Public Art in Puna

[ric]

Alaska, I misunderstood your original post. I thought this suggestion was only for public buildings, I took that to mean publicly owned buildings. If this also includes private buildings, it's a partial confiscation of someone's private property. I'd argue that any building I developed was a work of art in itself (does anyone think of architecture that way anymore? Or are buildings just considered to be vandalism of the landscape by the pro-art-at-any-expense crowd?) It's also predictable that the 'elite' committees who decide what IS art, will mix some agenda of making a statement with the art, along with just putting up some crap that nobody can understand, as is usually the case. I think the power of deciding what to do with someone else's money is corrupting, as there are all kinds of examples of 'public art' that are more often 'controversial', than are beautiful.

[AlohaSteven]

I'll have to do a bit more research on the topic to find out if commercial buildings are ever required to allocate 1% of the budget for art or not, as the only indication showing with a quick search online is it applies to government buildings and suchlike (bridges, sewer treatment plants, etc). Either there was government funding for some commercial buildings here or the owners simply decided on their own it is such a good idea they wanted to make sure some visual art was present.

Along with Alaska at least Oregon and Washington states also have a Percent for Art statute for new taxpayer-funded construction and some cities (such as NYC) nationwide as well.

Description of Alaska's Percent for Art Program
http://www.eed.state.ak.us/aksca/Visual.htm

One Percent for Art Opportunity Announcement Example
http://homernews.com/stories/051409/arts_12_008.shtml

News story describing how it actually worked at one site
http://ktna.org/2009/06/19/one-percent-a...gh-school/

While I think they miss as often as hit the mark, architects always try to make building design aesthetically pleasing; this Percent for Art is in addition to the building or other structure itself. Turns out that structures such as bridges which also have art experience much less vandalism than those which do not, thus saving money in the long run as well as being more interesting.

I suppose in the abstract such a concept could raise Owellian visions of an elite and ideology-driven cabal running amok but in actual practice the community is very pleased with the program. Since a diverse committee of people from the community choose from among proposals by local artists, the results end up being fairly popular locally (...and even folks who dislike a certain piece or other seem to enjoy saying why they think it stinks). "Drill, baby, drill!" Alaska is not a hotbed of lefty progressive sentiments and (except with regard to the military) any government intrusiveness or spending is generally viewed with great hostility, yet the fact of the matter is even in red-state Alaska the Percent for Art program is quite popular: there have been plenty of opportunities since 1975 for the extremely pro-business Republican-controlled legislature or a citizen initiative to chuck out the Percent for Art statute, but no such move has been made because people like the results.


[Edited to fix a broken hotlink to the Homer News]

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It is not our part to master all the tides of the world but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
J.R.R. Tolkien

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[Bullwinkle]

Crusty old Bullwinkle's two cents worth this morning:

"{Shouldn't people just seek out or create their own art, rather than some beaurocrat deciding what IS art"

Is mandated art - art? ..... art comes from the soul and nature - not government mandate - thats public works - grin

Although I have a great appreciation for art, I have a greater appreciation for business and budgets. I have an obligation to our employees to keep the business viable.

Another 1% off the top yup right, add that to the 10% workers comp, the 15% insurance, 30% payroll... 2% business district, 5% for the under grounding of the shopping district power lines, chamber dues, mandated parking for employees, quarterly cpa fees.... the list endless

Art is good, keeping our hands of of the pockets of business better, we need to get the tax base and employment,infrastructure, education up (see my literacy post). Let us work together to get the base of the social pyramid in place, we may want to address art for as the capstone of said pyramid from the fruits of our labor.

Lets keep art for the artists and their benefactors. Government needs to build roads and schools to create artists and engineers - they can take it from there.

Back to getting the floors in the guest house... 5/8 T & g ply is tough stuff for one guy! Aloha

[ric]

Bullwinkle, I agree that the incrementalism kills businesses. I defy anyone to send in 1% of their annual income, or 1% of the value of their properties, to fund such a cause, and then stand back and let some public committee decide how to spend it.

I agree with Rob's program of getting donations to fund something. Better than forced confiscation of private property or taxpayers $$.

[csgray]

I have never heard of a 1% for art program that applied to private businesses, they are applied to public buildings and publicly financed buildings like stadiums. 1% programs have paid for public fountains, murals, sculptures and the art hanging in public lobbies all over the country, my favorite is the interactive fountain at the riverfront in downtown Portland, on a hot day whole families gather there to cool off. The panels are generally local volunteers including those with a background in art or architecture, not professional bureaucrats or government workers. So complaining about private businesses being killed by being forced to pay for art by some heavy handed government entity is complaining about a non existent problem.

Carol

[Bullwinkle]

how about the tax rates we pay as business and individuals, they fund the buildings

---- with all due respect, neither the private or government system operates in a vacuum. When I look at my personal employee and company taxes paid, that same dollar of gross income taxed 3 times (corporate,individual and sales taxes) ... we do some heavy lifting over here, and folks always eager to add to the load.

I love art - but 15% of the local folks are functionally illiterate (this weeks rant) for me its about priorities. Teach them to read and we can fund the art from the increased taxes they will pay as their skills improve, as they become more productive earn more money, buy a bigger house .... and furnish it with art

[ric]

I thought this country was founded on principles of freedom, . . . freedom to appreciate art or to NOT appreciate it. I don't know where this got convoluted to a society where we are FORCED to fund art, and that we are considered savages or uncivilized or not fully evolved if we don't appreciate what someone else considers to be art. This subject boils down to a few people wanting something, and wanting to bully everyone else into funding it, like it or not. Perhaps the result would be popular or nice, perhaps not, it's irrelevant. Anyone can still create or display just about any 'art' they want to, but if the gov't does it, then they are confiscating from the rest of us to do it.

Furthermore, using the great State of Alaska as an example is a bit extreme. They collect NO state income tax or state sales tax, as Alaska finances the state's operations on petroleum revenues. They actually have budget surplus. So it's pretty easy to get the public to stomach something that doesn't directly come from their pockets.

[Greg]

Art is a very dangerous thing for the public to be exposed to. Like it or not, some art may even cause people to engage in actual thought processes. Television is much more desirable, as it provides an anesthetic for the mind, protecting it from possible over use and general wear and tear.

One percent of the cost of a public building should go to broadcasting old sitcoms with canned laughter.

punatoons

[Rob Tucker]

Our old nickname for T.V. is "temporary suicide".

[AlohaSteven]

Interesting:

In 1967, Hawaii became the first state in the nation to implement a Percent for Art law. The Art in State Buildings Law established the Art in Public Places Program and designated one percent of the construction costs of new public schools and state buildings for the acquisition of works of art, either by commission or by purchase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_art

Regarding "I don't know where this got convoluted to a society where we are FORCED to fund art"

Well, in the places which have a Percent for Art program it came into being --apparently following Hawaii's enlightened leadership on this one-- it has been because most people wanted it and has remained all these decades for the same reason. Same as roads, public health, and the military. I am not a huge fan of some uses some of my tax money have been put to (especially during the last eight years) but part of living in a diverse and pluralistic society is sometimes others get what they want instead of me always getting only what I want. Maybe this is a good thing; maybe I am not always right about everything. I feel sure the folks who would deny kids in poverty the opportunity to have public art brighten and uplift their environment are not always completely correct.

I wish such upset and hyperbolic outrage would erupt every time another several billion taxdollars is appropriated to hunt down fictional weapons of mass destruction and for other such criminal wastes. The scale of these matters is significant: one percent of just the tiny budget for a public works project so kids --maybe even Puna kids-- can have some stained glass windows or sculpture brightening up a school which otherwise looks much like a Russian factory, versus about seventy percent of each and every tax dollar being siphoned off the top (vast sums) to prop up military adventurism in the name of keeping the planet ruled by corporations. Where is the outrage?

Contrasted with high-tax Hawaii it is true about Alaska being the most hypocritical of all US states, posing and posturing as the most ruggedly independent of them all but howling to high heaven if a military base closure threatens the big warm and milky government tit so avidly being sucked upon. Every time a postage stamp is mailed in Alaska the USPS takes a loss subsidized by the rest of the states; probably true for Hawaii, too. And of course there is no such thing as a threatened species in Alaska, thinning ice and melting tundra permafrost nothwithstanding, especially if acknowledging reality might minorly complicate resource extraction industries. Not only do Alaskans not pay income tax but anyone (including infants) receives a check --usually around $1,000 per year-- just for using up oxygen; in consequence Alaska is teeming with welfare parasite parents who churn out kids as fast as they can to cash in on this misguided deal. Yet states such as Washington and Oregon also have long enjoyed a Percent for Art program, as well as municipalities such as NYC, and along with paying for Alaska (and Hawaii's?) mail service they sure do not have an excess of cash flowing from their oilfields. They do, however, care enough about the value of art to apportion one percent of public project budgets toward this end.

This outcry against a measely percent for art --and only if the community says "we want it" to such a notion-- (a percent which could not have hurt all that much if posters did not even miss it and realize it was already being taken and applied in this way) seems to me much like music, art, dance, theater, and so on being the first programs cut in the public schools when budgets are reduced. I can think of many other places to cut before those areas, and yet overall the budget would be lower. People complain about youth vandalism, drug use, unemployment and so on yet do not seem to connect the dots between art and art programs in schools (as well as all the rest of the "non-essentials") and these sorts of outcomes. Readin, Rightin, 'n 'Rithmatic are not enough in and of themselves, based on Results.

Someone commented earlier in the discussion something to the effect of "If they want art, let them put it in their homes" (maybe I misremember the exact words, but this is the flavor of the comment which lingers in memory). There was also some connected comment about illiterates in Hawaiian society. This view suggests that art is for those who earn the privilege of enjoying it. While I'd actually agree with this notion to an extent, it seems short-sighted and meanspirited to deny children in poverty (and others, too, illiterate or not) the opportunity for a percent for art in public buildings. People are illiterate for all sorts of reasons, not all of them out of willfulness or hostility to education, and are poor for all sorts of reasons too. Traumatic brain injury can happen to any of us at any moment; poverty tends to swiftly follow. How a society treats its least fortunate members, and helpless children, says much about the character and quality of that society.

While my background is in the sciences as a hobby I make a certain type of stained glass window art known as dalle de verre, or as faceted glass. St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco and the great rosette window in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., are examples of dalle de verre. Because of this hobby I know the going rate for a square foot of installed dalle de verre window on the Right Coast is around $350, on the Left Coast it is around $250 (competition driving the price down there), and in Hawaii it might be somewhere between $300-$400 per square foot (due to importing all the materials). A good dalle de verre window is genuinely magnificent, imho, awe-inspiring in the most true sense of the term. There is also absolutely no way any family in Puna struggling with poverty would ever be able to afford such a window in their home. Does this mean their kids should be deprived of enjoying the experience of sunlight streaming through such a window, while the kids of some rich folks over in Kona deserve it because their parents did whatever (honest work, junk bonds, inherited it, fill in the blank) and have enough cash to afford such a window? I think not.

I am glad to now know there is a percent for art program in Hawaii and will support this as a very good idea indeed. Maybe someday I will even submit a proposal for a dalle de verre window in a new school or suchlike, bidding the project at just cost of the materials. When a community esteems and values the youth in as many ways as possible, tangibly, then the youth feel it and respond in kind with pride, themselves holding a constructive stake in the community.


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It is not our part to master all the tides of the world but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
J.R.R. Tolkien

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