Confessions of an Art Collector

1) Came to believe I was powerless over my love of art.

My house is a testament to my loss of control when it comes to this addiction.  I have more pictures and sculptures than wall and floor space.  I have a very large painted panel I'm having to give away, because it turned out to be too big to fit properly in the house.  I offered it to the Village through Ana Garcia, but it seems she wasn't interested.  I offered it to a non-profit I know, and they'll get back to me.  I have sculptures inside and outside, too.

I think art is wonderful.  It's captivating, it's stimulating, and it pervasively enriches.  It does that for me, it does it for very many other people, and it does it in "public" settings.  Many communities concertedly apply themselves to providing public enrichment through the acquisition and display of art.  Sometimes those displays are contained in museums, and sometimes they are installations of outdoor sculpture.  As I say, wonderful.

It occurred to me at some point that public art would be a great thing for us in the Village, too.  I bounced the idea off some of my friends, and they agreed.  It turns out they, too, are moved by art, and all of us recall with great affection other municipalities we know that feature public art for their residents and for visitors.  Often enough, public art creates visitors.

So I found a piece of art we could get at a reasonable price, and my friends and I contributed the money to buy it.  We donated it to the Village, and it sits today in "Griffing Park," the triangle of land bordered by 6th Avenue, Griffing Boulevard, and 15th Street.  It's an aluminum sculpture shaped somewhat like the letter V, and it's perched on a concrete base.  There is landscaping around it, and at one time, there was a light so it would be visible at night.  I don't know what happened to the light.

The project seemed successful.  A Commission accepted the piece, a combined sitting of three Boards agreed they wanted it and suggested where to display it, and almost all of the feedback has been positive.  The only feedback that has not been positive has come from certain individuals who tend to complain either about almost everything or specifically about me.  It's very few people.  So we decided to try again.

This time, I found a more dramatic and impressive sculpture for not substantially more money than the first one.  So in it's way, it is a better piece and a better deal.  But it did cost more, and I could only go to the original wells, even including my own bank account, so many times.  Where there had been eight contributors to the first piece, there are about 22 for the second.  And most of the original eight are among the 22, present company included.  The second piece has been approved by the Commission-- a different Commission-- and the piece has been paid for.  We're waiting for delivery.  I have no idea where this piece will go; I had no say over where the last one was placed.  There has been talk, or speculation, or assumption that this one will go in the same piece of land as the first one.  Could be.  Not my end of things.

Frankly, I'd love to see us develop a serious commitment to public art in Biscayne Park.  I envision public sculpture in many of our public green spaces, not at all to exclude the medians.  Perhaps in time. And funding will be an issue.  At some point, the donors will get tired, or tapped out, and we'll have to consider a real Village effort, maybe including a tiny yearly tax of $2-$5 per person to create an art fund.  To be determined by some Commission.

In the past few years, I had the thought that it would be great to convert the blank wall on the street-facing side of the handball courts at the park to a mural.  I talked this around in a limited way, and it turns out I wasn't the only person who thought that would be a good idea.  In the meantime, Barbara Watts much more recently had the same idea.  So she and Ana Garcia and I met to strategize how to find and fund a mural.  Having done a bit of this already, I had some thoughts and suggestions for Barbara.  But she had thoughts of her own, and she was not open to other ideas.  She took over the effort and moved on, declining my help or participation.  We finally arrived at a choice of mural design, which was gratifying.  Over Barbara's objection, Village residents were allowed to have their preferred image (it happens to have been my own preference, too).  The funding was in fact what I hoped for all along-- it will be the residents of the Village who will pay for most of it-- but I'm afraid that how this choice of funding was arrived at was handled so badly and ineptly that Barbara did not win enthusiasts.  Rather, she offended everyone, even me.  Barbara did not offend everyone single-handedly, of course.  (Well, she did in her undying effort to advocate for the mural choice Village residents liked least.)  She could not have done what she did without the active participation of a majority of Commissioners.  In this case, she was able to engage Noah Jacobs and Bryan Cooper.  The problem was what Steve Bernard, Bryan Cooper, and Gaspar Gonzalez call a bad "process."  Except they only call it that if they're talking about me.  None of them expressed complaints about Barbara's mammoth blunder.

But we will wind up with a mural at the recreation center.  I'm sorry Barbara disagrees, but it's a very nice and pleasing image.  It's a variety of locally seen birds.  I think you'll like it.  More of your neighbors preferred it than any of the other 10 choices.  Supposedly, it will be complete by November 22, it will be "unveiled" at the 80th anniversary event, and you'll see the mural any time after that.  I imagine you can see it in the process of creation in this 1-2 weeks before hoped-for completion.  The muralist is Cecilia Lueza.  I've spoken with her, and she seems like a very nice woman and accomplished artist.  Check out her art at lueza.com.  Go meet her.  She also does outdoor sculpture (you bet I'm scheming), and much of it is very pleasing and completely appropriate for us.  It's in a different league cost-wise than the other two, and the pieces are significantly larger.  If you might like to contribute, let me know.  It's never too soon to begin to take up a collection.  If you're interested, let me know, and I'll send you e-mail photographs of the ones I like best.


"For The Best We Can Be"