Penny Balkin Bach

Working in the field of public art automatically puts us in touch with the public, art, and its social context.

In fact, public art may be one of a community’s most overlooked and underappreciated cultural assets; it’s accessible “on the street”, any time, free to all, without a ticket, and diverse in content. It can be enjoyed spontaneously, alone, or in groups, and by culture seekers as well as new audiences.

There is data out there that supports the benefits of public art to the community.

The Knight Foundation and Gallup Corporation’s Soul of the Community study, for example, indicates that community attachment creates an emotional connection to place (which also correlates to local economic growth). They determined that the key drivers of attachment are social offerings, openness, and the aesthetics of place–all potential attributes of public art.

It’s fascinating that these drivers scored higher than education, basic services and safety, and the economy. Also, a local summer visitors survey conducted by the Greater Philadelphia Marketing & Tourism Corporation (GPTMC) found that of the city’s ten most popular outdoor activities, outdoor art ranked second–above hiking, jogging, and biking.

Public art can create community attachment, if we overcome perceived barriers and open pathways for engagement. With this in mind, the Fairmount Park Art Association developed Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO (MWW:AUDIO)—a multi-platform interactive audio experience, available for free on the street by cell phone, audio download, Android and iPhone mobile app, QR code, or online as streaming audio and audio slideshows.

While our delivery system is comprehensive and impressive, our primary goal was to develop a conceptually sound, content-rich program that could be adapted to new technology over time. In my opinion, getting too caught up in the technology is a trap; it’s like jumping on a high-speed train, without knowing where you’re headed.

MWW:AUDIO was inspired by the idea that there is a unique story, civic effort, and creative expression behind every public sculpture in Philadelphia—and that an ideal way to tell each story is in the environment and context of city life.

A sculpture with the real estate-style sign promoting MWW:Audio.

We identified the “spontaneous viewer” as an audience unique to public art: this person typically has not planned ahead, paid a museum admission, or signed up in advance for a cultural tour. Because our intent is to attract people on the street, we’ve used “real estate” type signs and bus shelter posters to call attention to the program.

The hallmark feature of MWW:AUDIO is the use of an “authentic voice” model—that is, people from all walks of life who are personally connected to the sculpture. Nearly 100 “voices” from all walks of life are featured: artists, curators, scientists, writers, historians, civic leaders, and family descendants.

Because each person has something distinctive to communicate, each speaks with enthusiasm and delight. There’s no narrator, so listening is almost like eavesdropping into a fascinating conversation. Some of my favorite audios are Iroquois, Jesus Breaking Bread, LOVE, the James A. Garfield Monument, and–yes–the movie prop from Rocky.

Our planning process integrated evaluation throughout, and we worked with Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. to develop a formative evaluation instrument. We defined the qualities of the audio program that we wanted to measure–including that listeners feel that they have learned something of value, prompting a sense of curiosity about Philadelphia’s public art.

Our findings indicated that people wanted to “get smart” and ‘‘Almost all of the participants said the audio programs evoked new ideas about the sculptures and helped them look more closely at a work of art they had previously passed by without much notice.”

The impact of the program has been both positive and measurable.

Fairmount Park Art Association's Museum Without Walls AUDIO launch event at Love Park.

For the first time ever, we have quantitative tools to track our audience and guide our programmatic development. When we launched the project, the total number of visits to our websites increased 300 percent compared to traffic in the three months prior. With analytics we are able to measure the program’s impact by tracking the time, location, and call duration of participants, resulting in more than 25,000 in-depth audience contacts. We have also experienced an increase in Facebook fans, people opting-in to our mailing list, and membership donations.

The qualitative audience response has also been overwhelmingly positive. We are able to receive direct user feedback through our cell-phone system, and one particular feedback message reinforced the broad reach of MWW:AUDIO.

Trolley driver Carl Brown left us the following message: “I drive a Philadelphia trolley, and drive pass number 12 (the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors) everyday…and I think it’s wonderful that you have this program set up. It was educational. It was educational for me, and emotional, as an African-American. It makes me feel much better to be a part of Philadelphia.”

Angela Adams

Arlington County’s public art program benefited greatly from our collaborative effort with Virginia Tech and Americans for the Arts mentioned in Dr. Elizabeth Morton’s post from earlier this week.

Like many programs across the country, we are adjusting to the new normal of increased scrutiny of public spending as it relates to the arts. We are also adjusting to our recent relocation from the Department of Parks and Recreation to that of Arlington Economic Development and are just beginning to understand the difference in priorities between the two agencies and how these will impact our future work.

We are currently working on developing a white paper on the value of public art to Arlington through four lenses: community and social benefits; civic design and placemaking; economic; and aesthetic/experiential.

It is helpful that the field of economics has begun to look seriously at developing measurement tools for such intangible phenomena as human happiness or fulfillment as well as the intrinsic value of the arts, so there is an increasing body of literature to draw from here. The findings of the Virginia Tech students will similarly help us in making the case for how and why public art adds value to our community.

To summarize some of the more interesting (even surprising) findings of the four teams discussed in the previous post and their value to Arlington’s public art program:

1. The group who surveyed artists with whom we had previously commissioned artwork identified that most artists had not conducted a formal site analysis before developing their concept. While the response rate was low (six responses of the close to 100 polled), this told us that we need to both explain better to artists what site analysis consists of (borrowing from the standard practice in the fields of architecture, landscape, and urban design) and why we expect that they should do it.

As a result, we will be hosting a training session on site analysis for artists jointly with Washington Project for the Arts’s “No Artist Left Behind” workshop series later this year, and will change our standard contract to include site analysis as a specific deliverable to accompany the concept proposal stage.

2. The team who polled stakeholders and community members on their thoughts about the Water Pollution Control Plant fence enhancement piloted a number of strategies for engagement (including intercept surveys of users of the trail adjacent to the fence, for which a surprising number of people actually stopped to participate in!) the findings of which were summarized in word clouds by type of stakeholder. The team recommended that Remy & Veenhuzien develop a temporary public art project as a mid-project deliverable to keep the stakeholders engaged and updated on their process. As a result, we will be writing this expectation into the artists’ contract and presenting this as a creative example of civic engagement, currently a hot topic for our community.

A photo of Long Bridge Park in Arlington County, VA (Photo © Jesse Snyder Photography)

3. From the two groups who addressed the recently completed first phase of Long Bridge Park, we learned two important things.

First, that without sufficient information about the artwork, visitors were unclear as to both the presence and “function” of artwork in the park (in full disclosure, signs with information about the artwork were developed in cooperation with the artist, but had yet to be installed by the time of the survey). The survey responses also provided a baseline of attitudes about the artwork which will help us track any changes in attitude about the artwork over time.

Secondly, we learned that our design team approach benefits most from the existence of a pre-existing relationship between the artist and the one or more member of the design team and that, if anything, the non-artist members of the design team would have welcomed the input of the artist even earlier in the project development.

In summary, our major takeaways from this studio were:

• new expectations from the artists we commission for projects (such as that of improved site analysis and on-going community engagement techniques) need to be incorporated into our current processes (RFQ, selection panel, outreach, artist contract) as well as our management of the artists’ work as their advocate in the design process;
• in the recalibration of our work plan for the right balance between temporary and public art projects, we can combine both as two stages in a single project; and,
• when we hire artists to work as design team members, we need to work harder get the artist in as early and as high on the food chain as possible.

As I often say, we are still aspiring to the level of this that we achieved with our program’s very first project, artist Nancy Holt’s design of the entire Dark Star Park.

This is an especially important reminder as we strive to play a greater role in the leadership for good public design in Arlington and seek to demonstrate the unique contributions that artists can bring to such projects.

Rebecca Rothman

Public art is a tough sell in a bad economy.

When senior centers are closing and library hours have been cut back, convincing city leaders to spend money on art feels like an exercise in futility.

Instead of focusing on how projects boost the economy after their completion or counting positive media reports, we’ve begun to look the people behind the scenes for numbers that count.

Artists create a concept and are given credit for the resulting project but they don’t work alone. There are many others who help make the project a reality. From fabricators to material suppliers, each firm brings expertise to the process to ensure that the project is designed and built to last.

We’ve asked artists and design leads to list each subcontractor they hire under their contract with our program. Then, we ask the contractor to do the same. These people equal JOBS.

We’ve tracked our projects this way for the past five years and found that 85 percent of the work created by our program has been completed by local firms. Each time we present a project or upcoming commission to city leaders, these job numbers are included and guess what? They’re listening.

Now, instead of thinking solely in terms of enhancing public space, we’re thinking like the Work Programs Administration. Instead of asking leaders to learn the language of art, we’re speaking in terms that they understand and appreciate.

The firms are delighted to be given the work as well as the credit for the job. City leaders are thrilled to have more people working here in Phoenix. We’re elated to have a great product in the end to add to our collection.

The result is a win for all, most notably the public.

Brandi Reddick

The idea of art as an investment is by no means a new concept. Art collectors jet set to major fairs in Hong Kong, Basel, and Sao Paulo hoping to secure their next big investment purchase; gallery owners and curators are constantly on the scout to discover the “next big artist”; and auction houses are drawing in record sales for artworks.

As administrators of public art, it is vital that we take some clues from the art world and evaluate public art as an investment for our community and start scouting for that “next big artist” who lives and works in our community.

The unique nature of public art inherently makes it one of the most valuable and exponentially increasing public assets for a community. I have the great fortune of working for Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places (MDAPP), which boasts a collection of nearly 700 works of public art.

Throughout its 40-year history, the program has commissioned some of the most significant contemporary artists in the world to create one of a kind, site-specific works of art. As with most works of public art, the commissioning cost of these works only reflects a percentage of their current value.

For example, in 1985 artist Edward Ruscha was commissioned by the Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places Trust to create “Words Without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go”, a site-specific installation for the Main Library consisting of eight 16-foot-long panels mounted around the lobby’s rotunda. The work was commissioned for approximately $300,000.

Words Without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go, 1985-89

Since the time of this commission, Ruscha’s career has skyrocketed, and I’ll never forget the day our office received a phone call asking if we would sell the work for $6 million. (I should make it clear that the caller’s offer was politely declined, with the understanding that the public art collection was not for sale.)

So, when that new public art commission comes along, perhaps public art administrators should advise their committee members to start thinking like a collector.

Look at artists whose work would be an investment for your community. Take a thorough look at the artist’s resume, notice which galleries are showing the work, and which major institutions are collecting the work.

It’s also important to take risks with public art, discover that “next big artist” and support the careers of local, emerging visual artists.

Although the MDAPP collection boasts some heavy hitter names, we are also very invested in furthering the careers of visual artists who live and work in Miami-Dade County. In addition to the Art in Public Places program, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs oversees the South Florida Cultural Consortium (SFCC) Fellowship Program, which offers one of the largest regional, government-sponsored artists’ grants in the United States, awarding $15,000 and $7,500 fellowships to resident visual and media artists from the five counties.

Since it was established in 1988, the consortium has awarded close to $2 million in fellowships to over 200 artists. The fellowship program receives over 300 applications each year, affording our staff the opportunity to take a fresh look (removed from public art) at the work that is being created in our local studios.

In fact, it is not uncommon for a fellowship recipient (or applicant) to receive a public art commission.

"Reflect" by Ivan Toth Depeña, 2011 Interactive Video Panels Miami-Dade County Public Art Collection

In 2011, artist Ivan Toth Depeña, a Miami native and former recipient of the SFCC Fellowship, was awarded his first public art commission. The site was extremely high profile—the lobby of our Government Center—which is the entryway to the 29-story headquarters building of Miami-Dade County government. This work, which I repeat was Depeña’s first public commission, would become one of the most visible works of public art in the MDAPP collection.

Completed in November 2011, the artwork (entitled Reflect) resulted in a dynamic installation of permanent, site-specific public art that illuminates, engages, and responds to the activities of the lobby space.

Due to its high visibility, Reflect is now considered one of the most prominent works of public art in the county and has generated increased interest and awareness of the public art program from other county departments, citizens, and employees.

Visitors and employees have commented that Reflect has transformed the lobby into a bright, welcoming and interactive space that symbolizes the spirit of excellence and public responsiveness of county government.

The work is pioneering technological advances in new media art and utilizes a custom software system designed by the artist. Here’s a video of the installation:

This is only one example of an investment in a local artist that paid off exponentially.

Public art programs should support the careers of local artist and serve as a platform for the trajectory of their work.

Take a risk on that promising artist who has a fabulous portfolio, even if they don’t have public art experience under their belt. The reward may be well worth it.

Kaity Nicastri

Editor’s Note: Following Public Art Network Council Member Sioux Trujillo’s post, project partner Kaity Nicastri describes the benefit of using logic models in evaluation.

Evaluation. That’s a hefty word. Most people cringe when they think of evaluation, but it’s really not that scary and doesn’t need to be feared.

With the arts in mind, evaluation can take on many forms—it can be programmatic, project-based, user/patron feedback, monitoring sales/attendance, but they all have a unifying theme: understanding the impact of your work.

I started working with a community public art program over two years ago as a Master’s-level intern from the University of Michigan’s Community Based Initiative. With a concentration in policy and evaluation, I fit the nerdier side of social work. I’m not your average caseworker.

In my new role, I was faced with a program that had surveys, but no real evaluation and no understanding of the results of the surveys. Simultaneously, taking a technical evaluation course, I started with a logic model. This process is truly the crux of all good evaluation. If you don’t understand what you are trying to accomplish, evaluation will mean very little.

Through the logic model, I learned invaluable information about the structure of the program and goals of the directors, funders, and participants for various investments in the program. The logic model process created a useful document that informed my evaluation knowledge and development.

Once the logic model was established, I could determine the goals of the evaluation and design a preliminary evaluation. Afterwards, through various consultations, I decided on a process that would gather the richest, most valuable information possible. Then the hard part began: data collection.

You would think that with all the dissidence around community work, and if it really makes neighborhood life better, more people would have jumped at the chance to give us their opinion, but there are challenges that evaluators face, especially in urban settings.

If you send surveys home, find a way for participants to return it free of charge. If you have people who are not able to attend meetings or events but are on your email lists, offer the survey online. Online survey tools are many and varied in their capabilities. Some common/popular ones are: Survey Monkey, Zoomerang, Constant Contact, Form Site, Kwik Surveys…the list goes on.

Once you jump the final hurdles and have enough responses, you can begin analysis of data and use the analysis to report results.

Depending on the survey design, you might need qualitative analysis or quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis means you have results that are open-ended responses. That means people are able to give their own opinion on a question or statement, which offers some valuable feedback on programs or projects. However, you have to spend more time to find commonalities among answers.

The other type, quantitative analysis, is numerically based. This doesn’t always mean that the answers are numbers, but rather that all answers are standardized. This could be a multiple choice answer, true or false, a scale [(strongly)agree, (strongly)disagree, neutral] or a similar way to standardize answers. Demographic data falls into this category.

You can also use mixed analysis with qualitative and quantitative questions. This provides comments and opinions but also basic data like demographics, participation, and similar standard information.

Evaluation helps programs. Any results should be taken to heart and used to improve services.

Most importantly, you should be learning from evaluation. Evaluation will allow you to integrate your results by creating new practices and processes that will solve past problems and improve future positive results.

My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant has a good process cycle chart for evaluation:

What type(s) of analysis have worked best for your programs? Share in the comments below.

Christina Lanzl

Many of us will readily name a favorite work of art in a treasured public place, a priceless cultural asset. Similarly, we can probably point to the destruction of such works by neglect, human or institutional failure, war, or extreme events. To put a finger on why certain outdoor works of art are so important or to provide a clear value can already be more challenging.

If anything, one can point to the unique, irreplaceable quality of the treasured cultural asset. If anything, the qualifier ‘priceless’ may be the only accurate valuation of something that is of high quality and unique. Because public art programs and cultural planners have been asking for such a tool kit, the Public Art Network at Americans for the Arts is currently developing a framework for public art evaluation

While public art programs create permanent public art in partnership with contemporary artists, these works immediately begin their art historic trajectory once installation is complete, beginning with a short and long-term maintenance plan. Thus, collection management evaluation criteria for public art can serve as a point of departure and should be coordinated in partnership with existing preservation initiatives. At the national level, heritage preservation institutions like Save Outdoor Sculpture take on advocacy and protection roles in the U.S., joined by local and state historic preservation organizations.

Once the approach has been determined, the process needs to zero in on the types of questions and figures that not only quantify, but also qualify the value of public art. Evaluation of public art projects and programs is a difficult task, particularly so if the researcher considers them within the framework of the cultural or urban context.

Attempting to create a state-of-the-art evaluation structure would need to include site-based qualifiers in any assessment. Such endeavors could be likened to a municipality or a state being asked to submit figures on general or specific well-being of residents.

Interconnectedness is the key to understanding public art and cultural assets within the fabric of a community. Prior to commencing the research, the meanings and boundaries of the terms relevant to the field of public art would need to be defined. Public art inventories and maintenance records contain statistical tools that would aid in measuring size, age, condition, value, and other tangible criteria of an individual object. However, beginning with the question of the contextual framework, other typologies apply. An interdisciplinary effort lies at the heart of delivering a successful methodology for public art assessment.

Any appraisal would need to include an analysis of the more ephemeral qualities of a vital public space and its cultural assets, such as the psychological effect of an environment on the individual, as well as cultural vibrancy and legacy, both short- and long-term.

Urban planners like Jan Gehl and the late William H. Whyte have been instrumental in developing the tools for assessment of public space. Consequently, a review of the principles and methodologies they developed would add important criteria for the valuation of public art uses.

Economic social researchers like Richard Florida have reported their findings on the popularity of cities to the creative class, which also has much to do with a successful public realm, including permanent, temporary, and performative public art and cultural assets.

Most public art programs and affiliated municipal and/or state agencies will lack expertise or time to develop, distribute, evaluate, and report findings of such complex surveys. Opinion poll firms and think tanks would be more adequately equipped to conduct such inquiries with the necessary professional acumen, although the engagement of knowledgeable public art professionals would be crucial to ensure the approach and gathering of data fulfills.

Much work lies ahead—let’s move forward to accomplish the task at hand.

Sioux Trujillo

I recently resigned from a public art program in Detroit that was housed inside a small arts college. During my time there, evaluation became a big part of my job. It was critical to track, define, and report for the future of the program to serve as a baseline for success for the arts institution. Before this, my idea of success was primarily based from the perspective of the studio artist.

The projects that were created in the neighborhoods of Detroit were much more complex because each project was so very different from one another, involved different people from diverse backgrounds, and had community defined goals and artist selection.

When I set out to create a plan of evaluation I realized this was going to be a complex task.

My first obstacle was simply trying to figure out what to call the projects. A seemingly simple thing turned into more than I expected.

I started to compile a list of all the different names that artists and organizations are using to define public art which involves the people around the project in some way.

•    Social Aesthetics
•    Relational Aesthetics
•    Social Justice Art
•    Community Art
•    Placemaking
•    Social Sculpture
•    New Genre Public Art
•    Tactical Media
•    Cultural Activism
•    Social Practice
•    Interventions
•    Happenings
•    Participatory Art

Looking at this list only made more questions about useful evaluation and the purpose behind evaluation. Thankfully, I found a partner to help me in a not so obvious place.

I had formed a working relationship with the University of Michigan School of Social Work to provide a place for social work graduate students to do meaningful work in the Detroit communities as part of their capstone studies. My social work intern, Kaity Nicastri, and I started a dialog about evaluation and our joint vision was developed over time.

Our partnership was a turning point for me when it came to my depth of thinking and understanding evaluation. The experience planted a seed in me about evaluation that is still growing.

A piece of public art that wants to involve a community can do so in many ways, big and small. All of these kinds of projects, no matter what you call them, are very dependent on the context in which it is created. They have a complex social, cultural, political, and economic system at play. Just because a project is thriving in one area of the city doesn’t mean that you can just replicate that project and get the same results.

The projects themselves can appear differently to those who have not been engaged in the project directly. Visually a project can look very deceiving. It could be small and insignificant but the dialogue around that project can be big and could have started other projects and have had a domino effect on the community.

Just as true, a large visually stunning project can ultimately have no real lasting impact on a community.

Community change takes time, patience, community organizing, authentic engagement, careful listening, and hope.

What do you do when those things don’t happen fast enough to document on your evaluation? This is where things really get interesting for me.

Since timing is critical for all evaluation. The story and the shapeshifting behind each project is where the true authentic evaluation exists.

I think the more dialog we have the closer we will get to verbalize this kind of evaluation.

What do you think?

Editor’s Note: Here are two examples of evaluation Sioux provided us for you to check out — Year One Project Evaluation Report and Year 3-4 Survey Template for the Community.

Dr. Elizabeth Morton

This course had its origins in a graduate assignment I had back in the early 1990s. My intimidating professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design provided only two requirements for our final paper: 1) that it be “interesting to him” and 2) that it be no longer than three pages.

I was relieved that he approved my topic of “how do local public art agencies evaluate their projects,” but was concerned about the page limitations. I needn’t have worried, since after reviewing as many of the agencies as I could in the pre-internet era, I did not find much.

At a presentation on public art in Arlington, VA, nearly 20 years later, a question from the audience made me think about my project again. I imagined that as the public art field had matured, surely there had been efforts to institutionalize some evaluative practices, but when I started making inquiries I realized that this was still a relatively unexplored topic.

Since Angela Adams and Liesel Fenner had both been kind enough to speak in my urban design policy class over the years, I approached them with the idea of conducting a graduate studio that would try to take on this topic. It’s a great testament to their openness to inquiry and commitment to the field that they very actively participated in the studio and contributed many hours and many insights.

Recognizing the complexity of the topic and the limitations of the three-month semester, and not having any idea about what we would find, we titled the course, “Exploring Evaluation for Public Art: Arlington County as Laboratory.”

Our 12 students hailed from five different countries and from three different programs (planning, architecture, and landscape architecture). To my delight, two of them were practicing public artists!

In a period of about six weeks, students got a crash course in public art, the Arlington County program, and various methods of evaluation. Students summarized whatever relevant studies we could lay our hands on (mostly from the UK). Although we were helped immensely by the writing of Harriet Senie, Katherine Gressel, and Animating Democracy’s new social impact website, we found little in the way of local government policy in the U.S. that might help guide our efforts.

We settled on a strategy of divide and conquer. Students formed four teams and adopted distinct methodologies to examine particular aspects of the outcome or process.

Guided by some of the goals in Arlington’s Public Art Master Plan, the studio developed some indicators for measuring past and future success. Since we knew that “before” snapshots were often missing in evaluation attempts and that public opinion often evolves over time, we tried develop studies that collected baseline data and that would allow Arlington to measure change as projects moved forward.

For example, one team took on the task of documenting existing attitudes and expectations for the future public art piece along Four Mile Run Park in the vicinity of the Water Pollution Control Plant. To achieve this, the group polled users of the park, members of the Advisory Coordination Group, and plant employees, and compared the results.

Two teams looked at the recently opened Long Bridge Park, which incorporated a piece by Doug Hollis. The first interviewed members of the multi-disciplinary design team to assess how the dynamic among members affected the process and the final result. The second developed a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) polling users of the park about their views of Wave Arbor and assessing whether the stated visual and functional objectives were met. The survey captured impressions of this new sculpture and examined its perceived value as an iconic feature of the park.

A final student team designed a survey for artists who had created works in Arlington, polling them on their processes of site analysis and community engagement; the results inspired students to make some suggestions on how the county’s standard public art contract could be modified.

I had thought that given the constraints of the semester, we may have had to be content with simply setting up the studies, but students insisted on getting out into the field. Although some of the results are still preliminary, the data received so far has been quite interesting.

At the end of the term, we produced four reports (totaling more than 50 pages!), which we hope provide models for continuing use by Arlington County and fodder for discussion in the public art community.

Has this type of project been undertaken at a higher education institution near you? If not, is this something you would consider doing?

Barbara Goldstein

In an era dominated by Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and Yelp!, where we are constantly invited to hit the “like” button and share our reviews, it’s tempting to wade into evaluating public art without asking the question “why?” After all, anyone can should have a valid opinion of anything that lives in the public realm, right?

I’ve always felt that anyone who experiences public art or architecture should have the ability to judge its success. The question we should ask is not really “like” or “not like,” though. The question we should ask is “does it work?”

As someone who plans and commissions public art, I feel it’s my responsibility to engage community members in the work we do—before, during and after art has been installed. After all, the difference between public art and art created in the studio is that the end user will live with it for a long time and we can’t easily move it into storage. If we actually involve our communities in the public art process, we will automatically develop the tools for them to evaluate it.

The first question we need to ask is “What are we trying to learn?”

For many years now, policymakers and implementers have asked whether the economic value of public art can be quantified. This is the wrong question.

It would be virtually impossible to measure whether one work of art has an economic impact in a specific place. The questions that can be asked are more subtle—what makes a specific place memorable? Can you describe what you experience there and how it makes you feel? What do you think when you see a particular artwork? Does it improve your experience of this place?

These are questions that we should ask ourselves and our policymakers before we commission art and they are questions that we need to ask our artists and our community members during the creative process.

If we hope to evaluate public art, we need to spend more time inviting our policymakers and community members to learn about it:

• involve them in conversations when we are planning to integrate art in the public realm
• introduce them to the artists
• create guide maps
• speak to schools and community organizations about the work we do
• sponsor tours for policymakers and the public
• cultivate the local press

Above all, build a relationship between art and the community so that people will feel comfortable participating in the conversation about commissioning art, enjoying it, and criticizing it intelligently.

Until we take our jobs as educators seriously, evaluating public art will be nothing more than a button that says “like” or “unlike.”

With an educated pool of artists and community members, evaluating the work will evolve into a bigger conversation about what kinds of places we hope to build and the significant role that art can play in making those places a success.

Liesel Fenner

Americans for the Arts programs Blog Salons to focus attention on a particular arts topic to generate discussion through online responses: comments, follow-up posts, Tweets, Facebook comments, etc.

While many of us find it challenging to keep up with daily email, much less blogs and our social media accounts, there are a few questions we repeatedly see posted on the Public Art Network (PAN) listserv:

“Does anyone have a sample public art evaluation report?” or “Are there are any public art and economic impact studies?”

After the question is asked the listserv goes silent, no one replies.

The goal of our Blog Salon this week is to turn up the volume and encourage as many contributions of ideas on how the field (PAN, you, me, we) can approach public art evaluation.

We have invited a variety of public art professionals—both administrators and artists—to participate in the Salon with their ideas on how we measure public art programs, projects, or both.

We will hear from arts leaders who are experimenting with ideas on how to measure an art form that is elusive to traditional measurement tools. Artwork that resides in public space.

How do count audience viewers?

Are they actually viewers when passers-by may or may not even notice the work?

Should we approach the general public and measure their reaction to the work?

What was is the scale of work? A landmark, iconic work, or perhaps temporary?

Is the artwork incorporated into a larger urban design or architectural context?

The most vexing challenge as we approach evaluation: What exactly are we measuring? Why are we measuring it? What are the goals of evaluating public art and what impacts are we seeking?

This past spring semester, I participated in an architecture and planning class at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VTech) with PAN serving as the “client” for students to develop model approaches to public art evaluation.

During this Salon we will hear from Professor Elizabeth Morton and Angela Adams, public art administrator for Arlington, VA, as well as one of the students. PAN Council Member Lajos Heder will blog from the artist perspective on how audience should contribute feedback during the artmaking process that would in turn affect outcomes. Penny Balkin Bach of the Fairmount Park Art Association (Philadelphia) discusses social media tools including a new app extolling that qualitative information—stories—are as important than statistics and quantitative data.

It’s time to dig in, roll-up our sleeves, and think deeply as the Salon proceeds this week.

Your input will inform PAN’s next steps in developing an evaluation model for the field.

We need your RFP—we request you to participate.

Robert Bettmann

The arts are positively integrated into the Occupy Movement in several ways, but they are also a front on which activists are attacking the economic system.

While the arts field wrestles internally with issues of diversity and aging, attacks by Occupy activists are actually an affirmation of the relevance of the arts in civic life.

One Occupy LA blogger wrote, “if history has taught us anything…it’s that art is among the most honest and lasting of cultural indicators.” Occupy activists believe in the arts enough to fight for it.

The arts are a tool of the Occupy movement, an expression of the movement, a support in the movement, and also a target.

As a target, actions related to the arts are in some cities organized by an Occupy Museums working group. The Occupy Museums manifesto identifies that the group exists to “[call] out corruption and injustice in institutions of arts and culture” and their actions focus in two areas: labor issues and service to the one percent (generally).

The labor concerns relate to abrogation of union contracts and use of non-union labor at galleries and museums, and the broader concern relates to the question: to whom do the benefits of the cultural economy accrue?

Occupy activists believe that the arts industry is another example of an economic system that enriches and benefits the 1%, dis-empowering and disenfranchising the 99%. Occupy journalist Erin Sickler wrote that the arts economy is “reproducing inequitable and oppressive economic relations” adding that “the moguls who 
sit on museum boards are often the same people who contrived the runaway financial speculation which has blighted economic life for the rest of us, in the U.S. and beyond.”

While most Occupy activists are concerned with the influence of one-percenters in the banking sector, Occupy arts activists are concerned with the influence of those same individuals in cultural banking establishments, including museums.

A recent creative action involved circulation of a parody press release imagining a world where the Whitney Museum and its Biennial dedicate themselves to the 99%. The fraudulent release states:

“As an institution dedicated to the public interest, the Whitney has an obligation to use its platform to facilitate actions that promote the good of the many over the greed and profits of the few…As Biennial curator Elizabeth Sussman remarked, ‘We’re delighted we naturally got involved with Occupy Wall Street.’ Documentation of the event and a full transcript of the assembly will be published online and as a supplement inserted into the Whitney Biennial 2012 exhibition catalogue, currently available in the Museum bookstore.”

The Occupy Arts movement is passionately concerned that the producers of professional culture have been co-opted into the service of the 1%, and they are fighting to ensure that the arts are relevant to and reflective of the modern world.

Carl Jung wrote that the arts “dream the myth onward and give it modern dress” and the 99% arts movement is an expression of faith and an insistence on the importance of the arts. The Occupy Museums website declares simply, “Art and Culture are part of the commons. Art is not a luxury item.”

Looking toward the future, this insistence can only be positive for the field.

What do you think?

Elizabeth Schwan-Rosenwald

Yesterday I met with a number of potential applicants for the Taproot Foundation’s Service Grant program, which connects business professionals with nonprofits to deliver pro bono consulting projects in marketing, strategy, and human resources. I was there to continue my research into some of the more universal pain points in building strong infrastructures for performing arts organizations.

As we sat there I heard an executive director mention that “in six years we’ve never sat down and planned for or talked about the future.” They were, he explained; too busy focusing on developing and producing art.

I hesitated for a moment trying to decide the right response and the conversation turned away from his comment. But it stayed with me—I’ve heard this before.

The “now” culture within arts organizations, the focus on getting up the next show, the ever present feeling that if you’re not producing you’re somehow failing, means that conversations about how to strategically plan for the future are often an organization’s last priority.

But I hesitated yesterday because I’m not convinced; I’ve seen and worked with too many artists who are driven rather than stymied by how their vision fits into the larger national landscape. So what is it then—what is the roadblock that keeps arts organization from talking about the future?

My answer—resources; the scarcity of resources for arts organizations means most artists have adopted a head-down approach to their work.

Because let’s face it, if there’s any group of people who could dream a better future for their organizations it’s the artists in our communities. But conversations about the future are a risk right now because none of us know what the future looks like.

But if arts organizations understood how to better tap into the resources of the business community and professionals working in the business community knew how to offer pro bono consulting to local arts organizations would the dialogue change?

When arts organizations know they can count on the business community to support their strategic planning, marketing collateral, or financial planning would we hear more conversations about growth plans? I think so.

Pro bono consulting—doing work for a nonprofit for free that draws on the skills a business professional uses every day—is a relatively new pool of resources. And it won’t take from limited philanthropic dollars but rather allow arts organizations to build a new stream of resources.

Since 2001, Taproot has worked with over 3,000 business professionals engaging them in pro bono service in our core markets in Chicago, New York, the District of Columbia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Our newest program Powered by Pro Bono, launching in the fall of 2012, takes our ten years of experience of engaging business professionals and delivering high-quality programs and offers the necessary tools and trainings to allow nonprofits to successfully solicit and manage pro bono resources independently.

Through pro bono consulting, business professionals have the opportunity to become more involved citizens and actively engage in new ways in their community.

We’re anticipating that by starting the conversation about how to make pro bono a core part of any nonprofit’s organizational growth we will see a shift in how the conversation is conducted.

Pro bono and the business professionals who deliver it will be counted on as resources to build a strong infrastructure under those dreams and conversations about what the future looks like.

Talking about the future then will be a celebrated part of an art’s organization’s journey.

For more information about Taproot and our programming visit our website at www.taprootfoundation.org.

This post is one in a series highlighting The pARTnership Movement, Americans for the Arts’ campaign to to reach business leaders with the message that partnering with the arts can build their competitive advantage. Visit our website to find out how both businesses and local arts agencies can get involved!

Nina Ozlu Tunceli

Culture equals jobs. This was the theme of the 2012 World Cultural Economic Forum hosted by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who is one of the most enlightened and empowered elected leaders that this nation has ever seen regarding strategically investing in his city’s cultural economy in order to move it forward.

As chief counsel of government and public affairs at Americans for the Arts, I can’t begin to tell you how refreshing it was to be at a two-day conference filled with elected officials and diplomats from around the world, focused exclusively on how these leaders are incorporating public policies to showcase the arts and culture for both its social and economic powers.

Mayor Landrieu did an amazing job of showcasing New Orleans’ investment in arts education to develop the next generation of culture workers; its investment in building local film and recording studios, performance centers, and clubs to attract current culture workers; its investment in tax credits for both film production and post-production editing, marketing, gaming, and software to attract culture businesses; and its investment in tourism marketing and branding initiatives, such as JazzFest, to attract out-of-town visitors, especially from abroad, in order to grower larger audiences for its cultural industries. You can catch up on more news about the forum on Twitter by searching #WCEF.

Below is an excerpt of Mayor Landrieu’s opening address at the 2012 World Cultural Economic Forum:

“Recently, the world has seen dramatic changes in political, social, and cultural landscapes. These changes have been fueled not only by political and economic factors, but also by social and cultural issues.

New civil societies have formed in nations that were once lacking in social networks, institutions, and civic participation. Creative workers that were once under heavy censorship now have more freedom to create cultural products that express multiple viewpoints. Natural disasters have changed not only the physical landscape of nations, but affected the cultural landscape as well.

All of these developments illustrate how culture is integral to success in our lives, our economies, and our governments. 

During my time with the state, I realized that the first step to harnessing the power of the cultural economy is to define it and to count it. Here in New Orleans, we define the cultural economy as the people, enterprises, and communities that transform cultural skills, knowledge, and ideas into economically productive activities and goods.

In other words—Culture Means Jobs.

Cities around the world have begun to define their cultural economies and realize that creative workers and businesses are an engine for economic growth. They are adding value to raw talent, raw materials, and intellectual capital to grow this important and underutilized economic sector. They are paying attention to what happens in the front of the house and at the back of the house. The framer becomes as important as the painter—the carpenter as important as the architect. 

Culture and creativity are tools cities should use to create a defined sense of place and an enhanced quality of life. The cultural economy is sustained by municipal planning that enhances already vibrant and creative neighborhoods and promotes place-based development. When used to its fullest potential culture becomes a priority, alongside, not subordinate to, transportation, housing, and infrastructure

Studies has shown that cities who utilize culture in the broadest way benefit in other ways as well. They are healthier, safer, smarter, more diverse, and more civically engaged. During this Forum, we are going to explore how culture affects these larger issues of civic life.

While there is much talk about the role of culture in urban planning, culture can enhance other government programs and policies as well. 

Here in New Orleans, we use knowledge of our cultural economy on multiple fronts to combat seemingly insurmountable problems. We collaborate with nonprofit organizations and the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission to offer arts and cultural programming to youth that develops their talents, and inspires them to use artistic self-expression as a vehicle for success. 

We work with health providers to screen cultural workers, such as musicians, culinary workers, and artists for chronic diseases, so that these often uninsured members of our cultural workforce get the preventative care they need. We partner with our job placement program JOB 1 and cultural organizations to provide training in the growing film and video industry here in the city. 

Crime, education, health, and workforce development can be a city’s most pressing issues, and they can all be aided by culture. 

Culture is a force that moves us forward, changing the game. 

This is the purpose of the Forum—to explore the various ways that culture can contribute solutions to multiple issues. In the face of global economic crises, devastating natural disasters, and political turmoil, harnessing culture as a policy tool is an effective response. 

The places that culture builds, protects, and nurtures are those which can recover, preserve, and develop our identities as cities. 

The intersection of creativity and commerce gives us the cultural economy.”

Can the cultural economy work that Mayor Landrieu is undertaking in New Orleans be replicated in your community? Has it already happened?

Share your story in the comments below.

(Arts Watch is the twice monthly published cultural policy publication of Americans for the Arts, covering news in a variety of categories. Subscribe to Arts Watch or follow @artswatch on Twitter to receive up-to-the-minute news.)

Randy Cohen

This post is one in a series highlighting the Local Arts Index (LAI) by Americans for the Arts. The LAI provides a set of measures to help understand the breadth, depth, and character of the cultural life of a community. It provides county-level data about arts participation, funding, fiscal health, competitiveness, and more. Check out your county and compare it to any of the nation’s 3,143 counties at ArtsIndexUSA.org.

Today we release Local Arts Index indicator #6 (out of 50).

Total nonprofit arts organizations per 100,000 population (Based on those filing IRS 990s)

The vigor of the arts rests in many ways on the thousands of nonprofit organizations that present and organize arts programs in communities around the country. In many arts disciplines—such as visual and performing arts, historical and museum organizations, and arts education—nonprofit status is the norm.

This indicator measures how many nonprofit arts organizations are in a county per 100,000 population, demonstrating the breadth of the nonprofit arts sector in a community as experienced by its residents.

With all the attention given to arts funding, cultural policy and economics, and the impact of the arts on a community, it is especially significant to show how available nonprofit arts groups are as part of the capacity of the arts in a county.

Nonprofit arts organizations that filed an IRS Form 990 can be found in 1,204 counties in the U.S. Nationally, the average in those counties is 20.9 arts organizations per 100,000 population, and the median county has 15.3. Also nationally, the total number of nonprofit arts organizations increased from about 75,000 in 1999 to 113,000 in 2010.

It is worth noting, however, that only about 35 percent of these organizations file a Form 990 in any given year. The likely reason for 65 percent not filing is that they are small (organizations with less than $25,000 in total revenues are not required to file Form 990).

All of this data comes from the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute.

Have you ever wondered if it’s worth your time to start that Pinterest page for your organization or business? Is it important that you know what Digg is?

Thankfully, OnlineMBA.com has pulled together a fantastic infographic that will help you determine if Facebook is better for your message or if you should hurry up and start that Twitter account.

By gathering social media demographic info and putting it together in an arts-friendly way (a solar system of social media info), you can take a quick look at the social media universe and then decide if you’re on the right path or if you should be heading toward another orbit.

Here are some facts I gleaned from the resource (as posted on Mashable):

• FACT: Facebook users visit the site 40 times per month and average over 23 minutes on the site per session.
• OPPORTUNITY: That creates an opportunity to really engage with Facebook users. If you can get an article or link to your site on a Facebook user’s newsfeed at the right time, you will have them hooked…for at least that day. A study covering 2007-2010 Facebook use says that the peak use time is Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. ET and daily it is at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m., and 8:00 p.m. ET.

• FACT: 82 percent of Pinterest users are female.
• OPPORTUNITY: The arts are already female-skewing, but if you want to reach out further into the demo, you’ll want to sign up for an account and try it out soon.

• FACT: 71 percent of Google+ users are male and 43 percent are single men.
• OPPORTUNITY: The arts are already female-skewing, but if you want to reach out to older, single men who may bring dates, girlfriends, and/or mothers to your gallery or performing arts center, you might want to dabble and see where Google+ takes you.

• FACT: LinkedIn is the most balanced by sex and has the most 25-34 year-old users.
• OPPORTUNITY: If you’re looking to reach younger, college-educated users, LinkedIn is probably the place to go as it also the second-largest social media tool behind Facebook.

The information provided in the infographic goes well beyond the few points I just made, so check it when you are thinking about your social media strategy.

However, it’s also important to note that you do not have to utilize every social media tool. Some may work great for you and others won’t ever be worth your time or energy. Sure, give one a try if the demos fit, but never be afraid to walk away if it’s not getting the results you need or expect.

Thoughts? Add them in the comments below.