HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-02-2016 Minutes City of Auburn Arts Commission, City Hall Annex, One Main, Conference Room 1
Tuesday, August 2, 2016 Meeting Minutes
Present: Nancy Colson, Charlotte Gollnick, Patricia Judd, Colleen Maloney, DeNae McGee,
Trudi Moses, Dan Norman, Ronie Schwend Cary Davidson, Jan Jensen, Donna Smart Arts
Coordinator Maija McKnight Arts and Events Manager Julie Krueger Excused� Heather
Longhurst
I. Call to Order, Approval of Minutes, Introductions and Approval of Nlinutes:
Chair McGee called the meeting to order at 4 29 pm Commissioner Jensen moved to approve
the May 2016 meeting minutes Commissioner Schwend seconded the motion. All approved
Motion approved.
II. Auburn Arts and Culture Center
Maija McKnight announced that the purchase and sale of the Old Post Office/Former Public
Health Building located at 100 Auburn Avenue has been fnalized as of August 2, 2016 The
building was purchased from King County The City of Auburn received a $200,000 grant
through 4Culture/King County Building for Culture initiative towards the purchase and
renovation of this property in order to serve as an Arts and Culture Center
The Commission viewed an updated website and viewed a promotional video Additionally a
draft outreach plan was shared. The City has contracted with PARC Resources to help develop
a schematic de.sign of the interior to accommodate the new use Part of the input of the building
use will be developed through the series of community meetings and open houses, but a
general framework of potential uses for interior spaces was shared by staff It was noted that
the September Arts Commission meeting will occur within the space and be a discussion by the
commissioners to talk about potential uses, audiences and programming Discussion continued
III. Public Art 2016-17
Staff McKnight provided an overview of the summer community public art projects that are in
progress. The Pianos on Parade (5th Annual) is occurring and the Pianos were placed in 5
locations throughout the City and will be returned to storage on August 25, 2016. Benchmarks
(2"a Annual), another community public art program that includes 18 benches created by local
non-profit and service organizations are placed throughout the City until the first week of
October The benches from last year were re-sited and four new benches from Soropomist
Club, Pacific Ballroom Dance, The Auburn Food Bank, and Auburn Valley Humane Society
joined the others
With the opening of the new Community Center, a new gallery was created that will be
programed alongside the Gallery at City Hall and the Cheryl Sallee Gallery at the Auburn Senior
Center The remainder of this year has been scheduled with local artists, but will be an open
call for participation within the gallery program for 2017
A redesign of the B-Street Plaza is occurring, and part of the change is the removal and re-siting
of the public artwork in the space Created by Garth Edwards, the B-Street Plaza public art
includes multiple parts 1) story pole 2) kiosk 3)tree grates 4) tree holders 5) cement bollards
The site specific artwork will be separated into two areas with the first three listed components
remaining in the location and the tree holders and bollards removed, temporarily stored and
then reinstalled on the redevelopment of Les Gove Park along the Auburn Way corridor
Working with a landscape architecture firm, the design of this new enfranceway into the park will
feature this artwork and provide high visibility The tree holders, which now have a figure on
each side of the tree will likely be divided to have the 16 figures total stand next to 16 trees
(rather than two figures on eight trees) The artist was consulted on this transition and the
movement of figures and bollards approved
The City's Public Arty program is funded through a pereent for art ordinance as well as an
annual capital facilities allocation of$30,000 that is accrued annually The annual funding
amount has not been spent in the past years, instead the commission had previously deemed to
allow the funding to accrue until there is a good project that would greatly benefit from the
addition of public art. As a discussion item at previoas meetings, the two locations that have
been raised
The first possible sites includes Les Gove Park and the redevelopment of the site adjacent to
Auburn Way for the possibility to commission a mooumental artwork that could serve as a
gateway artwork and have high visibility to the thousands of vehicular traffic that uses Auburn
Way/Highway 164 Daryl Faber, Director of Parks, Arts and Recreation attended a previous
Arts Commission meeting and presented the overall plan and vision of the redesign of this
important arm of the park.
The second site that has been discussed at prior meetings has been the possibility of working
with the School District in order to commission an exterior public artwork on the Auburn High
School Campus, on the 4t"Avenue side that now serves as the main entrance to the Auburn
Performing Arts Center Staff McKnight noted that she had an initial conversation with the staff
member at ArtsWa, Washington State Arts Commission that oversees the statewide percent for
art program, in which public schools are part of The school will be going through the process to
commission and create a public work, but location will be determined as part of the committee
work. Commissioner McGee noted that commissioning an artwork that is on School District
property may present logistical issues
Discussion continued Commissioner Schwend motioned to recommend Les Gove Park as the
location for the next public art project. Commissioner Jensen seconded the motion. All
approved Motion approved. Staff noted that the recommendation would be taken to Mayor,
and if approved a public art committee would be formed in order to work to define scope,
identify goals, create a call-to-artists, and select an artist for the project. An estimated timeline
for this would be to have the artist to be selected and start working with the landscape
architecture team in early 2017 with the completion date of Fall/Winter 2017
IV. Updates/Upcoming Events
Staff McKnight noted that the granting to arts organizations and groups application will need to
be posted in order to accommodate the fall schedule of Arts Commission meetings and be
reviewed and funding granted at the October 2016 meeting An updated version of the Arts
Project Support Grant was distributed and commissioners asked to review and discuss any
potential changes. Commissioner Smart noted that other jurisdictions that have granting often
times have smaller grants available that aren't on the once-a-year timeline This allows for the
potential support of worthy projects that don't necessarily have a year timeline and/or the
knowledge of the existence of the funding Commissioner Smart proposed that there be a
small amount of the grant money reserved to have available to smaller requests throughout the
year and that this can be noted in the current grant requirement outline. Discussion continued
and the desire to have available funds for smaller scale granting was desired Staff will develop
a pracess and implement for 2017 Commissioner Maloney noted a sentence in the guidelines
could be clarified in the document as we don't want to discourage outside artists from offering
opportunities to Auburn citizens, staff will clarify this area of the document prior to distribution