Art in the Park. Over the Dead Bodies of Some.

Interesting discussion about public art at the Commission meeting last night.  My suggestion was that we raise about $10K per year by charging each homeowner $8 per year.  I know it doesn't sound like enough to talk about, but that was the proposal.  Hoo boy, I guess not!

Some of our neighbors don't want the Village to contribute anything.  (Meaning $8 a year is too rich for their blood.)  Some felt acquisition of public art should not be a public project (really?), and some just didn't want to spring for the $8.  (Yes, I said eight dollars per home per year.)

Some, like Barbara Watts and others, didn't want the Village to have dessert before it ate its vegetables.  If we're going to have public art, it should come after we fix the streets and improve the medians.  But since neither Barbara nor anyone else with this philosophy is making the slightest effort to get the streets fixed and the medians improved, it doesn't appear we'd ever get to public art.  Nor fixed streets or improved medians.  They seem to like the Village as skanky (I mean quaint and charming) as possible.

Another interesting angle in the resistance to public art (or at least to contributing to it) is the idea that a given piece is not particularly appealing to a given individual.  This excuse (I mean argument) was offered by a couple of people.  Barbara Watts was a central proponent of the idea that art that doesn't appeal to everyone is unworthy, and she supported her credential to say so by pointing out that she happens to be a professional art historian.  Funny enough, I counted on Barbara's expertise once.  Or I tried to.  Some years ago, when we were trying to form an Art Board, I asked Barbara if she would agree to be on such a Board.  (What an advantage for us to have a professional art historian on the Art Board!)  But she informed me that she would be of no use on such a Board, since her area of expertise is narrowly Fifteenth Century European art.  When we asked the then Commission to approve the first sculpture it eventually acquired, Barbara stood in rage over it, describing it as poor art.  She got this conclusion, she said, from some of her pals at FIU.  So Dr Barbara Watts, professional art historian, is qualified neither to appreciate nor criticize contemporary art, but she wants her personal dislike of a given piece of contemporary art to carry special weight?  How does that work?

And curiously too, Barbara did not join me in advocating for public support of public art in BP.  It was not long ago that she was so militant in demanding public support of public art here that she convinced two of her Commission colleagues-- a majority all together-- to take from the Village coffers money that was never earmarked for public art.  She wanted to use it to pay for a mural, over the unanimous disapproval of her neighbors.  She couldn't care less what the residents of the Park think: she just insists on public financing of public art.  Not any more, all of a sudden, though.  I wonder what happened to her commitment.

The fact is, I expected to have this idea rejected last night.  It's common that new ideas get rejected the first time around.  In the meantime, we will continue to collect donations.  As a frame of reference, there were six donors to the first sculpture the Village acquired.  There were 22 to the second.  At this moment, we're about 2/3 of the way to our goal, and there are about 80 donors.  By the time we finish, at this rate, there will be about 120.  For the sculpture in question, if every homeowner donated, all that would be required would be $5 per home.  We'll get there.  We'll certainly reach the goal for "The Ballplayer," and eventually, we might even reach the $8 per home per year goal.