Library Board - Regular Meeting

Order this meeting of the Apache Junction Public Arts Commission at 06:02PM. Pledge allegiance. Okay. Rudy, roll call, please.

Chairman Danford.

Here.

Vice chair Klett.

Did you hear anything back? This is Turn on, has it?

Commissioner Cooper.

Here.

Commissioner Meek.

Here.

Commissioner Smithson.

Here.

Before present, we have a quorum, mister chairman.

Oh, cool. You can hear me now. Right?

Mhmm.

Okay. It's it's I violate the 3% rule all the time. You gotta be 3% smarter than the gadget you're trying to work. Mhmm. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I motion we approve this consent agenda.

Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

Rudy, roll call, please.

Commissioner Smithson. Yes. Chairman Danford. Yes. Commissioner Cooper. Yes. Commissioner Meek. Yes. So moved, mister chairman.

Okay. Cool. Do we have announcement or do we have any artwork to discuss? Anybody seen anything special they wanna talk about?

Well, is this the place, Erica, where so I had a couple of things that I wanted to bring up after our last meeting, and I thought were really very, very interesting. One in particular is a historic project from Americans for Arts year in review, which are usually the best of the best public artworks. What this does to me is that it illustrates when you create art with the community instead of just for the community. And I think it's it's a really good example of of uniting people and community engagement. For example, during the boards and commissions candidate interviews, I heard repeatedly that, people were talking about the physical divide from Apache Junction with The US 60 and the difference between the South End and the North End, if you will, and really wanting to make sure that nothing was created as an old versus new and that kind of thing.

And so I immediately thought of how a public art project could help unite those or or engage people around a project. This obviously isn't in parallel to that, but I think it's an interesting concept that I wanted to throw out there just so you could see something very different that I've just never forgotten since I saw it.

I think that's something that should be added to future agenda items. Right, Erica? Like, maybe for the next meeting?

We can definitely add that.

Okay. Okay.

Anyway, this pre conference at Americans for the Arts when this was was after this was shown was the first time I've ever seen an audience full of probably 500 public art professionals from all around the country. And at the conclusion of this, everyone spontaneously stood up and erupted into applause. I definitely thought it was something I'd like to share if we can take the time.

Okay. Let's put it on the agenda for future future meetings.

I'm sorry. She would like to see the video right now if that's okay.

Oh, sure.

So we do have two items that she would like to look at today.

Okay.

In the 2012, Natalie and his team began creating modules of folding structure and organized this I

think that's a good place to start.

I think it is. I I think one of the thing I thought was important is that the artist convened members of the community to talk about the community and to see what would be meaningful. He also used volunteers in the community to help gather materials and use some of those same materials in the project. And so there was a sense of ownership throughout the project, and, it was I just believe it was a notable, effort and a really interesting public art process, and just wanted to bring it to the commission's attention. Cool concept,

but I'm not sure that falls under the purview of this commission. Does it? I mean, we're looking at public art projects that are funded by developments developments, and then we come up with a we've built a process to put in a a piece of public art. I'm not sure this actually falls on Rudy, what do you think? And Joel's not here. You must be the new Joel today. Right?

I am sitting in for Mr. Stern.

Mr. Stern? Okay.

Cassandra, I don't think

This your mic is is something that maybe could go like in a public park or something like that. Because you know our our right now we have the the portable stage. And I don't know. This I think this idea would be interesting to introduce to Liz.

I like the idea. Yeah. I'm thinking more that this might be more of something that Parks and Rec would be interested in doing rather than us. Yeah. Because I'm not sure if you read if you read through our, you know, the public statute that set up this group, I'm not sure this fits into our group.

I guess my question would be is does that statute necessarily define public art? And and my reason for bringing this project up wasn't to say it's a project we should do. I think it was a process that I thought was important to explore on behalf of the community, not so much this project. But I would like to see, have us think about what how an artist might engage members of the community to talk about what's meaningful here. This is a very site specific, very unique project and taking elements of it into something that we did, think would be totally irresponsible actually in in my opinion.

That's that's not what what we should do as people who support artists. But I think the concept of having, an artist as a convener in the community is more what I was envisioning and more my reasoning behind bringing this, this video out just from a standpoint of what a great project this was for the community.

Diane, you've been a consultant. You're our consultant. Have you seen anything like this in in in the years you've been doing this?

Yeah. I've seen similar types of projects, nothing exactly like this. But I think what was important in this particular case was there was a need in this community in terms of whether you know, what I think it's important is was this designed by an artist? Is this a public artist? The artist works with the community.

That's what we do. We try to work with the community, and it fulfill the need. Now what maybe they worked with the Parks and Rec Department. Maybe, you know, maybe they combined forces to do this. I don't know what the budget is, but I can definitely see where there would be a need in Apache Junction for not something similar to this, but just going out in the community and see what the community thinks.

Yeah. Mhmm.

Yeah. And I would add

I like that part of it. Yeah. I did like that part.

Yeah. And Matthew Mazzotto is a fantastic public artist. He's done projects all over the world. So, he is dead. This definitely was an artist led project. Guess if that was a question, wanted to add that in. Then the other item I think is far too long for us to to see, but I wanted to, to just bring it to attend to your attention. This is a TED Talk from Jack Becker. So, Jack is the founder of Forecast Public Art, which is, based out of Minneapolis and is a, again, really well recognized. I am you probably know Forecast and also, Public Art Review Magazine.

Jack is founder of both of those. And, he did a TED Talk, about, public art as a community building strategy. And both of these, I think, supported what I was saying about, you know, what I heard from members of council during those deliberations for adding people to boards and commissions was tying the community together. And so he makes some very good points. His TED Talk is beyond murals, monuments, and memorials.

But he issues everyone a challenge to dig deeper and create meaning and connections in communities through public art, and I felt that was really important. I've seen social media posts from city of Apache Junction, are fantastic. And when they posted about public art, people seem almost unilaterally supportive of, yes, let's do more of this. On the other hand, when I see mentions of the downtown public art master or excuse me, the the downtown master plan social posts, some of them in small groups, not necessarily from the city, I see some pushback against, against change. And I just wonder if there's a way to unify the two ideas, and and use that concept as a way to inform some public art that might unify people in terms of saying this is our home, this is our unique place, and using public art to help in those conversations.

Rudy, could you and Diane spend a few minutes to get together and figure out how we might approach something like this? And if it is something we can do? Sure. And you might want to ask Mr. Stern's stand in.

I took the question down.

I'll Okay.

Get back. I'll get an answer to Eric.

Because Joel can usually give us good good feedback on whether we're on the right track or not.

Okay. I'll I'll ask him and I'll give feedback to Rudy and Erica.

And he's been used to roping me in for years, so. Okay. Cool.

Thank you. I would just point out that in this video, it's twenty minutes long, but he shows, Jack shows us examples of a number of public art projects that are really outside the box of what you would ordinarily think of a public art project. And I think it's really inspiring. And as we think about, the next three years and our new artist registry and the different things that we might have available to do in the community, I think it's worthy of just expanding our mind a little bit and seeing if any of those might stick. Cool.

Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Okay. Do we have public hearing? Is anybody here for the public hearing tonight? Nobody's here for public hearing?

We don't have any public hearings tonight.

So we have none. Old business. We have an update on the RFQ for the prequalified roster with staff and Diane. Okay. Is this you, Diane?

I can give a little intro. So the qualified artist roster closed on the January 15, and we finalized it on the February 19. All the artists that were chosen have been notified. Out of the 39 seemingly qualified artists, 33 were chosen. One of the 39 we did have to disqualify after the fact, unfortunately.

And I don't have to give details about that too many details. But they were just a relative of one of our employees, they But were not qualified there's a lot of artists that just have a wide variety of skills, and we're very excited to have the list that we have right now if Diane wants to come up and just talk a little bit about the process she can do that and then I also have the list here for us to look at If you want to look at any artist in particular, I can bring up their work. I have their file up here.

Eric, is this something you could send out to us?

It was sent out with the agenda, but I can email it to you separately.

You sent it out with the agenda? Well, that's right you did. Never mind. Okay. I'll look at those later. Diane, I think you're up.

Just wanna add that these are all Arizona artists, and we really advertise extensively so that the state artists, Northern Arizona, Southern Arizona, Central, they were all aware of this. And as Erica pointed out, we have a great diversity of artists. They are emerging as well as established. Just, you know, we're really happy with the artists who have applied for this, and I think we had a a three person panel. I was hoping would be here to talk a little bit about it. We had a really good panel going over went over everything very, very carefully. Anything you'd like me to add to that?

Unless you have any questions about the process? Or

So as projects come up, we can reach out to these artists and give them the opportunity to make their applications or submit their do their submittals for diff different given projects around the city, maybe the cabinet wraps or or sculpture work or some of these other types of art projects that we're looking at. And before I forget, the roundabout which would be a major project would be an RFQ on its own.

That would I was gonna go there. That would be an RFQ by itself. Yes. But this would cover the other RFQs for the smaller projects. The small project.

I I think a good example of that is the traffic cabinet wraps.

Mhmm.

We did have a call to artists before. We got some great artists, and I think the result turned out really, really well. But to put out another call to artists for just traffic cabinets would be a little difficult to get artists to respond to. So now we've got a set list of artists, and many of them are emerging artists, and they would be really qualified to do something like that.

Cool. Great.

Okay. So, Diane, in clarification, this would be primarily for invitationals?

These are artists who are preapproved, basically. They're qualified.

Great.

So as projects come up, and I think probably some of the first projects will be these vinyl wraps. People seem to like them, and we have, I think, four or five, and we're gonna be growing that number. So that will be this those artists, on the roster will be considered for those projects. Okay. So they basically, I think the staff and possibly other stakeholders will use the roster to match the artist to the project.

So this will eliminate the need for an RFQ

Right.

Vetting each artist, vetting their projects. This makes it a lot simpler now. It'll speed up the process. Yes. Cool. I like that.

Yes. For the smaller projects.

For the smaller projects, yes.

Of course.

And I think that's where we would decide if we had a larger project. We know the roundabout is going to be a lot larger deal. That's a different animal. And we may come up with larger projects down the road that needs a different process.

Cool. I do want to mention as well that this list is available for developers too if they want to use the list.

Cool. Okay. Yeah. Because sometimes like we saw with Paige in the wall, they reached out to her and then they came to us. Yeah.

Okay. Paige is on the list too.

She is on the list.

She on the list.

She's Awesome. A the great muralist. Great. You know that baby's almost due too.

Yes. Almost.

Okay. Now do we have an update on the Veterans Memorial Traffic Cabinet wrap? Erica?

Yep. So council member Johnson and some of our local veterans gave us their top three of artists from the artist roster that they would like to design the cabinet. I've reached out to number one. I do not have an answer yet. Don't want to give the names here. But if they say no, then I'll move on to the second one and then the third one. Okay. Cool.

Do we have an update on the Vinyl Culture Part two traffic wraps? Or is that part of the same one?

Sort of. Yeah. It's sort of So the same we do have a list of artists that would be capable of doing these as well. And I've reached out to Public Works to see if they want to be involved in the panel to choose the artists. I don't think they really want to be involved, so we'll be looking for people to help choose artists for these cabinets. But there will be in addition to the Veterans Memorial cabinet, there'll be four more cabinets.

Okay.

So these

Do we have an update on the roundabout RFQ, Erica?

So actually, Rudy has the drafted version on his desk. He has the drafted contract as well as RFQ. We were hoping to have it released on March 16, which is next week. But I'm not sure if that's going to work out. It does have to go to legal first before it can be released. But if it can, if it can make it on time, then we're looking at potentially installation by November, which would be great. It is, you know, it has to go through you for recommendation.

I haven't seen the design yet, so.

No, because there won't be a design yet, so it does have to go through RFQ. We're looking for qualifications from artists. Okay. And then so basically what happened with the artist roster. So we'll get a bunch of applicants. We'll get a panel to choose at the artist. Then they'll have to do the contract. They will have to submit a design to us. Okay. You will review it. If you want any changes to that design, you can ask for changes and then review it again. So, that would be like a special session and then it would go to counsel. So, it would go to counsel for a work session and then to the consent agenda.

Okay. Probably a very similar process as the sculptures at the dog park. Okay. Okay. Yeah, where we looked at several different artists submissions, and commission picked the one they liked best.

I remember that process. Yeah. Okay.

I do have a question if I could. Is this a situation where we would have finalists selected and then choose from finalists to design an artwork? And and then have them presented and then choose? Or is it just one artist is selected given the commission and then design from there and provide multiple iterations perhaps of designs?

I think maybe Diane is a better person to answer this question, but if they're submitting designs prior to signing a contract, then we'd have to pay them for those designs. Sure.

I think you're referring to selecting a few artists and having them do a proposal.

Yes.

And then then have that proposal selected? That works in many, many cases. But in this case, I think we're we're what we're gonna do is select one artist and then alternates. Okay. And the artist is going to create the design. We will you know, as as close as possible, he will he or she will stick to that design, but it's gonna go through a a lot of approval processes. We saw that happen with the dog park. You know, there were people who wanted to change the color and do some other things. So so just because a an artist designed something doesn't mean that that is gonna be what's acceptable.

Mhmm. Now what point does ADOT get involved?

So I was hoping that somebody from ADOT would wanna be on the panel, but they said no. They told me some time ago. Maybe it's somebody else now, so I'll reach out again and see if they change

They're their pretty picky about what gets them involved. They

will be involved every step of the way.

So they get pretty picky about what goes out there.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And they have their criteria.

Like, all the safety About that thick? Yeah.

And and what budget is set for this project?

So we're looking at 200,000.

200? Okay. And when you said November, did you mean really November 2026?

Yeah. We can pull it off. We can get it out there ASAP.

It's a little ambitious, but at least we want to have design picked and ready to go and working on it. Okay.

We could

get it done by the end of the year, that would be outstanding.

Oh, absolutely. If you had said November 2027, I wouldn't have blinked.

That'd be good timing because it'd be get it'd be getting it done in time for next tour season.

Yeah. Mhmm.

Yeah. That'd be awesome.

And before it gets really hot again. Actually, this last year was still hot, wasn't it?

The year before was really bad. Last year wasn't that bad.

It just never got cold.

Year before

was miserable. Okay. So new business. We have the presentation and discussion on proposed sandblasting art and text for the new library garden with staff and Diane. And Erica.

So Diane and I and Rudy. Rudy, I can't remember. Maybe he was there. Yeah. You were there.

So we had a meeting with Pam, the director of the library. And they are doing a library garden in the rear of the library outside. And the plan looks great. I had suggested that maybe we do some artwork outside right out the door. And so when you go outside, you can see this big design and she came back to me and said she wanted text as well so her and along with some of the library staff wanted this particular text if you have a garden and a library you have everything you need And this is by Roman philosopher Cicero.

We thought it would be a great idea. Diane got some estimates from a company to do sandblasting, because we will not make the timeline for them to put in a mosaic while the concrete is or just right after the concrete has been poured because they're going to be done fairly quick and we won't be able to get through City Council in time so sandblasting is the best way to go it is a $100 per square feet so it could be upwards of $24,000 just for the sandblasting you we can add color to the sandblasting so they can dye it.

Right.

So we thought this would be a great idea. If you are interested, we can start working on it. If Diane has anything else to add to it, add to the conversation.

No. I think that's it. There are a lot of great examples of sandblasting right in the Phoenix area. There's a company that that specializes in that. If you've been to the Museum of the West in Scottsdale Mhmm. You know, it's that walkway as you go toward. That's a great example of a design in sandblasting. So we're look we're looking at that sort of thing.

What's the feeling of the commission on this?

Well, I'll hop in. I'm in favor of projects that are walkable and that engage people. And I was just at the library for their native flute festival on Saturday. And I was there right at the beginning and it was extremely well attended. I don't think I've ever been to the library when it hasn't had a really good group of people inside, outside, engaging with everything out there.

So I think in terms of a community gathering place and in a garden setting where people could spend time with the artwork, could contemplate the quote, etcetera. I think it's great. I think art audiences and library audiences have in common the trait of curiosity. And I think doing something in collaboration with the library would be very desirable from my perspective.

Catherine?

I think that I should admit that I'm on the library board. And I'm involved in the gardening stuff. So I think this is an absolute fabulous combination. I'm I'm I think it's gonna be great to have some artwork out there to go along with everything else out there. But I'm kind of conflicted.

Angela? I

have a conflict of interest.

It sounds and looks like it's gonna be great.

So do we need to take a vote on this?

No, mister German. It's just a kind of an introductory here's what's going on kind of item. Pam, the library director definitely wants to go forward with this. By the way, this is not necessarily or this is not the design that's going go out there. Right. It's just an example of what could go

out What could go.

It could be a little more centrally located. The text could go along the edge of the sidewalk depending on on ultimately how they want to do it. But this is the idea that they decided to go with as of our meeting a couple of weeks ago. Presented we looked at several ideas for what public art might look like in this space. And this is the one that seemed to make the most amount of sense given the fact that the concrete work is going be done, some of the work is already going to be done, what can we do to accentuate the space and Pam like this lady is.

And then at what point will we get dragged into it?

For the approve well, not approval. For the recommendation of the design Okay. To

And then like usual, we will present that to city council.

I I will I will be presenting

You'll present.

To city council. Okay.

Cool.

If one of you would like to be on the panel to choose the artist, that would be great. Because we will be using the artist roster for this.

I'd like to get down on that one.

Okay.

Since you're already you're already involved. Yeah. Put me in. Put me on that. I'll see if I can fit you into my busy schedule.

Appreciate it.

I'm supposed to be retired, not bit not this busy. Okay. So we move on to information and reports. Are there any?

None. No. None this Okay.

Any director's report?

None this evening, mister chairman, but it looks like we're gonna have quite a few projects coming up finally.

Cool. What kind of money we look at in the pool right now?

What?

What kind of money do we have in the pool right now?

At least half 1,000,000. Awesome.

Yeah. It's nice to have

that coming up.

It's over half 1,000,000. Cool. Call for future agenda items. I would like to see if we can discuss her her ideas at a future meeting. Mhmm. And you guys have anything you want to add?

No. Okay.

Selection of meeting times, dates, locations, regular meeting at 05:30 on Monday the thirteenth. Everybody okay with that?

Yep. Okay.

Have a

motion and a second, mister chairman.

I need a motion.

I motion that we meet on Monday, April 13 at 05:30.

Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

All in favor, roll call.

Commissioner Meek.

Yes.

Commissioner Smithson? Yes. Chairman Danford? Yes. Commissioner Cooper? Yes. So moved, mister chairman.

Okay. I adjourn this meeting at 06:30, whatever that is.

The computer says 06:29.

Well, 06:32.