is a three day important holiday. It's Juneteenth this weekend. So we can give them a couple of maybe like until the end of next week to respond. Yes or no. And then reach out to a couple more if we, if we don't have the five that we're looking for. I'd love to see if we can get them to. Get their rubrics done by maybe. See, it's already. That would be the end of June by the time. We can get them together like June 10th or June 11th sometime. I mean, July 10th or July 11th to do the final vote. And then we can send it to the DAAC and ask them if they might want to do an email group with, with their, I'm not sure what the rules about that are. And then we can see if we can get our in the DRB schedule. So I think, you know, I believe that the goal was to have this up in November. So we have some time, but we also want to give the artist enough lead time to start their creation. Right. Okay. All right. That sounds good to me. Okay. Great. Any other questions for us? That's hoping for more than three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I have three. It's a, it's a, you know, I know it's not a big money project, but it's a, it's a nice. I think it'll be a really great visual. A great visual for our town to have. I think had. I'm excited. Accessors gone with a mural. Sculpture, $10,000 for sculpture. It's just, it's zero money. I mean, it's just, it's asking so much of a metal worker. Yeah. Yeah. Mural would be fantastic. But we weren't part of that. I don't know if you were. I wasn't part of that conversation. Yeah. I think we would have had a hundred submissions had it been a mural. Right. But I know like one of the sculptors talked to me. You mentioned Camille earlier. You know, he's one of. You know, and I know that the piece that he has put forward is very similar to a piece that he did for another community project. He's a local here. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I think. It's just a sculpture is, you know, I want to do a very hungry caterpillar sculpture at some point. And like have it in our downtown, like the ducks in Boston. And I might, my husband was a fine arts major and a sculptor and a painter. And I showed him my idea and he was like, great, that's $250,000. And I was like, Oh, okay. And he's like, yeah, and that's $250,000. So I think sculpture is where we kind of, we kind of blew it. Right. We do have free, we do have free BIPOC artists who are interested and to give an artist $10,000 to create something that, you know, hopefully speaks to our community. I think it's a great opportunity. I think so too. All right. Anything else on this matter and Gabriel, are you going to stick around with us or do you need to take off? Yeah. Yeah. This is my eighth hour of zoom today. And I really. Thank you so much for coming and reporting to us. What's going on with that. And I'm excited to get this thing moving along. I know Lori, I speak for you too. This came out of nowhere when we first started with the commission and we, we feel like, like it was kind of thrown at us and then the people left. So we've been trying to figure it out all along. So thank you for joining us and being part of this. Thank you. Thank you for jumping in on this because when Paul told me that they were just going to let the grant go, I was like, um, no, we can, we can figure something out. So I think out of ideal circumstances, we're going to have at least a martini with a lemon twist. Absolutely. Yeah. Without a town planner was, it was going to make it impossible for this commission to do this. So thank you for jumping in and doing this with us. Thanks guys. Have a great afternoon. Thank you so much. I'll send you an email right away with this, with this text. Bye. Bye. It's just us now. Oh my goodness. I think if I remember correctly, we were steered away from murals. I think we were, I think we were told, um, that that, that the downtown, there was some other group working on murals. And that was off the table. Really too bad because I really think that we need more murals in this town. They're beautiful and they, they beautify your downtown areas. I love them so much. But anyway, sculpture, it is, and yes, they, uh, sculptures are very expensive to create. And I do see her point about, you know, I feel like we're not paying these artists enough. And I, I hate that part, but I'm thrilled that we have free applicants. So look forward to that. I look forward to looking to see what they've got, you know, what's, what's going on. Um, let me see if there is a person missing here. Um, no, no one's in the waiting room. So it's just the three of us. Okay. Cool. All right. Well, What else do I have to talk about today? Um, Well, it's going to be a really fast meeting. We can't do strategic planning because obviously. You know, there's only three of us. So we'll do that maybe for the July, if we can all get together in July. So I'll send out a doodle poll about timing for July. I'll find out what, uh, what happened to Mikey this week. And, um, I think that's about all I had. Does anybody have anything, any business that we didn't anticipate prior to the 48 hours before the meeting? Oh, All right. I will say I've got, um, I am going to fill out this grant project extension form and send that in to the Amherst cultural council and hope you can get an extension on the boltwood project. But I'm going to be looking at, I think two applicants for that and I will report. I guess we'll be meeting and talking about that in July. And well, thank you for all that you're doing. You've taken on the lion's share of all the work and I'm really appreciative. I just wanted to like apologize for being a little hard to contact. I've kind of come out the other side on these, uh, this, uh, the death of my mother and all the funerals and Memorial and a lot of traveling. And I've been a little hard to contact. So I apologize for that, but I'm still trying to get things done. And I think that's, um, Well, you are getting a lot done. I'm very appreciative of all that you're doing to carry everything forward for. For this commission. Well, thank you, Lori. Um, I think that's it. We're, um, I think we have, we might have a candidate, um, who is applying to the Amherst public art commission, but I don't have, they actually canceled the meeting we're going to have with a potential, uh, group of applicants. So I think that's it. I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Angela. I'm hoping we're going to bring somebody else aboard. That would be really great. Kind of divvy up the labor a little bit more. I'm going to volunteer to be the person working alongside, um, Gabrielle to plan, whatever. Uh, get togethers that we need to get this thing off the ground and get it done. But, um, maybe. May I point out something. Yeah. They snively said that I was appointed until somebody else came in. They said that. I thought you would just be up for a year. Well, the last thing I saw in writing was what I just said, which frankly does not make me happy. I didn't see that. I did. Okay. But just, why is that James? There was something going on behind the scenes that I'm not fully aware of. I think that. I was thinking it might be a term limit because there's a, you can only, um, You can only work so many years. Well, I've only been up one term. This is my second term. Right. I don't wonder what that's all about. Well, then we have to work on chain on rectifying that. Yeah. I mean, it may, may be okay. I just, it's a footnote. All right. I'm going to reach out to Paul about that. That seems a little, little sketchy. I would suggest Angela. I can do that. She's easy to talk to. Exactly. And I think she's fully aware of it. Okay. I'll talk to her about and see what's going on. I'll report back to you. Great. Thanks. I don't know what that's about. I'm very glad to have you here, Jim. I think they said something about I was sick or something. Well, you were sick. Once. All right. I'll find out about that and get back to you. All right. All right. If we have nothing else, then I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night and I'll send a doodle out for July. And I can't even call to a German just going to adjourn. So have a great night. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. I can't even call to a German just going to adjourn. So have a great night. Great. Thank you. Thank you.