President Maeda Plugs for Public Art

I just got back from testifying at the Senate Hearing for revisions to the state's 1% for Art program. In my testimony, I made reference to the letter written by President Maeda and presented to the committee by Liz Keithline of RISCA. Little did I know that most people had already read the letter in today's Providence Journal!

You too can read the letter here.

My main points were pretty simple:
1) Public art is perhaps the most accessible form of contemporary art. In a era of budget cuts in the schools and after-school programs, it is important that public art exist to enliven our shared landscapes.
2) While few of our RISD faculty or students (or community artists for that matter) have the expertise to navigate the world of permits, insurance, and six-figure budgets necessary to execute these large scale public artworks, RISD offers an ideal pool of candidates for smaller scale temporary work. Often emerging artists grow into full sized public art works only after getting their feet wet working on smaller-scale, performance or installation based, projects. So direct some portion of that 1% towards these works!
3) Open up opportunities for RISD students and classes to learn first-hand about the public art selection process by sitting in on these convenings. The participation of RISD faculty on a more permanent selection panel would be invaluable in terms of curating a truly innovation public art program for the state.
4) As taken from Janet Zweig's letter of support - In the Providence Journal article dated April 23rd, 2009, titled "Can Rhode Island still afford to pay for public art?" the first sentence states that "Over two decades, Rhode island has spent nearly 3 million dollars on public art..." While 3 million dollars sounds like a lot of money, by this calculus, Rhode Island has spent $150,000 per year on public art. This is far below the national standard, even when the state's size is considered.

The committee meets for its final public testimony hearing on May 12th @ 2:30.

All in all it was a good day up on the hill for art in Providence.