Public Art Projects

Evaluation of Public Art Project 3, "Hmmm"

by David Neal, Merriam City Council

May 14, 2018

Overview

I appreciate the difficult work performed by the Public Art Committee. I know that everyone involved has put a lot of effort into the selection process for Project #3.

In many communities, public art projects have a funding stream that is often some form of private/public collaboration. In the Merriam program, the funding is entirely public dollars. I believe this type of funding rightly makes the selection process subject to a higher degree of public scrutiny than projects that are largely funded with private donations.

I have been trying to evaluate the proposal and gauge public support for the particulars of the proposed project.

I went down to the site Wednesday and Sunday and spent a few hours walking around the park and on the trail. I talked to a few folks that were using the park and trail as I tried to visualize the art selection with the site location.

I also did some research today on the reaction of local businesses along the Merriam drive corridor to the proposed Art Project #3.

I consulted with city staff about the history of the public art program since I was not serving on the City Council when the program was conceived or made operational. I have also conversed with a variety of people about the background goals of the program and about the selection process for both the art and the committee members. I recognize that public art is an investment in the community designed to create public areas that current and future residents will want to enjoy and spend time at.

One nagging question that I have about the program concerns what should be the emphasis of the program: Is the program designed to use art as a part of enhancing a public area to make it a more compelling destination or is the art by itself supposed to be the destination?

Is the program just designed to 'support the arts' or is there some more targeted purpose?

These are important questions for me to answer.

Project #2 seems to be an example of the former as the work is integrated with other existing aspects of a destination location. The "Seeds" enhance the larger investment in the Merriam Farmers Market area. Projects #1 and #3 seem to have been conceived as the latter type of projects designed to be stand alone attractions.

Project #3 will be located in an area that really has nothing other than the trail as its attraction. If the art is supposed to be the primary reason that people will be drawn to the location, after spending a few hours there I have doubts about its effectiveness for that purpose.

For the public art to be compelling enough to be the specific reason people come to a location, I believe that the project would have to be more substantial in scope than our individual project budgets envision. Projects with budgets in the $100K range are better used as enhancements to a location that is already a destination for residents.

Waterfall Park is under-utilized as is and there are other non-art investment steps that should be taken first in my opinion to improve the park before any public art's attributes will have the enhancing effect wanted.

Based on my research I have some concerns that hold me back from supporting this work at this proposed location for this cost, at this time.

These (and other) concerns are more fully documented in the following sections, but in brief they are:

The Art

I understand that art is in the eye of the beholder. I do think that public art is very difficult to get right and will not please everyone. I am OK with approving a project where there are those that do not love it.

While I have not made my living directly as an artist, I do have a bit of an art/design background in photography and illustration. I sold my work at shows and at local galleries for a while during the 1980s. So I know that the more 'innovative' and less obvious compositions that I produced were sometimes less commercially successful (not immediately understood?) by the general public although some buyers just loved them. My best selling works were very good, visually pleasing and emotionally evocative to the general public but were not always the ones that I considered my 'best' work.

When buying art privately, only the purchaser needs to 'get' the piece – be inspired by the piece.

With public art, many people need to be intuitively and emotionally touched by the work at some level. In my view, public art needs to be intuitively inspiring to as broad of a range of residents as possible to be worth spending significant public funds on.

The work needs to make sense to the community and needs to fit the location appropriately. Part of this broader based appeal is also how the components of the display fit together stylistically. I have concerns that Project 3 fall short in all these metrics.

I surveyed users of the park and others and found reactions ranging from indifferent to negative regarding an understanding of the content and the feelings that the work evokes. Generally the negative reaction was much more common than the indifferent reaction. The reasons for the negative reactions generally involved questions as to how the art tied to the location or to Merriam or even this part of Johnson County.

One cyclist even said, "We ride the trail every day and I'd hate to pass that every day." No one that I asked was positive about the selection.

When I revealed the price, the reaction of all respondents turned negative. The selection of materials do not intuitively suggest a value appropriate with the price.

While I personally understand that carved dolomite stone for the caterpillar portion of the work will look like it has value when viewed up close (despite the rendering which doesn't do it justice), the cairn, derogatively referred to as a 'pile of rocks' by some, is a materials choice that doesn't feel valuable or particularly innovative from a visual point of view when taken in at a casual glance.

The silver reflective surfaces of Project 2 evoke more 'value' and they draw one's eye better than earth tones of Project 3 will do when set back on a grassy knoll along a trail.

The Location

The proposed location, as I understand it, will position the work in an area that will not be not easy for viewers to get to from the parking area, soccer fields, and proposed future playground.

The project has been described as 'whimsical.'

I do understand the 'whimsical' nature of the work selected. I am not sure how that concept ties to the proposed location, which frankly is in an industrial district and across a streamway from youth soccer fields and parking. It will also not be part of the Turkey Creek waterway viewing area (the 'waterfall') so the relevance of its nature theme is diminished.

As a soccer player for over 40 years and as a soccer coach, I doubt that players and spectators focused on the competition on the fields will fully appreciate the art on the rise across the stream from their vantage point, if it can even be seen from such vantage. A walk around the park areas suggest to me that the work will be shielded from view from the vantage point of (at least) the eastern soccer fields unless a number of trees are removed on the south side of the tributary streamway.

I could envision the appropriateness of 'whimsy' in a playground area more than at the proposed location. That said, 'whimsy' at a playground could be purchased at less cost I would hope.

If the work is primarily visible to joggers and bikers on the trail as I suspect, the whimsical nature of the piece may be lost on the (mostly) adults using the trail.

I also have concerns that at a height of 9ft - 12ft, and with materials that are earth tones, the work will not be as visible from Merriam Drive as some may think.

Waterfall Park and the Turkey Creek Streamway Trail

Taking the view that rather than doing this project solely for art's sake and hoping that the art piece will itself be a destination, I have attempted to focus on how we can make the Waterfall Park area more of a destination that could later be enhanced with public art.

Given the fact that the park's most interesting unused space is the elevated area south of the tributary streamway and adjacent to the trail, I would suggest that the south area would be much better suited as a playground location with a picnic shelter than the small soccer field area.

There is still the problem of crossing from the north side to the south side of the stream tributary as there would be for locating Public Art Project #3 south of the tributary streamway. An investment leading to an interesting foot bridge connecting the two areas might be a better use of the funds if the goal is making the park more of a destination.

Maybe we could allocate funding for the main structure of the bridge from some other funding source with the $100K from Project #3 used to add architectural features to the foot bridge that would make the bridge design be considered the public art itself.

The Process

I also have had some concerns about the process that was used to bring the work of the committee before the City Council last meeting and have shared those concerns with Councilmember Hands when she reached out to me.

The public art selection process was an issue raised by more than several residents during the fall campaign. I know that everyone involved was working toward a worthy goal. I still feel obligated to see if the expenditure is appropriate for the benefit that will result from a positive decision to fund the project.

Among the areas that could potentially be re-thought going forward are: