I love public art and understand the value it brings to a community. However, I voted no to the Public Art Committee’s recommendation for Canalta. The Public Art Committee recommended two stone buffalo sculptures by Stewart Steinhauer. My vote against this recommendation has nothing to do with my personal feelings on this artwork, which I think are beautiful. Here’s the briefing note on this issue and here's why I voted no.
My concerns centred on process.
From my perspective Canalta already has a public art commission—a Jim Marshall mural—and it came in under budget. The problem, in my opinion, is that the usual process wasn't followed.
Medicine Hat has a similar public art policy to other cities. We set aside 1.25% of construction costs of public buildings, to a maximum of $100,000, for public art. You can read the policy here. A committee of community members then use set criteria to review artist proposals for site specific work.
The previous council deviated from the public art acquisition process and selected a custom mural, by renowned local artist Jim Marshall, without input from the Public Art Committee who would typically make the selection.
This decision came with consequences. The brick mural did not use the full $100,000 and $28,000 was left over. The Public Art Committee was tasked with using these remaining funds according to policy. The Public Art Committee has had difficulty finding a suitable work.
A request for proposals was advertised in 2016, but no suitable proposals were submitted to the committee. Another round of request for proposals was advertised in 2017, but again none were found to be suitable. Finally, the committee began searching for art works already completed that would fit with Canalta’s site. They landed on these two sculptures by Stewart Steinhauer. These images are mock-ups of their proposed installation site.
Both images courtesy of Stewart Steinhauer and the Public Art Committee.
From my understanding one of the goals of the public art policy is to: "incorporate and integrate the public art program into the planning, design, and execution of selected municipal capital improvement projects, and that artists are included in the design development of selected capital improvement projects". The Public Art Committee followed the process to find a suitable proposal for the remaining $28,000 and twice could not find a suitable proposal specific for the site. Are we then spending money for the sake of spending money? Could this money be put to better use to enhance a future project's budget?
My motion to refuse the Public Art Committee's recommendation and place the $28,000 in a reserve fund to be used for public art in Medicine Hat passed 6 to 3.
The Public Art Committee has every right to be disappointed with council and specifically with me—it was my motion that refused the recommendation. If council didn't intend to support their work and didn't intend to respect their recommendation, as an advisory body, we shouldn't have tasked them with this project. I know this was late in the process and a lot of hard work had already gone in on behalf of the volunteer committee members, but this only came to my attention recently and I can only judge what's before me.
Going forward, as long as we have a public art policy in place, council should not substitute our judgement in place of the Public Art Committee. That we refused this particular recommendation should in no way be interpreted that we don't value the Public Art Committee and their recommendations. This was a very unique situation with no good options.