New Fayetteville Arts Council looking at College Avenue first
Posted on Thursday, July 26, 2007
The new Fayetteville Arts Council, which has met only once, is already involved in the possibility of public art on College Avenue and has some questions about its bylaws and authority.
“ The thing about the Arts Council is that it’s so broad and there’s so many things that it should be doing, that it’s just a matter of narrowing down and then figuring out what your priorities are, so that’s what we’re doing, ” said Kathy Thompson, vice chairman. “ We’re thinking to the future and what it was that we wanted to focus on and how to start. ”
College Avenue One of those first items on which the council will start is contacting the city engineer’s office to ask for a presentation about College Avenue improvements from Rock to Maple streets.
Thompson said the ninemember committee wants to get in right at the beginning — the design facet of the project.
“ The reason that we’re interested in that is so we can get on the ground level of any kind of public art that might possibly go in, ” she said.
“ Our hope is to get the consciousness of Fayetteville raised to the point where we put art everywhere, ” sculptor Hank Kaminsky said.
“ We want to help bring art to daily decisions, ” said Chairman Michael Landman, a University of Arkansas professor of drama and a director.
The council Other members of the Arts Council are: Dede Peters, Julie Gabel, Bryan Gott, John O’Connell, Mark Landon Smith and LaDawna Whiteside. All represent the arts community, and everyone who applied to be on the council was appointed to it. “ That’s the way it turned out, ” Thompson said. “ As a board, I think we would have liked to see it be more diverse, but you can’t make people apply if they don’t. ” Discussion by the Fayetteville City Council during the formation of the Arts Council outlined a desire to include representatives of the business community, specific boards and councils, and community members at large. Landman said he looks forward to an exchange of ideas about what the Arts Council goals should be at the Aug. 1 meeting, which is tentatively set for 6 p. m. in room 326 at the City Administration Building. Individually, the chairman hopes the Arts Council will be able to spread appreciation of the arts and share opportunities for art in public places. “ I don’t really know what the Arts Council can be yet, ” he said. “ In the next several months, we will find ourselves. We’ll see what the needs are of the community and the interests of the council. The intersection of that is where we will focus our efforts. ”
Bylaws Kaminsky said the new council talked about having issues with some of the bylaws at its July meeting. Thompson said that in going over the bylaws the Arts Council found, “ It’s not about commissioned art. It’s about public art that is given to the city and what do you do with it after that. “ As an Arts Council, that is not really as interesting. ” Mayor Dan Coody asked the Arts Council to consider the art donation policy and to ascertain what is appropriate art if it is donated to the city, said Landman.
The discussion of the donation policy led to questions about the bylaws and whether the Arts Council could make changes or only recommend changes.
“ We have a question of how can we revise some of the bylaws if we think that we may want to change the focus of some of our areas of action, ” Landman said.
He said that so far, his estimation is that the Arts Council is primarily an advisory council to the City Council as opposed to one that can actually take action in a number of areas.
That may change with time if both the City Council and Arts Council want it to happen, he said.
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