 Welcome, everyone. My name is Angela Mills. I work for the Town Manager here in the Town of Amherst. This is a meeting of the Town of Amherst Public Arts Commission. Due to the continuation of the suspension of some of the open meeting laws, this meeting will be conducted via Zoom webinar format. And we thank our wonderful governor for that. And at this time, I would like to recognize Tom Warder and Terry Holt, the co-chairs. And I will turn it over to them. Thank you, Angela. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. So Angela kind of said most of the preamble, but I'm going to say welcome to the Amherst Public Arts Commission meeting of April 3rd, 2024. As you know, we're all, how do I say the three? Okay, members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by clicking on the Zoom link. This recording gets uploaded to the Town's YouTube channel after our meeting. No in-person attendance by members of the public is permitted at this time. Every effort is made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. I think that's about it. And I'm going to do a quick roll call and then I'm going to turn it over to Tom, my co-chair, who has done an amazing job getting together this agenda and doing so much work in the last month. So I'm really, really grateful for Tom. I'm sitting here with a, I just got out of surgery on Friday on my knee. So I'm kind of laid up and doing well though. I'm healing really well. So I see Mikey's here and Lori is here and Jim is here and Tom is here and Terry is here. I have not heard, I've not, I heard from Dara, I know Dara could not make it. I heard from Robert. He won't, he won't be here either. Okay, I think we're it. All right, so we'll go right on ahead and I turn it right over to you, Tom. Thanks so much. Okay, let me try some screen sharing here. Did I, you do you have the power here? I don't know that I do. I saw something. Oh, that was Lori. Lori is turning into a sign. Lori's here. Oh, she'll be right back. I might have had the, I might have the power. Do you want me to pull up the agenda, the agenda, or what would you like? Let's do the minutes maybe first. Well, okay, wait. Oh, it's not me. It is you. Okay. All right. Here, here is the agenda. All right. Does everyone have, did everyone get and retrieve and have in front of them the, the agenda? Yes. Okay. So we got, we got a lot, a lot to try to cover today and including a couple of items that we really, really need to do. So I'll try to try to get us able to, to do those. But let's start with now with the minutes. So, again, if you have your own, so much the better. Do I have the attendance correct for this is going all the way back to February. Jim was not in that one. Yeah, that's all right. No, I couldn't come. You have the meeting was called together at time. I've fixed that to make it six. Six, so five. How about if I move the minutes be approved is submitted. I second that. Okay. I'm all in favor. Hi. Hi. Okay. The minutes are approved. Thank you, everybody. I'm going to. The agenda. Okay. Are you showing the agenda because I'm not seeing it. I see it. Huh. I must have something going on here. Well, the next item is electrify Amherst. I've got happily to printed one on my desk. Okay. Yeah, electrify Amherst is one of the items that we need to. Try to resolve today. There are. It's kind of two aspects to this one is that the funding. Came up short of what was requested. So we need a decision. On how many boxes. To undertake. And how much we're going to pay. The artists as. As a fee and as an allowance for. For paint and other and other materials. So we have. 875 approved. Is this, is that correct Terry? It's actually, I think the grant was for 850. 850. Okay. I had asked for enough for three boxes, which would have been. I think, I think I asked for 1500 plus materials. I think I might have asked for a 17. We got 850. The going rate in other towns has been basically $500. A payment per artist. And I don't know the cost of paint. That's kind of something I got to figure out, but. I mean, it was several years ago. So cost had gone up, but. No, I've not been able to find that amount. I could get it, but I don't think I can get it in a timely manner. I have it. I may have a file, but I might need to look it up. I've got one, but I don't think I can find it in a timely manner. We're trying to get through it in an hour. I think the prices have been pretty steady as like. Four or $500 per person per artist. That doesn't include materials. I don't believe it does. 500 does not seem excessive to me by any means. No, it doesn't sound like a lot to me either. What if we had more? In any event to go ahead with this, we're going to have to supplement. The, the. Granted funds. And presumably that comes out of our commissions. Budget. If that's, if that's the way we're going to go, then. I guess that leads to points quickly to the question of whether to. Try to do 2 or 3. 2 boxes. How much do we have in our budget available? That's a pretty big. Not here either. What if we had a donation from somebody to pay for the, I know somebody that might donate. Yeah, me too. I think if we can make up funds also from some businesses, especially if we ask the down to the business improvement district, I think we could actually supplement. The cost. We could off off that word off. Anyway, we could get some help with the cost. Yeah. Especially well, if one of them is, if one of the boxes is in the business district. Maybe we should do all the boxes in areas that we could. Possibly have businesses help. I think we should do 3 at least. That's my, that's my, that's my hope. And then 500 bucks each and then think about material costs. That's what I would agree with also. I believe we, I believe we have over $1,000 in the account. I can remember back to the last time we did know. Well, we better have 5,000 somewhere. 5,000. Yeah, we really should. Well, doesn't it still have that? That question has never been answered thus far. I'm still waiting for an answer. Yeah, they've kept that. Well, it's, it's in the town, but they've kept it. Yeah. And that's not where it should be. Well, I think that we need to ask for it to be used for public art. And this is a very good reason to use that. Right. I think we can probably get my opinion. I'm not trying to summarize any kind of decision yet for the committee, but. My opinion, I think we're close enough that we should. We should decide what we need to for today. And then also go after this question of where do those remaining grant funds go and. Are they usable? Yeah, I move that we, that we right now approve the use of funds to fund 3 boxes for this year. Second. I have a question. What's the timeline on this project? This will be, we'll put out a call for art in the spring. And this will probably be done in the summer. It's my guess. Is that about right, Tom? It was in the, this is one snip, but I do have from the past. And that is that it was done. Done in the fall boxes were actually painted in October. My suggestion is. That we, we want to give Angela. A posting. So she can start pulling the materials together. So when do we put out this call? How long do we give artists to respond? How long do we think we need to review. The selections. And make, and then a date where we would. Post. You know, get in touch with people and notify them. And post the results of working backwards. I'd say if we want to be painting. In October. We want to let the artists know and. I don't know, maybe mid to late August. And we would want to give ourselves maybe a month. To review the. The returns. Maybe we would aim for something like a July 1st. Response deadline. And then we might want to. Go with a mid April. Or late April. Posting. Okay. So correct me if I'm wrong, Tom, but we have a process for this. For this project because it's been something we've done in the last two years. I know she's going to talk about it. So we haven't seen it. I haven't seen it, but Angela assures me that we do have it. Yeah. She's shown a road about it actually. So that is something that is actually current. So if we can, we can just kind of follow the bones of how that works. And like you said, project manage it and work backwards. I think that sounds doable. Yeah. So if it's, if it's acceptable to the commission, I would suggest that we go that way, that I can get in touch with Angela. We set up the, the calendar, those dates. As we just ran through them use. Use the past process and. Web forms, et cetera, et cetera. And be ready to go. Great. Thank you for answering all those questions and outlining it. So I, again, then move that we. Move forward and with the electrified Amherst project. For three. What are there for three. Electrical. Yeah. Electrical boxes and the call for artists and the timeline as outlined. Okay. All right. I second. I have a question. Is that if we get more money, does that mean we're going to vote for more? We can vote for more boxes in the future. Is that what we're saying? I think we'd need. Before trying to answer that, I think we need the, we need to know about that money. In the next few weeks. Okay. So, but what is the, what is the commissions? What is, what is everybody's feeling about. You know, adding, adding additional boxes to the count. I think since we. You know, if we, if we don't, I don't know where this fundraising outreach is. Going to come from in the next few weeks. So, you know, the possibility that we would have to use money. From what we currently have, which doesn't yet include the money from the town. So, you know, I'm not sure what that is. But I think we need to know that they're holding that came from the previous. From the arts question. I would say no, my, my feeling would be that we should do the three and then if we get money again, then this is a project we could do again next year. If we get money in a timely manner. Would we want to go forward this year if we get the money. If we don't get the money. We have fewer human resources than we would like. I don't want to bite up more than we can chew Jim. This Mike is my only concern. Okay. This answers my question. Okay. Okay. Let, let me call for a vote on, on the, on the. On the motion that Lori has made and Terry seconded. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Hi. It passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. Let's see, let's, let's move on to the percent for art for the new elementary school. There. I, I sent everyone a copy of that document. I'll go over quickly a few, a few highlights of it and, and suggest a focus for our discussion here. Now, let me. Put up that. Bylaw I've shared that one here on this. On the screen. We run through the definitions here. They're really talking if these are projects. That. Are budgeted at least. A million dollars. And this involves public buildings or. Spaces. And the artwork. Is to. Be permanent. The project. Project is the term used here. The project is to be permanent. For that facility. That, that venue. And. We are. Prompted and reminded here in the. The first big paragraph on this page. That it could be any form of art, painting, sculptures, engravings, carvings, frescoes, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not limited. That way, in fact, the intention is put here for it to be fairly broad. And by the way, Jim, you, you were. You, you worked on this, on this bylaw, I believe. Yes, I was on the percent for our committee and I did. So jump in if I'm getting anything wrong or. Or, or. Getting, getting onto dubious reading of anything. I don't think you will, but. Yeah, okay. Again, I'm just trying to do this, this quickly. So this could be. New, a new construction or renovation. Then we get in, there's quite a bit of language here and in the next section about. Which money counts for this. And I'll just sort of jump to a shortcut to say that the. That by Paul Backelman's agreement. Not that that is the deciding factor, but it's a deciding interpretation. And this does include the elementary school. Also, I, Terry and I learned at a meeting with him that this is the first instance where the percent for art is going into action. We want to get it right. Okay, well, it's, this is our chance to get it right and blaze the path for the, for the future. That's right. Who knows what we'll rebuild the public works building one day. Okay. And then key piece here is the last. Element defined that there is a percent for our advisory committee. The temporary committee appointed by Paul Backelman. For the project. With consultation by public art. Excuse me. We actually, we actually recommend those, those people. And we recommend. We recommend the makeup. Of the. Of that committee. Now I'm going to take, I'm going to take a dive ahead. Onto page three under responsibilities. For us. So that. That project committee is not us, but it's a, it's a separate committee. And that we advise on the makeup of it. And this is touched on in item number one under the responsibilities of the. Of the a pack. So these items all refer to us. Is that what is it one through Jeepers goes on one through 11. Now, Paul. Directly asked us to do what is in number one here. The first item. So. This would be to. Set up the. That I packed. I mean, set up that help him set up that committee. And he wants us to help establish. Guidelines. For the, for that committee to use. And so that would be. Guidelines with regard to the. The request that would go for proposals that would go out to artists. Do we want to specify what, what kind of artwork, what kind of medium. Do we want to. Say anything about a suggested or required theme. Or topic for it. And also. Some advice on where it would go. Now, what we heard was very preliminary. We being Terry and I at the meeting we had with Paul. There are. Three, there are three locations inside the building. That are have been discussed in a very preliminary way. So one would be a large wall just inside the front entrance. Something that everybody coming into the building would see. A second place would be. Down at the end. Of a big corridor. On the first floor. And again, that would be a prominent. Display, but not necessarily for people who are just coming in and going to the office. If you think of the layout of the high school currently. You can come right in and go to the office and see very little of the interior. Third interior space. I believe was on the second floor deeper in the building. Was it maybe by the library or something like that? We, it was kind of vague. And then it was also, and then there's also the possibility of, again, a mural. Going on the outside of the building. And then with regard to. 3d piece of art. 3d work. You know, that might go somewhere in the. Outside the building near the entrance, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So quickly in summary. Paul would like recommendations on the makeup of the committee. So that could be either the kinds of. Persons, the profiles of people. Is it that we'd like to recommend. And and also any names we want to pass along to him as, as suggestions. And then there are those questions about the nature of the work. So I can get on with that. Right. The only footnote I'd like to. Introduce is the introduction to section five says. And the percent for art program shall be administered by the public art commission. Under the supervision of the town. And then we can manage it with the assistance of a percent for art advisory committee. So what I'm suggesting by reading that is that we have quite a bit of. To say about this and a lot of responsibility. Yes. What is the total? What, what would that. Point 5%. The total amount to approximately so we can know the size of the budget. Okay. Well. On a, on a million dollars. Again, check this French majors arithmetic, but on a million dollars, that's going to be 50, 50,000. The project. Is multiple millions. Now I kind of hedge it that way because the question is. Again, how's the accounting on that going to work? They're already, they've already, for example. Put out, you know, awarded a contract. For preliminary work on the site and that begins in fact tomorrow. So they change the roadways and start excavating. But the main contract for the construction has not been. Has not been awarded yet. And. How much that is what is worth. Will be worth and. So it'll be, it'll be. It'll be multiple millions. Now there's a. Very interesting little clause at the end of the funding section. Okay, where was that? Funding funding. Here we go. Okay. Okay. Following consultation with the town. Manager, the town council may by majority vote. Lower or eliminate. The percentage for art on any qualifying construction project. So I read that. To meet to be saying that we don't have any guarantee on what that. Number will be. And it's sort of vague. So I'm, I'm a little. Curious about how this works then at what point. Do we have a number that we're really. Able to work with to. Because it really depends on the amount. That we're working with as to what. You know, type of art. And what, you know, what the parameters would be. And so it's. Am I reading this correctly that at some point along the way, the town can just stop the whole thing by voting. Not to. By voting to eliminate it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And the reason for that is they wouldn't pass it without it. But it's really this process means we're really going to have to work hand in hand with town council before we put in a lot of effort. We will have to get a budget kind of upfront. And work it out with town council before we do a lot of work. Because otherwise. Also notice. It says in consulting with the town manager. So. In addition to the town council that we need to. Smooth. We also can work with the town manager. And I agree with you. We should get everybody committed. Yep. On the budget before we go forward. So. Very important. I mean, if they say they're not going to change it, it takes most people won't go back on their word. Say that again, Jim. I said, if they say, okay, we agree with this and we will go forward with the town council. Would this be something that. At what point along the way in this project, it's breaking ground this week, right? At what point in this project? Do. Or it's a question. Do we think that. This would be voted on by the. Town council. What I mean, would we present it to them? How do we. Do we present it to them? So. The, what I understood from the process from talk and the Paul. And from the town council representative who was in the meeting. That clause is there as a kind of. Failsafe. Like, if they're going over budget, if there are concerns, you know, there's something else was. Came up as being too expensive. They can all of a sudden say, okay, well, we don't have enough funding to pay for this art project. So that's why it's there. It's not a just in case scenario, but it's a just in case that could easily happen towards the end of a project after we've gotten, you know, call out, we've gotten artists lined up. If we. Concerned. Yeah. Artists. That would be very difficult for them to deny the function because that would force a breach of contract. Yeah. So my view of what we do is early. We decide what the project looks like. We get it written up. We go and give a copy to Paul and get him on board. Get a get. If formally or informally get the town council to agree to it. Point out to them, we have to let the contracts, blah, blah, blah. And make it very difficult for them to change their minds later. Yeah. My sense again, just an interpretation. My view. Is that the. If the town council were to step in. According to this clause, most likely it would come up front. Yeah. Projects have contingency funds. Built in so that. Construction overruns. You know, sometimes those will. Exceed contingency funds, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are cannibalizing other approved lines. That, that gets kind of difficult as, as, as Jim's been pointing out, once you've got some of these things nailed down. They can't be that easily swept aside. My, my recommendation is this, that if we come back to Paul and say, well, we're not going to do anything until you tell us how much money we've got. I don't think we're going to. We're going to move this very quickly. Jim's shaking his head. I don't think that's the way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. My suggestion is that we. Is that we. Start working on this. Right now. On the presumption that it's going to be. At least $50,000. I think we can keep in mind too that the biggest. Single outlay that the town has ever made. For public artists, as far as I can see. Was 34,500. For those poetry boxes. Remember those famous boxes in the wall with the parking garage. Nice. So we, I think, I think my recommendation is that we would. There's going to be a negotiation. There's going to be a long series of negotiation over this. I think, I think we want to put something out. To open it. My recommendation. I'm sorry, but let me point out that this will be a precedent. And I can also tell you that it originally was going to be a percent for art. And then that cut down to a half a percent for art. And so if you go in there with a low ball. Suggestion. It's not a half a percent. Yeah, that's going to set. A precedent that's going to. Farm. Subsequent projects. Right. And also. There's a principle of negotiation. Negotiation. You know, if you do a really big thing and you get turned down, then you can say, well, if you can't do that, could you do this? And most people will be fine to say yes. So my recommendation would be, let's get on the ball. Let's get it done. And let's go for a half a percent. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. At least. I would say at least half a percent. I don't know. Well, meaning 60 or 70 is maybe just winging. As defined in this statute, the full amount of statute provides for. And then let them. Ship back if we have to do that. Because it wasn't easy to get this past. There was a lot of resistance to spending money on art. Yeah. And the half a percent is for a half a percent of the whole project. Less. You know, whatever they're determining is not. The part of the project, the million dollars is. You know, the cutoff, right? Like anything over a million. Is Rick, this applies to an anything less it doesn't. Oh, I don't know about that. I don't have to look. Oh, I thought that was, that was anything over a million is, is that slow? Anything 100 million, I don't think applies. Yeah. Exactly. New construction over a million dollars. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that if it's. It doesn't apply to any project that isn't over a million dollars, but that doesn't mean that the, the percent half percent applies only to the project over a million dollars. And I don't know the answer to that question. That's not how I understood it. Okay. I might be, I'm just saying, I don't know. But I guess what I'm saying is it could be five million. It could be 10, you know, whatever the minimum is a million. The minimum is a million. Right. Okay. So the minimum we're talking about is $50,000. So I think what we need to do is kind of dream, dream big and think, let's think about what. What we think would be a really amazing piece of art for this building. Yeah. That, you know, speaks to who we are and who we want to be. And. And then, you know, think about what that call would look like. Somebody talked to me before. On that, what the amount of half percent applies to please. Too complicated to do now. But we also have to think about it as it is geared towards the children. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because everything is geared towards. Other stuff. And, you know, I just think because. Both Tom and my kids get went. To Fort River. Well, at least one of Tom's. Yeah. And just, you know, geared towards the kids and what's important and Amherst. About children and about education with children. Right. I think that's something we all need to put our thinking caps on and really think about not, not as adults, but for children. Plus it is very difficult to take money away from projects or children politically. I, when you were describing the building Tom, and I haven't seen any. You know, drawings for it, but I really liked the idea of that entrance. When you come in. So it sounded like there was a large entry and wall area. And so I think there could be something really interesting that an artist could do with that. It could possibly even be something that is interactive, you know, that, that moves. I don't know. But I like the idea of that space and, and possibly out an outdoor, some, you know, the outdoor spaces that you suggested. But I think the one with the most impact sounds like that first entry space. And so there is already something planned for that space to Tom, if you remember that conversation, there is an interactive wall, big wall monitor that's going to be in that space right up, right inside the front door. That is a, is a, I think it's like a touch screen. It's going to have a lot of information on it. And so I don't know where in proximity to that. Installation, this wall was, I wasn't sure if it was a little bit farther down or, I don't know where exactly. We don't really have the specific location like yet. They just kind of gave us a couple of ideas, but. Of the building. Captain. Do we know where that is? Wouldn't they have made one? I, if they have, I haven't found it. It could well. It could be in the superintendent's office. Yeah. Well, I think what we're agreeing, we're suggesting then is that this project be have a focus on. Being relevant to the students who will be. Attending and be occupying and using the building. So maybe to the students and. And the staff. But to the, to the students and that it be. In a place that is prominent. I think that's the most prominent that we'll have the most interaction. So, so it may not be that entry hall if there's something very interactive going on in there. It may be. I got the impression that Paul Bachman personally liked. That space for this piece of art. Again. I bring that up not. To try to push this to any kind of. Conclusion, but to say that it seemed that this was available. And that the interactive display as Terry described it. Was not going to monopolize. Or compromise that main space. Okay. I would, I could visualize. What, what they're thinking about already is maybe being on one of the side walls. We don't know. I don't think. You know, it's a matter of, gee, we're going to recommend a mural. And they've got a paint around the computer display. That. You know, it's going to compromise. So sweet. One question I have is, are we talking. Do we want to be thinking about one piece of art? Or do we want to be thinking about more than that? Yeah. And could it be architectural? Could it be. There's, there's a building that's where I grew up. A school and the artist built created this. Seating area that when you walk in. Was like a dinosaur or I don't know what it was, but it was. So you could climb all over it. And there were all places to sit for, for students to sit. And to be able to read it. And you know, it was so cool. So that sounds amazing. It does. Amazing. And I call your attention to the. First page under definitions public art artwork means it's very broadly defined as to what public art is. In that section. Mm hmm. It could be something like that. Something that that students could sit at and draw. And you know, it could be architectural. And it doesn't have to be on the wall. Mm hmm. I like, I like that. It definitely need a site plan. We need some kind of a like a blueprint of what this building is going to look like. Right. So we know what, what areas we have. And we need to look at like, uh, children's, um, other children's schools that they have built or like children's hospitals, they have all sorts of places like this. Mm hmm. That are interactive for kids. It's going to be a preschool through fifth grade. And it's three stories. Hi. I thought it was two. Okay. Yeah. I think we're making good progress on this and go back to something. Maybe it was Lori said a moment ago or asked. Suggested. Um, What if we. Didn't limit it to one thing. So I could imagine. Something that's inside the school inside that prime space that we like. And there's maybe something outside. Connected with it. Some thematic or artistic. Let's call it artistic way. Um, Or running with that thought. Maybe there are. Uh, Recurring. Elements of it. Elsewhere. Inside. Inside the school. So that it's not just one child. Uh, and that there's an experience that. Sort of moves. You know, with the person who. Walks through the building. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's lovely. I wonder if, you know. Something. If. If we could think. And it may not need to be. Today, but about, um, Kind of this theme that is makes it relevant to. Uh, the children who will be in, you know, Students in the building and also to, um, Their experience. Maybe growing up in the Amherst. So maybe it's tied somehow to. The landscape. Something. I don't know the geography or some subject. That relates to. Mm hmm. To either what they'll be studying or just to place. Place of Amherst. Um, but, but something that's. That we can do without. Um, I mean, I, I know we. I know that. I mean, some, some, I don't know how to say this, but. You know, so I'm thinking like landscape or the land. Itself. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. There's lots of room for, for, for thinking about this. And I think we should all kind of do some thinking and then come back to, to talking about our ideas. And this might even be really fruitful conversation to have at a retreat that we were trying to. Plan. You know, Sunday. But this is something we're supposed to be giving back to. The town after this meeting. Well, here's, uh, here's my thought. Just, you know, just formulating it as I. As our discussion here goes along. I think we've got to get something back. To Paul. Like within the week. That. Um, Sort of gathers. Some of these thoughts and directions and preferences. That we're coming up with in this meeting. Asks some questions. About scope. Budget. Uh, here. So that. We can get some. Get some more focus that way. And then give ourselves with, you know, with that response. By ourselves a little time to meet again. Sometime in April. And then. I would say that's going. In terms of the advisory committee. I think that should be part of what we come back with. From this week as well. And I don't have specific names, but I think if we could come up with. Great. If we have come up with sort of a number of people, you know, that we recommend that there be three or five people on this advisory committee. One is. You know, has a background in public art. One in architecture, one in, you know, art history, whatever. And then we can do that. And then we can do that. And then we can do that. Like just come up with kind of a profile. I think we could do that. Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah, I was wondering. Whether. We can re, we can reach into the. Five colleges or at least. You mass. And if there is. If there were a graduate program and architecture, and I know they have one in landscape architecture. They have one in architecture. In architecture. Yeah, I'm wondering whether we could sort of. Look in that direction. To, to, to find, find somebody. Right. Maybe somebody. In design. The chariot design. Yeah. There's going to be an interior design team. For the building. And so we need to know. What their. What their scope is what their color palette is. What they're going after. I think it might be a good idea to consider putting an administrator. Maybe even the principal. Of the school. Yeah. As re committee. I want to be the not fun person to say that we do have other things in our agenda to cover. So we probably need to. Make a decision to move on here. Okay. Do you need names? Go ahead, Mikey. Do you need names of people that possibly. If we have any names, definitely. Yeah. I have Amy Crawley who used to be on the public arts commission. Definitely. She is the assistant. President. Let's see. Gigi's president. Historical society. Yeah. An artist. Yeah. Oh, I think she needs to be absolutely involved. Good. Sounds good to me. I think Paul said that he was thinking something like, you know, seven, seven members, seven to nine members. And that two or three of those are going to be. People from town government, you know, he'll put on there. I think obviously. I mean, they're not going to put this together without somebody from the school administration. Yeah. Yeah. And DPW is the town planner. Yep. She's across the street from me. Yeah. Yeah. And the other, the other four should be comprised of people that we, you know, we advise we. Yes. Okay. I think I've got enough from the last few minutes here that again, I can put in a little, I'll call it a placeholder, but some recommendations and thoughts that, that will be useful to Paul and the others involved in planning this and will give us a couple of three weeks to come back again with a second round after we had a chance to think and talk together some more, some more about it. That sounds great, Tom. Okay. Okay. Good. In the interest of getting some more business done. Jim, are you ready? And do you have an assistant ready there with you to help? Yes. She's coming over because she's been working on this. Well, Gigi, if you want to come in here. We'll list you as a public contributor to the meeting. Right. I'll sign in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Some time ago, I started working with Eric Browdy about his proposal for a mural exhibition on Amherst's East common. And I think did Jim send this to you? Yeah. So Eric, of course, passed away. And it, this is one of those projects that the pandemic helped eclipse. And also we were trying to work with the art teachers. I hate this thing in the elementary schools and they were, I don't know, fire, you know, laying off teachers and the remainder remaining teachers couldn't take on anything additional, which would have been trying to get students to do artwork for this mural scheme. So it just kind of died on the vine. But since Eric's death, I thought, you know, wouldn't this be a nice sort of pretty long lasting tribute to him and to the contributions he made to the community? If we actually got this off the ground and it turns out that Eric was great about sharing every piece of correspondence with every teacher and everything else. So I have a budget that I think Jim sent you today for the, you know, scaffolds that hold these big vinyl panels. It's a doable project. The town was eager to have it put on the East Common. This is of course adjacent to Fort River and whether or not it would be able to get $10,000 from that half percent for art. I don't know. We had to make a presentation to the town council to get permission to use the East Common for it. One of the advantages of it is that the hardware can be taken down, stored during the winter and then re-erected with new panels if that's the direction that it goes in. This is something that as Eric planned it, I think it was going to include something like 30 murals. He saw this in place, I believe in Tampa. Tampa is a very large city with a very large population. 30 panels may be a bit much for us to handle in Amherst. That would be 10 of these huge scaffold things. They kind of hold up, hold together if they're triangular in shape like the base. Well, triangular in shape, just leave it at that. So I'm kind of thinking maybe that's too much. We could cut that in half. It would make it much more reasonable in price. We were going to apply to the Amherst cultural council, and since it was going to involve high school students from the regional high school, we were also applying, thinking of applying to Leverett and the other schools. I don't know if this is anything that anyone on the public arts commission would like to spearhead. I'm perfectly happy to turn over all of the files and all of the information that I have. If there's someone out there that would be interested. I just think it's too bad to let it die. Lynn Griezmer, by the way, is very high on it. I see her from time to time, and she always asks me, so are you going to do the East common thing? And I just have to say, I don't know. So there's some support for it. And we did get permission to use the common. The other benefit of doing it on the common and getting it, it would get our name around and would get us possibly some more political support for that and the other various projects we wanted to do because it would be quite noticeable. I didn't see a budget. You mentioned $10,000. So the total budget, and this was 2022, was $12,092. And that's for 30 panels and related hardware. Eric priced it all out and I think, you know, Lowe's or Pome Depot. It's just all standard hardware. You can go out and buy. Which is kind of interesting. But that doesn't include the, you know, an artist overseeing this or. No, we were going to be using the school teachers to feed us the art. And, and I think Eric. I guess we probably were going to get, you know, like three people to jury. But I think Eric was going to probably be. The lead person to follow through on it. And what was the idea of what the art would be that was on these panels? That was the complicated part. It was going to be school of students in the schools. And. He was hoping for a thematic. Approach, which was something to do with students. Sort of expressing their identities. It was kind of complicated. And I think that may have been too complicated. I think, you know, you, it could go in a completely different direction. You could do a call for. Contributions from artists. In the community, just in general, or go back to the school idea, but not have it all be. Contained in a theme. I, I'm not sure that that was going to really be effective. And I think it was a stumbling block because I don't think the art teachers thought that they could, in fact, force force is pretty strong induce the students to really aim their artwork towards something like this. So I think that. That's open. And forgive me. I don't know who this artist was. Was he a teacher in the school? Oh, Eric Brownie. Oh, well, he was a long time. Well, he, he and his wife, Daisy, moved to Amherst probably 15. Or more years ago. He was very active as a photographer. I remember seeing a show he did that was at Amherst college. And he would just take photographs of people on the street. I think for that one, he started another project, which I think collapsed during COVID. He decided to take a photograph of every visitor to his house. For a year long period. Anyway, he was a member of the public arts commission. He and I got well acquainted on serving together on the Amherst cultural district steering committee. But he and Renee. To bear the libers. Do you remember, do all of you remember Renee? No. Anyway, I, I met them not long after we moved to Amherst. I guess it's through the cultural council and a project they wanted to recommend that in fact, wasn't going to work, but we spent a lot of time talking about it. Yeah. Very well known in the community art community. His name comes up quite a bit in, in the records. You know, as Gigi said, he was, he was active. On the town public art scene in a number of different ways, different instances. You know, he did a series of interviews of. For I suppose Amherst media interviews of artists. Where they could introduce their exhibitions to the public. And they were. Recorded and probably live streamed. Gigi, I have a couple of, couple of comments. One, one is that. I would be a little bit worried about that. These lightweight. Items being out there. All the time on the commons and, you know, being vandalized or stolen. But on the heels of that thought. I could also see them. Being, being used on. Specific occasions. Let's say if, you know, around high school commencement time. You know, for seniors artwork. Right. There was some. Events. Again, we maybe get with the cultural council people. That common. As far as I see almost never gets used. Unlike the main common. Right. Yeah. There's no way to do that. Yeah. But I would, I would worry that. That, that, you know, one, two or three of these things, just sitting out there day and night. Day after day. They survive very well in Florida. That's nice. And we should look at that because I, I'd rather be reassured. Yeah. Insist on. That as, as being a worry. Oh, I agree. But not everything gets graffitied. You know, this is a preliminary stage. And if we like the concept. I think is the first decision to make is this a concept we wish to endorse. And then that's an important detail that we would want to thrash out. But I think to be thrashed out near the end of the. Yeah. Yeah. I think. I think it. Looks like a really interesting project. And one that. You know, has. Relates. To the town in ways that it could be. Could be used, whether it's student work. Or other work, but it also. Sounds like it needs a, a significant project manager. And I don't, and I don't see us as a committee. You know, being able to, to take on that role. So to me, it feels like it needs a. A project manager to take it on. Yeah. That's, I think is very true. Yeah, I mean, I can poke around and see if I, I really don't want to be the project director of it. I mean, I, I could, but I, I don't. Mikey saying, no, you've got the historical society. You don't. And that is a worry right now. And it will be for the next two years. When Mikey, when Mikey suggests. Overwork as a possibility. No one's coming from. I mean, that's also, you know, if we say we like to do it, we need a project manager. I mean, I've got great relationships right now with people at UMass. I mean, and there is an arts administration. Certificate program. And that would be a great place to find someone. This isn't. This isn't like putting together an international art exhibition with. Yeah. You know, international loans and travel and, you know, translating catalogs into three languages and printing. Simultaneously. This is a pretty simple straight forward. Yeah. Project. And there could well be a student. And some of those are some of the students in the program are. You know, mature enough to be able to take responsibility. Make good decisions. Are they grad students or undergraduates? Yeah. Not an undergrad. No, no, no. This is the arts administration. What certificate program. Okay. Jenny. Jenny Lynn, who was on the cultural council. Is. I know her. She's at the, you know, contemporary art museum. Yeah. Yeah. Probably could find somebody. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Probably could find somebody to do it, but it needs. I mean, it doesn't have to come out of the public arts commission. It's just Jim was saying, you know, like a six months ago, oh, we don't have a whole lot to do. It's before you kind of remembered the half percent for art, but. All right. I will, I will volunteer to. To put some thoughts together. Summing up. The suggestions questions. Okay. And the sense of this meeting for us to come back and look at again, I'm going to suggest. To. To everyone that. We're. We're getting a generally. Receptive. We're feeling good about this. We acknowledge it needs more work. Be thought out. Yeah. But I'd like to keep it alive and help it move. Okay. So, could you tell me to contact Jenny Lin. Yeah. And see if she has any ideas. Yes, and. With her anyway, and this will. I used to work with her when I was at five colleges. Okay. I haven't talked to her for several years, but she'll remember me. And I'd be very happy. To be part of that sort of exploratory. This would be a great project for collaboration as well. I can see working with a historic district who also have some funds that might be able to be used in this kind of a project. I get this wild idea of sort of pop up. Public art. Yeah, there's something that shows up. Love it part of an event. Let's say it was all weekend. And it was it was collaborative. I love that. And it had artwork that. You know, it wasn't going to necessarily be seen otherwise. I don't mean to. Shove the suggested the the proposal in that direction. I'm just sort of. I don't know that pop up is the way to think about these are. Pop up. That's old. They were put on the 15 panels instead of 30 is probably. Yeah. And I understand that these, these sink into the ground, that's what they, yeah. Oh no, they sit on top of the ground. Oh, I think they not blow over. Yeah, I think they'd have to be installed. Because they, it's the way. It's the way they're joined together. They maybe have spikes that go down, but it's that's what I think I've seen. I think somebody in, was it Tampa, you said, has, somebody's figured this out pretty well and we should, we should do that. Remember, there are hurricanes there. Yeah, they would stand hurricane. Right. I think I'll stand through snow. Yeah. Well, I don't know that you'd want to leave them up during the winter, but. They do on the brochure, the image, the top right. This one really shows very nicely how they're installed on a tip of land that goes out into one of the bays. So they're exposed. And they're huge. And apparently they don't get graffiti. Anyway, it's a great idea. I think if Tom has the time and the space to help. Steward this through, I think it's a great idea. What do you think, Mikey and Lori, do you, you on board for this kind of thing? I'm on board. Just not on the committee. I totally hear you. I can't even raise my hand. My wife will be like, no. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. We'll all agree on that. No way. It's like hovering going, don't do it. I bet though that it. If there were, if there were an umbrella. That. You know, a recent arts extension student or graduate or. Also people get that get kind of stuck in Amherst who are very talented who don't have enough to do. Yeah, I'm one of those people and failing. We'll get Liz Larson to do it. She's got energy. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you said this. I didn't give her name for the other committee. I gave Amy. I heard you give Amy. I think Amy would be thrilled and. On the other committee. Yeah, good. May I point out that the half percent for art definition includes landscape items, including the artistic placement of man made fountains or other functional art objects. Yeah, that's this. That would be this. So it's eligible for percent for. I'm sorry. It's Sarasota, not Tampa. Sarasota. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Did everybody get a copy of this or did I screw up my. No, you did. We're good. I got it. I got it. Yep. Tom, I'll see if I can get hold of Jenny and are you generally pretty flexible on. Or not. I'm retired. So I've got nothing but time. Okay. We love Tom. I have no money, but that's okay. Okay. Well, I tell, I've told people that I've retired to genteel poverty. And haven't worked in higher ed for my whole career. I'm well prepared. Thank you so much for presenting. It was great. Oh, welcome. Wonderful. Thank you for listening. I thank you, Jim. Yeah. And Daisy. You know, Eric's widow is. Eager. You know, it's a great honor to see this go forward. As she said, Eric would say run with it. So. Oh, neat. I have to say that you both look very interesting going in and out of that background. Yeah, you're like fading into the mountain. That really could be an art piece all on its own. There you go. The audience. The audience could be projected into the art. Well, wouldn't that be good? There we go again. It's like the spiritualism movement in the 19th century where you. Yes, yes. Your head just floating around. Yeah. I'm your plan. Okay. The clock is saying eight minutes after seven. I'm going to suggest that we can. Dispense with the rest of the agenda here. Um, can I just give you, just ask you guys? Go ahead. Question because, um. There is what, so we've been getting a lot of interested artists, but I'm concerned about a couple of them. So do I just send you guys. Um, information. There is a gentleman in California. Who went in and he's a poet, but. He doesn't live around here. It really needs to be a regional Mikey. I mean a new regional can be defined as we choose, but California is not regional. Good. Good. I just want to make sure. Yeah. We're really trying to feature regional artists and spaces, not just, you know, people all over the world there. Okay. So the other person is Bre Barnes, who wants to do a whole big thing on transgender. Yeah. Okay. So that's a, and there's Gillian. Haven, who I know who did a show in Pelham, Agnes, McCravens doing one in July and August. Yep. We have Elena Sturm. And then there's the newest one you sent me the other day. Yep. They're coming at us now because we have started this ball rolling and having receptions and getting our name out there. So we're looking for them. They're coming to us, which is really, I'm really proud of you guys. Fantastic. Yeah. Okay. So the other thing is, is we need to start asking for, or charging them. I think we're going to instead do the other, the other thing where we're going to get a budget from the town. Oh, okay. Okay. And then we did talk to Paul about that. And he was receptive to that. Okay. So that's good. And the Cambodian group is going to put up sort of these paper things because they're doing such a huge exhibit. At the historical societies for May. They're going to put up these. Just, just a couple, maybe just in the front. Section of the, of the town hall. For May. Okay. Okay. Right. Thank you. And you're going to talk to them, right? So you want to talk to Mikko Connor. And Gigi about doing something together with that reception, it's all together, right? Right. Well, the May 11th is the opening and that's going to be much more about, um, they're going to have, uh, the, the, what are they called? Priests. They're not called priests. What are the, the guys up at, um, the, um, peace pagoda. The monks, the monks are doing a service and an opening of the exhibit at the historical society. I'm 11th. So we should be there. Yes. Um, but, uh, doing an opening at, um, the town hall, I don't think they want to do that. Because I think it would be nice if, if we could show up to the May 11th reception. I think that would be a great idea. I think we should, we can also use the public art webpage to put up a page for them. Yeah. Um, they have a, um, I'll get met to send information to you, Tom. Yes. Excellent. I'll get Mikko Connor to do it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. That's awesome. So the next reception, then we'll be our, um, our, our June, our June. Okay. So that we're getting back the, um, right. But are we going to do a reception for them again? I don't know. We already, we had one already. I don't know if we need to. I don't think. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think the next one is Agnes McRaven for July and August. And then after that, I'll find out from Gillian. Brie and Alana. Who wants to do the next one. I think it might be for somebody from the town for these things. And we did talk about that, Tom. Yeah. We did kind of like come up with like a $50 per reception saying kind of thing. And I think Tom seemed pretty receptive about it or Paul. Okay. Receptive about it. Cause it keeps coming out of pocket and. Yeah. We can't be funding it. I got to reimburse myself by the way. I still, I still haven't gotten a form for that. Angela's going to send it to me. I need, I got a couple hundred dollars. I need to get back. Okay. So the other thing is, is I don't get, or wherever you're getting the names or these people, I, nothing's being sent to me. So I get. So Angela sends them all to me and then I send them to you. Okay. Okay. Cause they fill it in a web form. The web form automates an email to Angela and Angela. Automatically sends that to public art. And I get all those boards. So the other question. The, all these things are coming to an email address. Which is public art at Amherst.edu. Right. Which Angela monitors. Okay. You know, things coming there could need to go in any number of different directions. But getting through to you is a priority. Okay. So whenever those things show up, I try to send them right, right over to you, Mikey. Okay. Okay. I just thought maybe I was out of the looper. I wasn't going to the right place. I kept going through and looking. So the other big thing is, is people, I guess we're putting things in the library. In a box. Yeah. We completely, we, I didn't know anything. I don't think Terry knew. Oh, oh, oh. I didn't either. I remember Shoshona telling us that and then it went in one ear and out the other. And I completely forgot. That's going to get moved. To town hall, I believe. Okay. Is that what Angela said? Yeah. Yeah. I'd hate to think there was a suggestion box out there that we didn't know. Ideas in it. I hope people aren't putting mail there because I have, I didn't know anything. I remember she told me why and then I forgot. Okay. Okay. I suggest you take that form that you're going to get and send it to the board. Once we've got it. We're going to send it to the board and then send it to the board and then send it to the board and then send it to the board and we're going to have to manage it off reimbursements and send it to each of us so we can keep it. So it won't be delayed. Okay, got it. Good idea. Good idea. Right. Anything else for the good of the orders. I used to say. There is no, we don't have any public. Here to. For public comments. I move we adjourn. Yeah. Anybody like to. And. Okay, I'm going to guess it's approved. Thank you, everybody. I will send out a doodle very quickly now tonight or tomorrow. Trying to get us together, maybe in a couple of weeks. So that we can get some more substance into place on that work. Or, um, percent for art. Um, try to get some more information up. I'll start things moving with the town to get a list of locations of boxes. We can consider. So we don't paint one that's going to get taken down. Yeah. Great. Or we don't. We don't overlook thing. Don't overlook boxes that we know DPW has to approve that too. Yeah. I need to talk to you about the amount of money we get. Yep. So. Should I call you tonight or what do you want to do? Um, that you can call me tonight. Yeah. Okay, fine. Thank you, Tom so much for all the work you've done. I love this. Yes. Can't wait to go through it and you've done so much work. I'm really grateful. Thank you. Good meeting. Really good to see you all. Good night. Good night. Thank you. Hang on for a sec. Okay, good. That's even better. I think I can leave without this way, right? You got it. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. All right. Hey, here we are. All right. Is the recording off? Um, no, it's probably still on. Let me give you my phone number. Yes. Okay. 413. 530. 7, 5, 1, 3. Okay. I'll call you right back. Okay. Thank you. Bye.