Library - Regular Meeting

Today's public art and design meeting is called to order. To Called to recess, sorry. I'd to call today's public art and design board meeting to order. Let's go through roll call. Will everyone like to introduce themselves?

There we go. Alright.

Hi. I'm Kim DeVito. I currently am at Creative Panillas as the digital strategy director, and I am here today serving on this board.

I'm Brian Ballaton. I am this year's chair for now.

Jonathan Barnes, I'm a faculty member at St. Petersburg College in Visual Arts.

Greg Bird, faculty member at Saint Petersburg College Creative Writing.

Fantastic. Let's just jump right into approval of the minutes. Are there any changes or corrections that anybody knows of or can think of or needs to implement?

I so move.

Alright. I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? No discussion. Alright. So all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion approved. Let's see. Citizens to be heard. Can you please come up to the microphone? State your name.

Good afternoon. My name is Beth Daniels, and I'm here on behalf of the Clearwater Arts Alliance. And I just, would like to I don't know if anything is working from the report that I sent you. Yes? No? No.

I didn't get a chance to speak. Okay.

I made

copies. Watch your stuff on there.

It's easy enough. Yes. Yes. There's always the bump. You. Whoops.

Think there's two there. Share.

Yes. Doesn't. Share. No. Doesn't.

Anyway, quite a few months ago, we came before the board and, as you know, the Clearwater Arts Alliance has been very active in doing the art wrap signal boxes around town. Almost all

of those that are within

the city limits, have been installed by us. And we had a project that was specific to neighborhoods where a neighborhood, where there aren't many art amenities collaborated with a specific artist to design a piece for their area, and and $10,500 was set aside for us to accomplish that, and I've attached I recently filed a written report saying all six of the boxes that, you know, there was an artist fee paid and then, of course, the installation fee paid, and I attached a chart showing which neighborhoods had participated in this activity, what the name of the piece is, who the artists were. We had six different artists, and all of those budgeted funds had been spent. And I made a little collage. Sorry that my printer cut off a little bit of the I it didn't realize I wanted it on 14 inch long paper.

But all six of those boxes are now successfully installed, and we're getting wonderful comments on them. So I just wanted to report that that project has been fully completed. And if there are opportunities to do more things like that, we would love to be able to do that. So and I think Betsy's got stuff about a big three d sculptural event we have coming up in a couple days, so we wanna tell you about that too.

Thank you.

Hi there. Betsy Adler with the Clearwater Arts Alliance. I wanted to let you guys know that we're doing a big celebration to celebrate the new sculptures that I hope that you have seen on Cleveland Street in downtown. There's three new pieces there that were installed in in April. And so on Saturday, May 31 from ten to one, we're gonna have a celebration to kind of unveil those sculptures. They have been up a while, but we're still gonna celebrate that they're there. So there'll be kids crafts. There'll be snacks and drinks, live music, that sort of thing. Hopefully, two or three of the artists will be there as well to kinda celebrate their new pieces in the area. And then 11AM, there'll be remarks from some city officials.

So that we hope you can all attend. Thanks so much.

Thank

you. Thank you. New business items. Out of 4.1, select and vote on final artist and design for Clearwater Marina Walk Sculpture.

Good afternoon. Amber Brace, arts and cultural affairs manager. At the last public art and design board meeting, the board had narrowed down our selection to three and had directed staff to return to the top three artists that you all had originally selected and requested an additional design concept from each of them. Of those three, only two submitted designs additional designs back to me. And so we are asking for design selection, artist selection, and approval to move forward with the sculpture on the marina.

So as you remember, this was Heath's piece, the You Are Here piece. And he had another one that did upload for some reason, but it was the anchor one. Does everybody remember that one? Have it here. Sorry, Danielle.

There was this piece, if you all remember. So those were the two, and he did not submit a third design. Okay. The other pieces were Eileen, who I think you all kind of turned this one down but liked the other one, the floaty totem. And that her additional design she sent in was this called slow dance.

So I think it would be between those two pieces from what you all directed last time. I just wanted everybody to be able to see all of them. Then the additional so then we had Cecilia. I don't think you all liked this one as much as you liked the original one that she sent in. Is someone but these are the two additional ones she sent. So paradise and sun dancing sun. They're similar but a little bit different.

There a way to

zoom This was the other original one Okay. Which I can show. Can

you zoom out of that, Amber, and so we can see the whole piece or

Yes. Probably. So this was the original design

that I think

you all liked the best. And then you asked for an additional design. So this would be the original one. These would be the newer ones. That one. There's that one. There's floating totem, which is made up of mosaics. So that would be a mosaic, and so would her other new piece. It would also be mosaic. So just had some thoughts.

When I was looking reviewing all the files that you sent, I was looking at Aileen's earlier work that she had done. It was in there someplace.

I think I had just shown you all the previous work to give you an idea of what her mosaics look like.

Right.

I'm gonna

add them into this time.

Yeah. What I was noticing, though and maybe this is going backwards too much. What I was noticing is that some of her earlier mosaics seem to have more of an organic feel to them. One of them almost looked like a I don't know, like a like a stone that had been fractured Yeah. And opened up. Mhmm. And none of the designs that she submitted seem to have any of that real kind of organic sense. Okay.

That's I don't know.

I mean, that's probably going backwards to

the Well, the direction I mean, I think the direction initially was this is going to be a highly visible spot. It's to be on the marina. There's going be boats in the background that are not yachts. Some of them are kind of kitschy with the shark head and the pirate ship and things like that. They were they had been given the direction to be a little more fun and not so serious. Yeah. So maybe that's where that comes from.

These definitely hit the fun mark. I think last time I wasn't a super fan of this one but it's kind of grown on me since last time I've seen it. I actually don't even mind the starfish design either. I think the only thing that I would recommend on that is just it feels a little top heavy, so maybe one the starfish, the the top starfish gets smaller just so it comes to more of a point and less of a a less top heavy. So but

But I like the buoys.

I like the buoys too. Yeah.

Of the bird, those are my favorite.

I think I'm leaning that way as well.

So you're leaning between either of violin's uses. Is that what we're saying?

I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. The flow deterrent was kind of it has a good five two for photos and the scale.

11 feet is the proposed size. Five two one. So I'll just exit out.

So the surface is done in mosaic. So what is the like the core of it made out of concrete? So

it says steel embedded for structural support, pick points, I guess what that means, pinpoints, Acrylic cement with fiberglass reinforcement. And then high glazed high fire glazed porcelain glass and stone mosaic adhere to a thin set cement.

Yeah. That should be super durable. You know, like, no maintenance issues. Maybe spray it down with bleach or something.

Right.

Bleach and then grout, but

I'm assuming that's about both of them.

Yeah. Some of the other ones that are, like, the painted metal or powder coated metal as as we've seen on some of the other oblique art pieces, like the one at the Eastlake library. The surface gets kinda chalky after a while, but high fire ceramic tile is does not do that. So Yeah. From a durability standpoint, you know, that one gets my vote. Yeah.

Might as well.

So do you would you like floaty totem?

Floaty totem.

What would

you like?

I also really like

the name. Slotium.

Makes me laugh. You wanna vote

on it? Yeah. Let's let's take a vote on slow dance or floaty total. So all in favor for floaty total.

Okay. Someone has to make a motion.

Sorry. I'll make a motion that we vote for floaty totem.

I second that motion.

So we have

all Gotta say all

in favor. All in favor.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

So we're going with Eileen Gay floating totem. Yay. Alright.

Floating totem wins here. He's surprised. Floating totem.

And it is cute and I do think you're right. Like with sea spray and the sand and the sun, it's going to be the most durable.

What

is are there I was when I was looking at this, I was also thinking that something like this would make a, you know, a neat t shirt or something like that, you know, Clearwater, you know, whatever. Is what are the licensing

Yeah. Usually, in the agreements, there's a a caveat of, like, we own the piece, but we don't own. And we can use it to photograph, like, to promote the city or promote the beach, but we can't reproduce it to make money off of, like, a t shirt or something like that. So that would be the artist. The artist would have the right to do that.

So if there was somebody, a vendor who wanted to set something like that up, they could talk to the artist and

Yes. Work that

They'd have to have their own contract. And we could put that into the contract, but most artists don't agree to that usually. So.

Like the manhole covers in Saint Pete. Yeah. They have the pelican, and they did like t shirts and stuff.

Out of 4.2, discuss completion of Coachmen murals and social media recognition. So

the final Coachmen Park mural wall was completed in January by Jenna Morello, who titled her piece Views. It's a really great addition to the park. With this, all of the mural walls that were dedicated to public artwork are now complete. And these are intended to be rotated every three years. So the first opportunity to put a new mural on these walls would be October 2026.

So for Coachmen, it's pretty much buttons up all of the murals except for the one that we are going to put on the back of the BayCare sound, which has been put on hold for a little while, but that's the last one. And I wanted to mention that visit Clearwater St. Pete did some really great posts on their social media about Cushman Park and all the murals and it got a lot of likes and shares and it was really nice of them to do that and I think it really promoted the murals that we have going on in Coachmen Park.

Item 4.3, world's largest rubber duck exhibit discussion.

Alright.

So since Coachmen Park has opened, I've been exploring ideas for rotating exhibits that would engage visitors and offer photo opportunities and bring some economic development downtown Clearwater. Something I've been interested in since I got this position was the world's largest rubber duck. And this year, it seems a little more feasible than before. We're currently in discussions with a sponsor to help fund the exhibit. And ideally, we would host it November 2025.

Nothing is finalized yet. But I would love to hear the board's thoughts on an exhibit like this and also the idea of having rotating exhibits in Cochin Park as opposed to a large iconic art piece, which has kind of been the route that we've been thinking about for the future. But maybe the pros and cons of each and what you all feel how we should go moving forward with Coachmen Park.

Any discussion at all?

I I certainly like the idea of the rotating major exhibit because it'll give people a reason to come back. And, you know, if somebody's not interested one thing, they might come back for the other. And this, of course, you got the Jeep people. And I'm thinking of Kevin.

Yeah, of course.

I don't know if there's a way of

We had a colleague that painted rubber docks and passed away earlier this year. Anyways, yeah, it's fun. I agree. Would keep people coming back.

Yeah.

Same. I like the idea of it. Rotating.

My only question is what happens, so when it rotates out, where does it go next and I guess my short question is how do you minimize waste? Like, so where does it go next? What do you do with it afterwards?

For us or for them?

For just in general. So when it rotates out and we get a new thing, where does this thing go? Right?

Like I I mean, have a schedule, so it's I wanna say it's like an

So it'd be

It's up north somewhere right now.

Okay.

But they have a schedule and they transport it and they do all of that.

So will everything that we rotate in and out be on a similar type of a schedule? So okay. It won't be a one and done and it goes in a trash pile.

No, no. No. This is actually an art piece and it was created by I think it's a Dutch artist but he's like, this is an actual art exhibit. So it gets rotated around the world.

Yeah. I love it.

So the duck, I forget her name, but it's a she. She's been to Hong Kong, China, Canada, Detroit, California, everywhere.

Are there I don't know a lot about work like this. So I guess there's a bunch of people that make work of that kind of scale that's portable and moves around and, like, I guess, tours the world that we could run a series of exhibits. Yeah.

Yeah. There's elephants that people make. There's the damboat trolls that maybe you guys are familiar with. But they have they're these giant trolls that are made out of like reclaimed wood and Okay. But they're usually hidden in parks and different things. Yeah. They do have a rotating exhibit.

Yeah. There's one in Miami.

Yes.

In Wynwood.

Yeah. So there's options. There's a lot of options.

Yeah. That would be cool.

Are there any teaching materials that are involved with this? I I can kinda see how this might for local schools, there's an opportunity for to, you know, to do some geography stuff and some cultural stuff. And and if we could provide or if the the artist could provide information like that to some of the Pinellas County schools. It might give students a reason to come out or field trips or different things like that.

Okay. Yeah. We would definitely promote it. I didn't think about schools, but we could promote it in the schools.

Or maybe like a lecture at the sound or something like that.

Yeah. Well, they have their own requirements where they require a table, and I think they have information that they pass out and they do things like that.

Especially if it's far enough ahead of time to I mention that don't know what levels but certainly elementary schools, certainly any of the art magnet schools.

Yeah. And I had talked to the sponsor about potentially doing some sort of fundraising. So I don't know if you guys have seen like the rubber duck races that they do where everybody purchase like purchases a duck for $20 and then there's a number on the bottom and if your duck wins, win a prize but it all goes to charity. Like maybe tying that in somehow. But it would be their event, so it's kind of their deal. I'm just the art exhibit. We'll see. But I'll mention that and we'll look

at Do they have their own website for the ducks?

They do. I think it's

giantrubberduck.

I think it's like, yeah, bigduck.com or something like that. Yeah.

Spot on, bro.

That's cool. There's this museum down in Miami called Superblue, and also the Balloon Museum. And the Balloon Museum is like this giant warehouse, and it's all inflatable sculptures. So there might be, you know, maybe they have stuff that they loan out or some of those artists have pieces that go on tour.

Might be

a good resource for future exhibits.

Item 4.4, Grad Chalk Walk.

So the Clearwater Community Redevelopment Agency in conjunction with the downtown development board has commissioned seven potential or professional mural and chalk artists to create 12 designs for local high schools that are holding their graduation at the BayCare Sound. Each school will have a custom chalk art design reflecting their school's colors, mascots, school name, and then there'll be two three d end cap designs for students to pose with for photos. These temporary murals, weather permitting, will be on display from Wednesday, May 28 through Sunday, June 1. And I think I put in an example of just kind of what the three d can look like. So it'll have kind of an interactive thing where they can I think one has a diploma where they could be holding it up and So things like that or sit on it'll be an interesting thing?

It'll be along Cleveland Street, 405 Hundred Block. And

you've already have we already reached out to artists for that or

Yeah, they did an open call. The CRA did an open call and they had a panel and so we narrowed it down to seven artists.

Fantastic. And I assume the graduates of those high schools have been

They've been notified to come find their school, yeah. And like tag it and do all the things, like, yes.

Item 4.5, discuss Fire Station 47 mural collaboration with Clearwater High School.

So the new fire station forty seven has completed construction at its new location. This is the one from formerly on Lakeview Road. It's now at 601 South Hercules Avenue, right across the street from Clearwater High School. The fire department had expressed interest in featuring a rotating mural created by Clearwater High School students. So after connecting with the principal and their art faculty, there's our teacher named Ms.

Hoffman who's been very helpful. She's going to select six of her most promising students who will team up in pairs of two and they will paint a six by three piece of plywood but then collaborate together to make it a triptych mural. So one cohesive design, three separate boards, six student artists. Artists. And we will display that.

We will frame it, display it for one year with the potential to hopefully rotate it every year. But there's also a permanent piece potential if, you know, we don't have enough students that are interested after a while or something like that. But it's really I think it's a really great way to give students a chance to really display their art publicly, see what that means, do some community outreach. So we're excited about that.

That's really nice to make that connection rather than just here's a new fire depart or fire department

Yeah.

Station going up right from across from your school and they're just doing their own thing.

Right.

Makes them more connected. That's cool. It's cool.

And miss Hoffman's doing good work.

I don't know miss Hoffman.

Yeah. She's

great. She's great. Really good teacher.

Good.

I get a lot of her students.

Oh, good.

Good kids. Good kids.

Okay, guys. 4.6, we need to elect officers.

So this is our first meeting of 2025. So the board will need to select a new chair and vice chair for the remainder of the year. Kimberly Tavito is representing her creative analysis. Her term is complete, she's asked to renew her seat, so she will be reinstated. But Ms. Bills and Mr. Siler, their terms have both expired. They will not be seeking renewal. I'm gonna nominate you. Mrs. Munno is gonna still on the board, but she's not here, so I'm assuming it'll chair and vice chair will be between the four of you guys. So I

would like to nominate Brian Bolton to be our chair. He does a good job. More practice. I got more practice.

I second that.

All in favor?

All in favor? Aye. Okay.

And then how about the vice chair?

Vice chair. So

you would run the meetings in Brian's stead if he was not here?

Yeah. Be nominating Doctor.

Byrd.

Is that something you would like to do? No. No.

Do wanna do that? I'm sorry.

I I was thinking on my split difference and and nominate Kimberly over here.

Yeah. Go for it.

But can I do that?

Can I My my issue is, like, I know I can do it? I in base in

In

the the summer. Summer, I I will basically have to cancel two classes. Oh. Well, then let's And as long as I know far enough ahead of time, that's okay. But it would be better if I didn't. Oh.

Cool. Yeah.

Okay. So there's one meeting in July and one meeting in October. I think it was the tenth and July 10 and October 9, I believe. So those are the only two meetings we have for the rest of the year unless something comes up and we do a special meeting in December.

Do we have to make a motion that I'm

If Kimberly can make it I'll take Kimberly. Work better.

Come on.

There's second.

I second.

All in favor. Aye.

So Brian is the chair, Kimberly is the vice chair.

Fantastic. So we have a little bit old business 5.1, discuss installation of smart plex. Smart plex.

So we had previously discussed the installation of smart plex for all public art throughout the city, I gave this project to my assistant hoping it would be done when I came back from maternity leave. But my assistant resigned. So the plaques are not all installed. I've been installing them slowly but surely. And we've had a little bit of setbacks with the murals that are on private property. Need to get permission from the property owners to put them up. So that's just taking a little longer. But I think there's about 17 that are up. And they're in the maps with PixelStix and then we're going to integrate them into our GIS map. And there is a separate webpage for each individual art piece that is going to go live on our arts and culture page soon.

They are live. If you scan the plaques, it'll bring you to it, but there's just no place on our web page to go to all of them right now.

Cool. 5.2, discuss the Mercado art installation and community event.

So the public artwork at the Mercado located at 1384 Gulf To Bay Boulevard in Downtown Clearwater has been completed by artist Christina Salas in partnership with Unimax, local businesses, the CRA, and the community. They did an unveilingblock party on April 6. It was featuring live music, arts, food vendors, and kind of unveiled the art. And the event was very well attended. The community's response to the artwork has been positive.

We're looking into kind of sealing this piece, the painted parts, and then around the planter beds, adding some caulk in the top to finish it all off. But this is the biggest mosaic piece that's there. The planter beds are wrapped and then have a piece of fruit in them.

What was the address again?

It is 1384 Gulf Bay Boulevard. So if you go up Cleveland Street, it's where Cleveland and Gulf Bay Fork. It's right there.

Okay.

It's nice to have those sun sale awnings.

Oh, is that what it's right there? Okay, yes. I know exactly where that is now. I think that's a beautiful space.

Yeah, it's really. Yeah. It's much nicer now. It's easier to drive through.

What's the community event part?

That was

Oh, that was the one that

That was the one on April 6 that they did. Yeah. Okay. And it is a park like all of our other parks where the community can actually reserve to use it as a space. Yeah. I guess I'll just stay up here.

Yeah. You have item number six, director's report.

We don't really have much except that we are obviously seeking two new board members. You have to be a Clearwater resident. Not necessarily involved in anything with arts, but it's preferred that you have some sort of love interest in art or background in art. And then just wanted to let you all know I had a conversation today with my supervisor about potentially getting some quotes for appraisers for the art pieces that we have in the city to build a more robust data collection set for everything and having everything appraised for insurance purposes and things like that. So that's something we're looking into right now.

For the any possible new members, how do I suggest that they apply? Or what's the process?

So if you go even if you just Google City of Clearwater Public Art and Design Board, There should be a link of how to apply. And so and I think on our website, it's apply for a board seat. And you can click on that and it'll tell you all the seats that are available on all of the boards in the city. And then it does have to be the appointee does have to be appointed by the city council.

Item number seven, are there any board members to be heard? Do you have anything going on, some more input about our meeting today that you'd like to provide?

Not missus Smith. Okay.

I had I a couple

of things. Yes, sir.

One is when we were talking about the high school kids being involved with the fire station, I was also wondering if there were I don't know if there's a way of doing this, but, if there would be any interest from the, local high school students who were into art in at least seeing this process. And I don't know. Maybe at some point connecting with Clearwater Arts Alliance. So I I kind of wonder about them, especially the ones that are involved with the fire station thing. I'm wondering, how does all this happen? You know, what what goes on when when a piece is pitched and accepted and things like that? And then, you

know, some of the I'm

I'm wondering if they would be imagining what the discussions that we have would be. You know? Because think about what's his name? The other the other sculptor for the the one that you are here? The

blank Heath.

Heath Sato. Yeah. You know, the reasons that we didn't accept his sculpture had nothing to do with how well they were done or the insight or the design. We just decided that something different was what appealed to us. And I can imagine artists saying, oh, they didn't like my work, but it really doesn't have anything. It just wasn't the right fit for what we're doing here. And I thought it might be interesting if there was a way of bringing in Clearwater high school students to kind of at least see this at some point.

Yeah. You know, it might be good to invite miss Hoffman, and I can't remember what the other art teacher at Clearwater High's name is.

I wasn't introduced to her, so I don't know.

I could picture him. I just can't remember his name. You know, to one of these meetings, if if they're available, so that they could see the process too and maybe bring it back to their students. Because I brought some of the proposals for the PTSA sculpture piece or, yeah, whatever the bus the bus station sculpture piece and showed it to my design students and said, like, here's all the work that goes into these public art pieces. Like, you might not like what ends up getting made.

Right? But, you know, here's the proposal, and they had to have engineered drawings and, like, wind load and all this other stuff. And, like, we talked about durability and materials and schedule and, like, the budget sounds really big. You know, it's $200,000 or whatever, which sounds like a lot of money, but not when a 150 of it is on fabrication and $50,000 is getting it from wherever it's coming from to get here and then coordinating with the city and the lighting designer so it all, like, works and whatever. They don't have a clue. Most of us don't have a clue about how to do that, which is why that one person ends up with so many public commissions. But, you know, I shared that with my students. They're blown away.

Mhmm. And that's also a nice connection with, connecting students to government Right.

As well. The written component of it because it ties it into, like, creative writing and composition and, like, how important it is to have the formatting and all your documents correct and deadlines.

Can I ask, does Creative Panellis do any kind of workshops for artists kind of touching on this?

No. We just actually started a series actually last night called Mind Your Business for Artists. But this is an interesting proposal of we're going into the arts world actually next month in June. I wanna say the twenty first, and it's actually gonna be at Florida Rama, and it's about talking to collectors and how to get into galleries, but not necessarily. We don't have one scheduled about public art, so I'll

That would be interesting to maybe work together as a collaboration with, you know, SPC and Creative Millis and City of Clearwater. I know some counties and some city bigger cities do workshops workshops for for artists. And I do think it is helpful, especially for your local artists to understand maybe why one person's getting picked over another. And a lot of it is like you're saying, it's proposals way more outlined and all the details. So I think that's something we could talk about in the future for sure.

You know, and also the interview component of that too because we always meet with the artist, it's usually over Zoom or whatever. But being able to present your work and talk professionally about it and have all those answers to every possible question that comes up.

I have a question about, you just mentioned, you just reminded me about the process of even applying. So when you send out call to artists, I sometimes run to artists that don't have a lot of tech savvy still. Right? So one, they're may not be getting calls or if they do, they have some trepidation about the application process. Are there resources for helping them through that process if they do get to the point of the application or how does that process work? How do you compensate for that?

I I don't know of any resources that are that detailed, but I will say you can tell usually the artists that have a lot more public art experience than those that don't because of things like that. Their resume and the cover letters and the design concepts, even the imagination and where it came from and all of this stuff that is trying to tie back stuff with the city and things like that. A lot of newer artists or people that are not as tech savvy usually don't upload or they upload a Word document, not a PDF. Things like those little small things, they stand out sometimes So to

there's not really a way to make them aware?

I think like this potential workshop type thing would be a very good way to do that.

There was an organization in St. Pete that was doing some workshops, but I don't remember if it was right before COVID. It was like Green Treehouse or something. Greenhouse. Greenhouse.

They still exist. They still do for artists as well. More so on the business side. I haven't seen one recently for public art Yeah, I think MGA sculpture.

Yeah, they kind of hold the.

Yeah. I think To

the powerhouse and public commissions, I think.

And has done help for artists

Yeah.

How to do it as well. But it would be a cool collaboration that we could pull together.

In the in the right creative writing world, there's often there are often contests for books by first authors, authors who never published a book before.

Mhmm.

I wonder if that was would be something we would want to do, have a you know, if we had a particular commission at a particular place, if we would want to, you know, try to reach out and have it for somebody who had never won a commission and never had a major piece of art.

I've been wanting to do like like Reggae Rise Up. Anybody go to that? That they have those kind of walls that are just made for the festival and then they bring in artists that Yeah. I would love to do something like that in the park where it's temporary, it's only up for maybe a month, but allowing emerging artists or maybe student artists or artists that have never been given the opportunity to do public art an opportunity to do that. So then they could kind of see the city process, but then also, you know, it's not life or death because it's just a temporary piece and

Right, because it's hard to break into these things if you don't have a portfolio of established pieces. So I've been able to do this at Sapient College where we've gotten money from student government to hire students to do murals on our building, and the students got paid, we covered the cost of materials, but then in the end, you know, they have a finished mural to put into their portfolio. So it's like, oh, now you can apply to, you know, whatever, Shine Festival or the one at Clearwater. So a gateway for emerging artists or less established artists to break into that public art sector would be kind of cool.

Would there be a way we could tie that to kind of a mentorship possibility with one of the other artists that we've already worked with that we might work with in the future?

Creative Fine Ellis used to do a lot of that with their

Yeah, I did that with a writer.

Yeah. At actually being reimagined as well to give a more broader reach too. So that's something to take back and

I mean, if that could be part maybe of a commission in the future

Right.

From a professional artist

Right.

Who, you know, say as part of this, you will be working in a and could lay it out and meet three times or whatever as, you know, as a minimum. Yes. That could be a really neat sort of thing.

Yeah, like part of it would be you're commissioned to also have this mentor, to be a mentor to an up and coming. And they get like this section of the wall or something like that. I I think think that's a really good idea. I think it just depends on the artist. Some artists are going to go for it and some are not. So I think it would just be maybe its own separate program.

Yeah, if that was just one, yeah, just make that one of the commissions out of many.

Right. Yeah.

But I mean, maybe even, Amber, your suggestion of like temporary walls or temporary murals. I mean, the walls could maybe be permanent and they get painted over every couple of months. You know, like these ones that are out here, they're set. But if we had others

Right.

I mean, they could be here in the park too. I can't

I don't

know how much it cost to cast a concrete wall. Yeah. Probably 20 times more than I would expect it to

be, but It is a big thing though because it's

The wall

How practice? Do If you're trying to become a muralist or like, how do you practice? Right? And and before someone trusts you with thousands of dollars to do a job. Right? How do you build a portfolio? So there's always been conversations I've had with younger or just new artists as well that wanna break into doing.

Like the other thing we don't have is we don't have public graffiti spaces. In any of the cities in Pinellas County. There's other areas in the country where they have walls that people can go and write on or whatever, do murals on, and they're temporary. They, you know, I know that if I go in there, like do my thing, like on the side of the train or whatever, Yeah. It's gonna go And that's fine.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the point. Yeah. Yeah. Think the the One part is training space.

Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Education education and membership and mentorship is what I write wrote down on my notes because I think that's the next step, right, as far as growing up new artists and keeping fresh work coming in is making sure that it's hitting all the artists and they have the resources to be able to keep doing their thing. So

Is there a plan for this year to do another festival in Clearwater?

Mural festival? Mhmm. I am going to create after this chalk art thing is over this weekend, create a proposal for the North Greenwood CRA for a mural festival there. So I already have one business that's reached out and wants to participate. There's a lot of city buildings that are within the North Greenwood area. It's more of a neighborhood. It doesn't have as many businesses, but there's a lot of potential to even do city buildings. So it is my goal to do it in the fall of this year. Okay. Cool. But we'll see.

One thing I wanted to mention is in other cities I've visited, I've seen murals that make more use of Trump loyal. And I was wondering if there's that was something we wanted to try to encourage in the future.

Make more use of what?

Trump loyal. Those are a mural kind of is an illusion of how would you put it?

It's the French word to fool the eye.

Fool the

eye. You know, it's it's it's a mural that might look like, you know, the side of a building opens into a a corridor, and there's like an there's a garden Got a foot or a And I've seen some that are really clever that will actually make use of a building in an area that and there's an old one in Downtown Clearwater, which side of the building kind of morphs into a train station or something. Oh, yeah, really? You know, there's I just know I don't think we've had any of that, have we?

No. And I don't think we've given that direction. The one

that she was showing,

of those

had that three d or, you know, made you think you're actually walking

in this. Yeah. Yeah.

We've never given that direction, but we could. I guess it would just depend on the building and where it was located and if the business owner wanted that. But yeah.

Beth, if you wanna speak, you have to come up.

Just had a thought.

You gotta tell us who you are.

Yeah. Tell us who you are all over again. Your name

is spelling. We forgot.

Beth Daniels with the Clearwater Arts Alliance. I was taking a group on the, public art walk Saturday before last or whatever. We're on the second Saturday. And, the mural that's the underwater one, it's on the west facing side of one of the so it was the next to the last one done, not the floral that she demonstrated to you, but they're underwater with a snorkel mask on. And several people said, I feel like I'm floating in there with her. You know, so it's not exactly what you're talking about, but it gave that effect, and several of the people on the tour commented about how much they enjoyed that.

Haverlin's mural. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool.

It's probably my favorite one right now. That's really good.

If you've ever been to Nice, France, there's a really, really famous one that's the side of a building. It's an absolutely flat wall, and you think there's all these balconies, and you think there's all these open windows. I mean, you walk right up to it and touch it before you realize that it's not there's the curtains aren't actually flowing out the window, etcetera. It's very cool. And it's, it's, you know, half a block long.

It's noticeable.

Okay.

Anything else?

Good feedback.

Ms. Price, do you have anything else for us? I think our meeting can be adjourned. Meeting adjourned.

Good job, Sher.