 Okay, I have begun recording. I will read my legal document that I have to read at the start of the meeting. Um, pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted by remote means members of the public who reached to access the meeting may do so by a zoom. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by a technological means. In the event that you are unable to do so. Despite our best efforts we will post recordings of the meeting on Amherst media. And there will be minutes and transcripts available as well. So I'm going to call to order the Amherst public art commission meeting of February 28, 2022. And I'm going to check to make sure the members who form a quorum can hear me and our presence. So, Jim Barnhill. Yep. Darrow wheat wire. Yes. Ellen Kiter. Yes. Great. And I'm hoping that Shoshona will get here. But we will proceed without her. So let me bring up my agenda. Sorry, I should have gotten that ready beforehand. All right, so we have presentation today by some members of a member sunrise I believe who are with us as attendees for the moment I will bring them in as official participants shortly. Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess we should just do that. Yeah. So normally we would start with the chair report. But I have them, I want to bump them up on the agenda so that we can get them going. So why don't we start with that? Is that okay with everybody? Sure. Do we have three? How many? We have four. You'll see the names when they come up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So let's sit on the minutes. Yeah. Okay. All right, I'm bringing. Bringing you guys in. You can start your cameras and or. Mike's. Let me know that you can see us and hear us. I can hear and sing you. Great. And I'll have you guys introduce yourselves in a second. Once I know everybody's here. Let's see. Or I'm having trouble. Okay. Julian. Welcome. Good. Let's see. Can you. Can we see your and or hear you right now? Okay. I'll see your image and I get a blank. I get a muted mic. Nope. And also Mark. I can see that you're in as an attendee, but I can't hear you. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. I seem to promote you to panelists for whatever reason. So Lyndon. Are you there? And Mark. Let's see. I can try to allow you to talk. Mark, can you hear me? Oh, there you are. Where's Mark. Yes. Can you hear me? I can hear you. I cannot see you. That's fine. That's the way you want to be. Yeah. Mark. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll get everybody, but Lyndon is still, I see a name, but no. It's muted. Anybody able to get in touch with him and. Get him in. Julian and Rita, either of you guys. No. Jillian, do you think you could slack message him? Cause I still don't have access to slack. I can give him that a try. Yeah. Sorry about this. That's all right. Jim, can you see everybody's names? You can get those for the minutes. Yeah, I got it. Okay. Thanks. I got three people. Is that the total? There's four. I don't see the fourth name. What's do you have? I have a major Julian and Mark. And there's also Lyndon. Paisal. Hang on. And that Lyndon is here. Well, we're not sure. I don't want to write a manless. He's here. He's not on my screen. Is he on yours? Yep. Are you showing all speakers? Your view is set to show. I chose. Gallery view. Oh, I don't. All right. So. What was his name? Spelled. L-I-N-D-E-N. Chris name. The last name. P-A-E-S-S-E-L. All right. Julian and Amrita. Are you, which of you are both of you going to be presenting? What is your plan? Basically, I will be presenting. And speaking for an introduction. And then I'll pass it off to Amrita. Okay. So would you like to get started? Might as well. I might as well. Yeah. I spoke with Lyndon. It appears that he is having some technical difficulties joining the meeting. So may or may not be able to attend. Okay. So introduce yourself. And then tell us, you know, go into your presentation and. And we can do the same when she takes over, I guess. Absolutely. Yeah. So my name is Julian Heinz. I am a. Amherst high schooler. I'm a sophomore. And I've been a. Amherst for about a year now, maybe a little more. And most involved in. Other town affairs as some of the folks on this call. Are aware of. And I will start sharing my screen. Can you see this? Yes. Fabulous. So yeah, sunrise Amherst is a local chapter of the sunrise movement. And the sunrise movement is an intersectional. You fled organization. That was found in 2019. And has local chapters set up. All across the country, including me in Canada. And I believe there might be one or two in Mexico as well. And we are the Amherst chapter. And. We've been working on election campaigning. The FY 22 and FY 23 budget. We did a school walk out on climate justice. Climate change. We. Helped with a protest. That was around. Stopping. The pipelines. Gas and oil through. The. Native American reserves and such. And we've held community involvement. Campaigns and forms. On both the budget and other. Issues locally. We summarize Amherst has. Been around for many years, but we recently took over as a new hub leadership after. Our other leadership went off to. College and other parts of the country. So I will pass it off. To. I just will touch on. Really quickly. The idea of what we're doing. Per. Per mural. Why we want to create a mural. Is to spread awareness on issues such as climate change. Encourage. Local residents and youth. To be active in our community. And bring out our towns. History of progressive. Vibrant. Activism within. Amherst that has been alive for many years. And. Simply it'll make our town more beautiful and help create a good sense of community. So those are some other reasons. And I'll pass it off to. Yeah. Thank you, Julian. So I'm on my director. I use your pronouns. I'm 15. And I'm a sophomore at ARHS. And I'm also active in our community. And bring out our towns. History of progressive. And I'm a sophomore at ARHS. And I'm also hopefully like Julian. Yeah. We're hoping to do a mural like Julian said. And we've already kind of created a design that we'll show you in a second. But first we want to kind of tell you why we're doing this project. So we're doing it because obviously there's a climate emergency. And we think that a mural would not only address that. To some degree and push people to be more active, but also to kind of reassure people a little bit, because I think that often we feel very alone in this fight. And it's really easy for us to kind of be overwhelmed by our emotions and just give up and be inactive. And I think just talking about it and acknowledging that it's a problem that affects all of us can be really helpful for people to kind of open up their hearts a little bit and start thinking about ways that they can be involved. Because it's really scary. And I think it would probably be, I mean, we're hoping it will be beautiful. I guess that's objective. But yeah. So it would make our time more beautiful. Could help us build some community sense, like knowing that there are young people fighting as well as older people. And I mean, we have a long history of activism in our town. So it can help kind of bring to life that. Yeah. And. Yeah. So. Yeah. I mean, I mean, Linda. If you're here, you can present this, but if you're not, I can do it for you. Yeah. I'll be able to present from where I am. You will or you won't. I won't. Okay. You want me to. I mean, do you want to read it? Sorry. Yeah. I'll read it. Okay. And introduce yourself to. Yeah. I'm Linda and basil. I'm a seventh grader. In middle school. And. I am by the. Sunrise creative team. And I cannot find the presentation. Sorry. You're good. All right. Yeah. And this draft was made because to represent. Like the potential. Problems of climate change. And what can be done to help it. On the left side showing the basically post apocalyptic world. That would be reality after. If we don't do anything about climate change, and then there's the way to achieve. The, the side on the right, which is. And on the right, we have. The world. Like the ideal world. That's all good. And I was just going to give a little bit more logistics too. All right. Yeah. And let's do you have. Sorry. No, I don't have the, the, the, the script here. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'll say it really quick. Jillian, you can go to the next slide. Yeah. Yeah. So we're hoping to do it on an electric box. Like you said. So like what the design we just showed was like. The front of it. We haven't decided. Like exactly what the sides would be yet, but we're hoping to kind of continue that theme and put on the left side more like. Destructiony stuff and on the right, some more like peaceful and helpful things. And we might put some like helpful word moment. Somewhere. And we're estimating that would take us about two weeks to complete it. And we would kind of buy all the supplies ourselves and paint it with a team of people our age from the creative team in center. Yeah. Thank you. So that's the presentation. Everyone listening on the slide above. You can see that we have an example of. Activism type related art. And it's not an Amherst, but it's a good example of what activism art can look like. And then another one of the electric boxes that is pretty. Prominent. The main intersection downtown. Guys, thank you so much. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions. For you. Does anybody want to. Kickoff. Questions. Yeah, mine is for the minutes. How can I get copies? Of that, because I'm supposed to close the minutes. Documents and pictures that were shown to the committee. I can send it to you if you put your email. In the chat or send it to me. Julie, Julie, you can email it to me. That'll be fine. But any questions about the proposal. I was wondering if you had a particular. Electric box in mind already. Or if you were looking to us to recommend one. Yeah, we were thinking that we would more look to you to recommend one just because we haven't surveyed or look. All the electric boxes. And we were thinking that it would probably be best if we got your recommendation and followed along those lines. Are you going to do that? Yeah. You know, it would probably be best if we got your recommendation and followed along those lines. Are you guys. Located one particular school. Nope. The majority of our membership is at Amherst high school, or member towns of that. And there's also folks at Amherst Middle from all four member towns. We have some folks in the Amherst Elementary Schools and we also have folks who are in college at some of the local colleges and people from outside of town. We have members in Northampton, in South Hadley and Holyoke. Were those the boxes you want to, were those what you wanted to do for your project or were those illustrations of boxes? This slide was illustrations of boxes that have already been done. We would sort of, we wouldn't use the same design. We wouldn't copy it, but sort of ideas of what it might look like in town. And then above this picture is meant to be what we envision on a box that we would create or design. And this would be the front facing side with a similar theme along the sides. This would be on a box somewhere. Yes, that's correct. I'm just curious to know if what the shield is in the design. And that's our logo. It's a sunrise movement logo. Mm-hmm. Bye. So let me give you guys a little bit of background on the electrical box program that we've run in the town of Amherst. So that program is called Electrify Amherst and it started, I think it ran from 2017 to 2020, three successive years, something like that made 2018, 2019, 2020. And we ran a competition essentially where we put out a call for proposals and then we assembled a jury and then we selected the final winners of each box from that jury. So you're coming to us asking for a box to paint on and that would sort of fall outside of the parameters of that original project. I don't see any issue necessarily with that, but that is something I think that we should discuss either with you here potentially or afterwards. One thing that does occur to me is is there a box near the high school that would be sort of close by where most of your members are, many of your members are. I know there is one on Triangle Street. Yeah, but isn't that painted? It may. I think it's one that's not, like I feel like I remember seeing one by my favorite. There's one near the mini mark there and next to the rotary that isn't painted. Oh, okay. There's definitely one that is painted on the circle, the one that's on Kendrick Park, but you're saying there's one on the opposite side. So one thing I think we would need to see is the final design. So front back sides, that seems pretty important. I think you've taken a good first step in having at least part of the design done, but when we had applicants for electrify hammers, they sent proposal for the entire box. Another is making sure that it gets painted with particular types of paint that will be permanent or permanent enough. There were some guidelines, which I could provide you guys with assuming that you move forward with this that will give you a better sense of how this would work. Do you have an artist or somebody who's had experience doing this, working with you? We have several people who are visual artists and work mostly with paper and digital art, sorry. I have done some mural painting, not on this scale, but I've done a lot of wall painting murals. But yeah, so I don't know if we have anyone with a professional experience, but I think a few of us have participated in murals before. I think that would be key to this. My mind is having maybe one of the art faculty in the high school or middle school, and we have great teachers who you could draw on, who have some experience to sort of guide you through the actual physical process of doing this, especially if none of you have done anything pretty similar to this. That would be a concern that I have. Yeah, that would be a very good idea. I know Kristen Rebley is the art teacher at our high school, and I could certainly reach out to her about this possibility. Yeah, I was wondering about your funding. Do you guys have the funding for this to cover costs? Yeah, we currently have a savings as a nonprofit of about $2,500, and that would cover the cost of this. Yeah, I think what was the budget we gave to artists for doing this, like $500. So that would be more than enough. Yeah. So I think next steps, does anybody else, anybody else on the commission have any thoughts or comments? Yeah, I think this is, I like it. Good for you guys. Yeah, I also salute your idea and your excitement and the other work you're doing, relative to consciousness raising and political activism in town. My only other thought is just once you've identified the box is to find out who owns it. If it's what utility company we did ask for permission from the different owners of the boxes. And I wasn't involved in the past paintings, but there might be some prep work that needs to happen ahead of time. To prepare them. Do you have to degrease them, I remember? Yep. And then prime them. Right. Yeah, it's not just a matter of going showing up with a bucket of paint and painting mural on it. So there's more work from that. Right. So we worked with the DPW and we identified the boxes that they owned in town. And we can, assuming again that the commission like gives you our official stamp and approval, we can help work with the DPW to figure that out. That would be, I'm not sure if they on triangle straight or not, but if they do that would be amazing. Yeah, and if you guys look around and there's some boxes you think, oh, this could work or that could work, send me a note, let me know. And then I can try to find out if we can do the same. So I think the next step would be for me to take you off of the panel, let you guys, you can hang out, it's just observers or if we need you to chime in on something and then we can discuss it amongst ourselves and see what we think the next step should be. But one thing that I'm gonna push for is for you to definitely have some adults, I suppose is the right word. Preferably, you know, that faculty member you could work with who has some direct hands on experience doing this kind of mural painting. So I think that's gonna be important. Yeah, we can definitely reach out to our art teachers, I think. Great. All right, so I'm going to, do you guys have any last comments? Oh, thank you. Thank you. You're welcome, thanks. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you for coming. Okay, I'm gonna, so I'm gonna see what happens here. Okay, Julian, can you stop sharing your screen? All right, and I'm gonna try to boot you and see if you get kicked out, just come back onto that Zoom link I sent you. Let's see, putting them on hold. Yeah, what should we do in terms of next steps for these guys? Well, I think it's a great idea if everything falls into place. I think it's hard to do more than just to say, I think it's a great idea if things fall into place because we'd have to make sure all the ducks are lying there properly and that we can improve the art. So I think from my point of view is if everybody else or majority agree that it's definitely something we would like to look into, we should let them bring back the requested items so we can look at it. We need to identify, as you said, the box and we need to see the design and we need to make sure they use the right paint. One concern I have is that there was a process for the other boxes that we're not following here and whether or not this then opens the door to sort of anybody asking for a box to paint and if that matters. Well, I hear you understanding concern. It doesn't bother me because I mean, these are students wanting to paint the boxes and just because somebody else wants to do we don't have to say yes. I agree. I mean, we're not a court. We don't have to file a precedent and besides I won't make any comments about precedent but apparently it's not as important as it used to be. I just did. Yeah, I think it's a special situation because it's their a special group of kids that, you know, they came in with their presentation and they're aware of, you know, taking the right avenues to do this. And I feel that that's that's showing good citizenship and all that. Should be real. Let me put it this way. They're in a distinguishable group. So the next group of people that show up are going to be either distinguishable or they're going to be redundant because it's already been done. That's the way I'm thinking. Calla and Dara, any thoughts on that issue? My question about the shield was kind of to me the design question, you know, because I don't think that shield is a logo. It's the biggest thing in that design. And I don't know how many people even know what it means. Whereas all the other images, people wouldn't know what they mean. So I would just ask, you know, why is that logo the biggest thing in the design? It's a great idea and they presented really well. Yeah, I think it's hard to make a call until we see the full design. You know, they kept saying the front of the box, but there really is no real front or back. You know, it needs to be seen in the round. So, before I would want to sign off or give it a stamp of approval, I'd want to see the full design and maybe they can incorporate the sunrise movement or something in lettering. So people understand what that is. But yeah, I think in theory, it's wonderful. And if we're not sponsoring the electric box painting project, than I don't have a problem with a group proposing to do something. Other point is we're not paying for it. Okay, so it seems like we're all in agreement that it's fine for us to potentially give this our stamp of approval. I agree with you guys on that. So what we're asking for them is to give us a stamp of approval. So what we're asking for them is at least two things. One to come back to us with a full design. And I had suggested that they have a teacher or another artist who's able to be the project manager, let's call it. What do you guys think about that idea? Yep. Fair. That's fair. Yep. So if they can come back to us with those two things, we've got to have a location. Location. Well, I feel like location almost would follow from those two things. Yeah, I think that's kind of important. No. Yeah, because remember you said it's owned by somebody. We got to make sure we can get the permission, et cetera. Well, yeah. They'll only be able to paint. We can only give approval over a DPW box. So that's going to be, but how about a proposed, proposed location. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's all. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So. Did you kick me back to panelists to. Attendee, please. Yeah, I've tried to do that. I don't know. I think you have to do that yourself. If I kick you out. Sorry. You might not be able to come back, but I'm going to try it. Let's see. There we go. That might have gotten rid of them permanently. Yeah. I do see though that at least I'm Rida is there. So she could share some of this with the other presenters. Okay. So I think what we're going to ask of them is. To come back with the final design. A project. Supervisor, let's call it. What was I calling it? Project manager. You said advisor at one point. I'm not sure. That's called a project manager. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I'm trying to figure out what. What's going on with the project manager. Proposed. Vocation. So wait a minute, the teacher is the project manager. Is that what you're saying? Well, they have. They do have a faculty advisor right now, but this person I don't believe is. Has any neural experience. And I think they definitely need somebody. Who has your experience to. I do too. But I'm trying to find it. Figure out what the minutes and now I'm confused. We want to teach her. with me with mural painting experience. A manager? Yes, that's a different word from to me, that's very different concept. Okay, let's call it, yeah, you're right. Okay, call it advisors better. Okay. You're right. It's too formal to be, yeah. Okay. How do we go about identifying the DPW boxes or do we let them do that work? I think the best thing to do is have them propose a box or two, maybe even propose several boxes. And then we can, and then we can ask, as opposed to. Okay. I suppose like one of us could walk around this general area, but I think it's better to let them do that work. Okay. And then we can, and then I can go to the DPW and see here. And do we maybe show Shawna, you have it sort of all the specs that Amy had when she managed the project in terms of like what type of paint to use and how to prep the boxes. So we can share that with the, with the group. I have that. Oh, you have that. Okay, great. Yeah. Okay. I think we're done with Sunrise Amherst. Yes. Yes. Okay, great. So, share reports, jumping back into our agenda. Well, actually, I see somebody named Sarah and as a public attendee. Does she want to make public comment? Does anybody want to make public comment? Nope, she's disappeared. All right. I think she was probably with Sunrise. I will send them, and by the way, I'll follow up with an email to the, to the, to the members presented. All right, share reports. Yeah, not a lot of reports. It's been a pretty quiet month when it comes to public art stuff. The only thing that's coming up is that making it public seminars are starting, are gonna start in, I'm not sure the exact date. They started early March. So I'm looking forward to those. Nothing else has come across my desk besides this Sunrise project in the last, in the last month. So it's, it's been very quiet. So what was the first thing you said? I'm sorry? The making it public program starts in early March. So it starts soon. Do we want to talk about the minutes? Get that out of the way. Well, the public meeting law is on my back. Okay. The one thing that I saw in the minutes was that the name of the sculpture by Harold Grinspoon, which you describe, I would just scratch the description and give it the name, which is Orion's Belt. What is it, Orion? Yeah, Orion's Belt. Who are, thanks for holding us. Built. Yeah, I didn't know what Margot Roy did this. So that's helpful to just do that. Yeah, it's fine with me. I was, so wait a minute. Which minutes are we talking about now, please? January 3rd. Sorry, I have a trouble. Okay, January 3rd? Correct. At the, toward the end of the document. My computer doesn't like me. Yeah, come on guys. Let me try this. Okay, so this is, try again. Okay, now it's working. Let me get the minutes. January 3rd. And we're scratching. Okay, so this is about, oh, here it goes. Okay, so we're, so we're, we're going to this sculpture and I'll change. I'm deleting, which included two black vertical limbs and bracing three, whatever they are. And I'm putting, oh, Ryan. Ryan's belt. Yeah. Okay. The other thing I would suggest just in general is just use people's last names. You can just list the people's last names. And then when you refer to anybody by name, just use their last name. Assistant and it's easy to read and it makes the most sense. Where are we talking? Just everywhere. You can do that later. Yeah, I am going to do it later. I'm just looking to see what you're talking about. It's just in some places you say Bill, Kazin, other places you say Dr. Kazin, like it's just, just to make it consistent. So, you know, it's the same person. Right. I'll use the title and the last name. And apologies, Bill, if I mispronounced your last name. Okay, title and last name. Okay. Okay. Anything else that anybody found? No, everything looked good. Yep. Those were my, I had the exact same two comments. So. Oh, okay. Sarah, did you notice anything? No. Okay. So I, should we do this formally? Or should we just say, barring those changes, we accept the minutes Jim and you can submit them to Angela after the meeting. Let's do that. Okay. So we're good. Thank you, Jim. You're welcome. All right. All right, moving on. Okay. There's my agenda. It keeps disappearing. Treasure reports. No changes. Okay. North common. No changes. Percent for art. No changes. Great dialogue. There, I am frustrated. And there's, said she wants to help work on this and I'm excited to see something happen, but I cannot get Jane Wall to get back to me there. I did a terrible thing after I wrote to you and I made an appointment with Brooke, Steiner household. And we agreed to meet yesterday at two o'clock and I was deeply involved in a big editing job. I was doing and the time went by and I missed making the call. So she and I rescheduled and we're gonna meet on Wednesday. Great. This Wednesday. And I'll send you all a note if that was okay just with her filling us in on what they think about the poetic dialogue. Super. Thank you for taking the initiative to do that. Sure. Thank you. Yeah. Vote one. Now there's something we have to get to. I've got some more on poetic dialogue. Okay. Sorry. So I've been in correspondence with Alan Snow and he's planning on giving the area a little more attention. And I didn't want to quote how much we had for money for that because I couldn't remember what our actual funds were. What are our funds for that exactly? Extra. I just couldn't remember. My recollection and don't quote me on this. I have to go back and check is that I thought we had 500 but we had to get those funds extended which we did do, you know, as far as I know I sent the email and I'm pretty sure that they confirmed that those funds were extended. The Amherst cultural council and I think it was 500. So when we check right now, I can dig through my email. Or at your leisure. Okay. And those funds would go to DPW because I thought DPW was gonna do the work for free but maybe those funds can be used to pay for... Well, I don't know. What are we thinking in terms of the use of those funds and how that's gonna work? I thought they're gonna go to like flowers or whatnot. I think they were going to, yeah. Perhaps more daffodil bulbs. And reconstructing the walkway around there which has been completely sunken in. So it might be to cover some piece stone or edging materials for the DPW but I think the labor was going to be donated. Okay. Probably not. So there's a metal, there's like a metal path like metal edging that's supposed to sort of create a pathway but that's almost completely grown over. Exactly. So I guess finding a way for them to reassert that and then the appropriate infill and surrounding plantings. I do believe a lot of the daffodils still come up. Yeah, they did it as far as this past year, yeah. But you can see sort of remnants of the edging. But yeah, I believe, and again, it's on my work computer but there's the artist sketch we could reference to show sort of where the pathway went. Yeah, I think you sent me a copy of that. So I think I also have a copy of that. And when I was there physically, I was looking and you can still see that it's there but very hidden at this point. So how would that money, we'd have to just transfer. So would we buy the daffodils or in other words, would they, would we just give them the money and they would do all the work or do you know how that relationship would work, Sean? I'm not exactly sure, but I'm going to see Alan next Tuesday, that's our hearing, right? Alan, we've got a tree hearing like on next Tuesday, I think, right? Yes. So I'll actually see him then and then I could talk to him like in person. Maybe even I'll email him and see if maybe he wants to just like pop over there afterwards because it's right on sunset where our tree hearing is. And then that's on, we have a site visit on Monday at five o'clock on sunset. And then I think that we have our, am I getting this right? Our meeting on the eighth. Yeah, yeah, so. He'll be at both. He should be at both. Yeah, he'll be at both. And so I can talk to him on I'll send him an email and see if maybe after the tree site visit, if maybe we could pop over because it's, it's, you know, right near sunset. Who is we? Me and Alan have a site visit. Well, we, the whole tree committee. Oh, okay, good. Has a site visit. With Alan Stone, who's the tree warden. Yeah. That's his official title for the town. Yeah. Is it, is it stone or snow? Snow, like falling out of the sky. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's great. So thank you for that. And just keep us all informed. Yeah, yeah. I'll email him and see if he will actually go and like look at it. Cause you know, he's been involved in that project already a lot anyways. Yeah, he was there. I think when you and I were there. So he knows, he definitely knows the site. So he may not even have to go see it in person. He might just be able to say, I think it needs X, Y and Z and it's going to cost so much. Yeah, it's true actually. He is very, very keenly aware of all that kind of stuff in town. Yes. Yeah, including like the tree in the, in the cul-de-sac in front of our house, you know, like he's like, oh yeah, that's this tree and it's this old and it's not quite dying yet. And so yeah, he, he's good. Yeah. So any idea when you all are going to want to have something happening there to mark the re-installation and all that stuff for art week. And when is art week? Art week is like the last days of April and the first days of May usually. So that's the last week in April and the first week in May? Yeah, it's like, it's, I think it usually runs like kind of 10 days. It includes like the last weekend in April and then the first weekend in May and then like the week in between. Okay. Cause if I'm going to get some people together to do something, to commemorate it, I need to start with having a day. So do you all have a preference for the weekend, a weekday, even afternoon, midday, any kind of particular thing? Well, when I did an architecture tour that was a weekend morning, not too early, kind of clock or something, which seemed to be a good time. But there's other times that could work. To connect it to that? Well, we haven't really discussed resuming that again, although that is something that we could talk about. But I don't think so. I think this would be a separate event. I mean, what do you guys think in terms of day and time? Well, we could do April 30th. That's the last day in April is actually on a Saturday or the first or the seventh or the eighth. Because those are probably the... Has Boston sent out? Let me see. Has Boston declared exactly when they're doing? I haven't heard anything yet. I have not heard anything yet. It's been kind of confusing because Art Week was canceled last year. Right. April 30th is a good target date to shoot for. We don't have to commit 100% now. Why don't we put that as a tentative? Okay, that feels safe. That's what we're calling this thing we're putting on April 30th. I think it's called poetic dialogue because it's those two poets talking to each other on rocks. Yeah, it was an event though. We're going to call it the relaunching of the poetic dialogue, something like that. Okay, fine. So the Daffodil run in Amherst is on Sunday, April 24th this year. Okay, so we won't crash into that. Unless you want, does the race go right by that? I mean, it's full of that. It has. I've run it and I'm pretty sure it has gone past that. But... I'm just wondering if we tie into that since there'll be a lot of people around anyway. True. And the Daffodils will be all up. People will be excited about that. Let me see if I can pull up the map. But I don't feel like people who are running that are going to want to then go to the opening afterwards. Well, if we offer them oranges and bananas, I don't know. I think it's better to do it the next weekend, I think. Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to stick with April 30th for now and then new information will come in to people's heads about it and we can change it. Okay? Sure. I need to talk to Brookstown House or I'll need a tentative day. Yeah. Good. Anything else about this? Okay, great. I'm really excited that this is moving along. Thank you, Shona and Dara, for jumping in and working on this and let me know what you need from me to help facilitate. Yeah. It's just a quote on that amount that I need from you. Oh, okay. Yes, at the end of the meeting, I'll get it to you if you want it even or just afterwards. Okay. Okay, so now another big topic is the portal gallery, what would walk? So we got a grant for 2,500 and now we're going to do something with it. And that's something presumably which is what the grant was for is to put another artwork in there. And so we need to begin to think about process and timetable. We only have enough money to do, at least that pile of money is enough if we're going by what we did last year to do one installation. So lots of questions come up in my mind anyway, which is first of all, are we gonna do one? Do we wanna try to turn that money into two? I don't feel like that's really feasible. Do we wanna try to raise money to do a second? How long if we do one, will it be up? When do we wanna have it up by and then we can work backwards and kind of think about the RFP and then the journey process, et cetera. If we're gonna go that route or do we wanna hand select artists? We had a very preliminary conversation about this last time. So I'm just wondering, I think we need to start planning is basically what I'm saying. So last year, the opening, the opening was, I'm trying to think of the, it was early September, is when we had the opening and the installation was happening in August and then it ran through January. So that way it captured the students and the fall semester and he thought on whether or not that model makes sense again for this next round. Any observable negatives that came out from those dates that we ought to think about? Not really. It was nice. I wish we had something for the summertime because people do like dine outside in the summer and stroll around but there are a lot of people that leave. You know, we definitely have a bigger population come September. So it's not imperative to have it during the summer. I would say if we're only gonna do one, let's make it September or late August. We wanna try to do one that would run for a longer period of time. I mean, that's a possibility. If we could have something installed this spring that could run all the way through early winter that would just put a little crunch on the timetable now because we'd really have to get the RFP out or have our artist pool and then start organizing the journey process. Well, I say absent money to do a second one. Let's not get sidetracked on that. I mean, if we decide we wanna do a second one then we've gotta have a discussion about where the money's gonna come from. And absent that, we have a precedent it worked why not use that what worked. Yeah, but don't fix it. That's my inclination. I'm wondering the best thing might be, so I was sort of the primary actor in the first round and I'd like to still be involved very much in the second round here. I'm wondering if there's not somebody else though who'd wanna work with me on it just to have somebody to bounce ideas off of and or help me with a little bit of the behind the scenes labor. I think one of the big decisions for me moving forward at this point is going to be whether we do a call or whether we kind of hand pick artists. I mean, to me that's one of the first decisions that has to be made that will determine the rest of the process. So we could talk about that a little bit now. I don't, you know but if somebody wants to work with me behind the scenes as well, that would be great. You don't have to say that. Shona, okay. What do you guys, but let's just at least have a preliminary conversation and then Shona and I can talk more about it about hand picking the pool versus doing a call. Daryl? Well, I just- Jim, Daryl had her hand up with- I can't see that. Yeah. Just to fill me in, what's been the protocol in the past? Yeah. So typically, well for the electrical, there's no typical because we haven't done that many. The electrical boxes was a call. So we put out the call and then we got the pool and then we went out. The portal gallery because we considered it sort of pilot program which was to sort of test the waters and see if we could pull it off. We just picked three artists that we thought as a commission would be good fits. So, and as far as best practices go in terms of public art projects, they're both acceptable. That's what, so it's up to us. Well, one thing to do is see if we can identify three people. If that's what we were saying, talk about it and then say, okay, how cool is this for us? And if we think that's just the greatest thing ever, then we go with them and if we think, well, that's pretty good. Then we might start discussing the possibility of putting out a call. So I don't understand what the rationale is for not having a public call. Well, doing a lot of work and not getting an applicant pool that's suitable. Right. It saves a lot of work if you just identify the people. Well, so if somebody comes to the commission and says, why isn't there a public call? That's the answer? Yeah. No, something a little more. I say because that's what the public precedent was before the public art commission. And we felt that was going to identify valuable project that would be best suitable for the circumstances. Yeah. Yeah, I mean- Do you feel like that process like provided a higher caliber of effort in the presentations and the ideas? Whereas like the big open call one, it feels like there's a lot of people that don't feel like they're going to get chosen so they don't put a lot of effort into it. Whereas when it was a small pool, you got people that were like really putting their all into it. Yeah. By the way, I'm not plugging either one. I'm just trying to figure out pros and cons. Yeah, I mean, I understand the pros part. I do. But I also think that we would have to have a good answer for why the public is not called in a public art project. But then it- Typically in public, like very high stakes, public art competitions, it's not a general call. So that's not the way it normally works. Normally, you start with a selected pool of artists. I'm imagining that when we get to our percent for art projects, they'll work in that way although this is going to require a lot of discussion and research. But because you're really looking for people who have the ability and expertise. So in those projects, you're talking about big budgets, $100,000, a million dollars, right? And you really have to identify people who have experience working at that scale and with those kinds of budgets. Here, obviously, that's not the case. But it is a very strange space with very particular parameters. So that's what I would say the argument for hand-picking artists in this instance would be because it's such an unusual space and we really want people who have an understanding or their work is suitable. We know that their work potentially would be suitable for a space like this. On the other hand, having an open call could be great because you're going to get people who come up with crazy ideas that we wouldn't have been able to think of or identify in terms of their work and their interests. So... There was also a possibility of doing something that requires people to present something that has to do with their reasons for wanting to do it in their credential. You know, like you give people some incentive to take the call more seriously if that's what you're worried about. Sure. Well, I think there's another underlying assumption here and I'm not saying it's right or it's not wrong, but it is an assumption and that is the public has a right to be given a chance to bid on public art. But the other side of the coin is the public art is there to be admired by the public. So there's two ways of looking at it. One is the public of the public art commission is to benefit to the public of the art. And another way of looking at it is the public for the public art commission is to benefit the artists. And if you take the former, then the people don't have... They don't have a claim on any project that they don't have the necessarily the right to participate in seeking to be the artist for it. So that's, I can see reasonable minds differing, but I think underlying assumption of that is public means you have to give the public the right to submit proposals. That to me is not self-evident possible but not self-evident. What are your thoughts? I think the first round made sense to do an invitation, but I think at this round, I'm leaning more toward a RFP see what we get. I think we just have to make it really appealing so that we get qualified people, you know, we have to market it properly. It is a tricky space, you know, I still worry about it not being accessible. I think that's just an ongoing problem, but I'd be up to see, you know, doing an RFP and seeing, you know, what type of proposals we get. And if they're all bad, we don't, I mean, we can send out another proposal or... Well, I was about to say that if you're going to do it that way as a third possibility is you make a call, but you make it clear that you're not obligated to pick from the submissions somehow, you know, politely and tactfully. Because otherwise you put the call out, you put the call out, you don't pick somebody in the call and somebody's been out of shape because I did all this work on the call, blah, blah, blah. You didn't even pick anybody from the call. I can see that getting in the way. That's typically what we've done for the Town Hall Gallery each year. So, you know, it's sort of in line with and what we did with the electrical boxes. The Town Hall Gallery is different. Town Hall Gallery, there's no journey and everybody who applies gets in, barring the work isn't obscene in a way that would be a bad fit for Town Hall. So it's a bit different. It is public call, but there's no, yeah, there's no. I think we've rejected a few things. Really? No, I don't get why. There was one religious, there was some kind of commentary on Christianity, I believe that raised a few questions that it was just as I was starting, but all right, well, I'm happy to, I'm more sort of on the fence, but if we're gonna do an RFP, I think getting it out sooner rather than later would be advisable so that we can get stuff, give people time and make it more than, you know, make them really submit some kind of detailed proposal. The other problem is that when we picked artists, we were able to walk them through the space so they could really see the space and take measurements and, you know, really get a feel for it, which we can't really do with an RFP. I mean, I think we might wanna do two rounds where we get a big mass of them and then we kind of cut it down to some finalists and then we could take the finalists through potentially something like that. Although maybe that's overly complicated. Yeah, it'd be good if we could get something out to the schools, to the colleges, even the high school, you know, so we can get some more proposals. It doesn't have to just be professional artists. Okay, so Shona, why don't you and I kick around some ideas for this and what an RFP would look like? And maybe by our next meeting, we could try to have one drafted and, you know, we could all look at it together and then if it seems okay, just try to get it out there to as many places as we can. That makes sense? Yep. Okay. All right, great. And we'll shoot for the same timetable we used last year, roughly speaking, installing toward the end of the summer for an opening in early fall with some kind of performance like we did last year. And this time we'll have the budget for the performance too. Okay, great. Let me bring up my agenda again. Town Hall Gallery, what's happening there? Okay, so Chris Bordenka took down his stuff. There's nothing there now. I met with a artist two weeks ago, I guess now at this point, but we were gonna put her stuff up, but she actually wasn't ready yet. So I've been in contact and I've spent actually like the past two days working with Bella Homestead and she's got stuff that we're gonna put up on Thursday. So that'll displace the other person and the other person will go after, is that the idea? Yeah. Yeah, whenever she gets it together, we'll put her up afterwards. Okay, and then everybody's happy with that solution? Yeah, everyone's happy with that solution for now. And then Bella Homestead also has this other idea for another show in the summertime. She's in the process of moving into the Arbor's. It's like a retirement community. And there's two other women there that are also artists and she was talking to them about, you know, art in the town hall and stuff. And they got it together to or they're working on like getting it together to have a show possibly in the town hall for that's about, it's kind of like a retrospective of their lives because they're all like in their nineties and about like, you know, their process through their years. It seems really sweet. Okay, sounds good. Is this what, what are these people, the women who kept going into town hall and parking Angela? I think that's the other one, the... I see, who's the lady? Yeah, well, there's two of them that like, so they have very similar names. One's that photographer that did like that photography showcase out behind the BID that time. Oh, she's the one who, yes, she's my age roughly. I mean, so she's not the... Oh yeah, Isabella Del Olio. So they're both named Bella, essentially, which is why I'm so confused. Is it, she's the one who's delaying, is Isabella Del Olio correct? Yes, she's the one that's delaying. I thought she was going in like two weeks ago, but now it's not happening. And so luckily there is like this other person that just wandered in that was just like, yay, and she's, you know, she wants her show. Do we need to put out a call for applicants for moving forward for her town hall? Yeah, I think so eventually, because like we're going to need some, like I think we're going to have, you know, her show Bella's show up for a couple of months, and then we'll have hopefully the other Bella's up for a couple of months. And then we could do that retrospective of Arbor's citizens up for a couple of months. And then so I guess like late summer, probably is what we're looking at where we don't have anyone set yet. Anything else about town hall? No, okay. I forgot to mention in my chair report, although there's nothing to report. I haven't heard anything from Gigi or Eric about their project. Maybe Jim, you have a little insight scoop on that. Yes, I do. And no, I'm not going to discuss it. Okay, sorry. Fair enough. So yep, we're waiting with bated breath to hear because we're all excited about that. So what I will do, however, is I may be able to get a message to the appropriate parties that there are people waiting with bated breath. Yes, great. I can do that. Yes, I actually talked that project up to a few people. So, you know, yes, I think people are excited about it. So hopefully it'll happen. That's all I have. Anybody else have anything else for now? No. All right. Shona, I can get you that number even while you're hanging on the line. If everybody else wants to sign off, I will call the public art commission meeting adjourned at 512. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you all. Thank you. Nice seeing you all today. Bye. All right. Shona, I'm going to stop recording, but you can stay on.