ARTSblog

A local host committee has been working for months to organize tours and special events to show off public art in Pittsburgh during the 2013 Americans for the Arts Annual Convention to the most discerning public art audience: Public Art Network (PAN) Preconference attendees. No pressure!

The photo for our album cover – Public Art n’At by the Office of Public Art and Morton Brown: Live From Agnes Katz Plaza

On Wednesday, June 12, all of the preconference attendees are invited to our Welcome to Pittsburgh event. Meet up in the lobby of the Westin to get your registration and Dine-Around location organized.

A guide will walk with you a few blocks down to Agnes Katz Plaza in the heart of the Cultural District. The photo was taken at the end of March. We promise you won’t need a winter coat in June! But you might need an umbrella, so please pack one.  Read the rest of this entry »

Liesel Fenner

2012 marks my tenth Americans for the Arts Public Art Preconference, six of which I have planned and orchestrated over the years with the help of Public Art Network (PAN) Council members and local hosts.

This year proved to be another shining star, aptly-hosted in the Lone Star state of Texas and San Antonio, a sparkling gem of creative community that rolled out the red carpet for us.

Held at Pearl, Preconference attendees were greeted to hearty breakfast tacos (localvore favorite) and iced coffee, in preparation for the 90 degree-plus predicted temperatures. Newcomers were welcomed to an orientation in Pearl’s Center for Architecture, the American Institute of Architects local chapter office with crisp-geometric interiors offering flexible meeting space (everything on casters) for PAN’s breakout sessions throughout the day.

Attendees trekked across the Pearl campus to the nearby historic Stable, an oval-shaped plan once housing up to 70 horses, today hosting 270 Preconference attendees! Texas hosts, Martha Peters of the Ft. Worth Public Art Program and PAN Council member and Jimmy LeFlore of Public Art San Antonio, led everyone in a rousing welcome.

Representatives of the PAN Council presented a state-of-the-field report highlighting critical issues the Council is addressing including: public art and quality of life, evaluation, and social practices and community engagement. Read the rest of this entry »

The artist-initiated Victory Garden project outside of San Francisco City Hall in 2008 spurred a city-wide urban farming movement.

The Public Art Network and the Emerging Leaders Preconferences converged for their combined closing plenary session: “Multiple Meanings: The Expanding Role of Leadership in Creating Place” with Jason Schupbach (National Endowment for the Arts [NEA] Director of Design) and artist John Bela of Rebar in San Antonio on June 8.

The session sought first to explore the somewhat unsuspecting backgrounds of Jason, with a B.A. in Public Health and M.A. in Urban Planning, and John, whose education skipped from biochemistry to sculpture, performance, and landscape architecture, illustrating the benefits of their eclectic and complimentary experience to the arts field.

What does this reveal about the work of creative placemaking?

Because, in my unauthorized definition, creative placemaking is about cross-sector collaboration in which artists are a catalyst for public participation and community transformation. In order to infiltrate community, master planning processes, and policy, artists and arts professionals alike must speak the language of the architect, the planner, the social worker, the community activist, the health care provider, and the politician OR find internal allies so that we have support in the calculated risks that are intrinsic to making a social impact and to making art.

John’s formula for creative change: the Advocate, the Artist and the Guerilla Bureaucrat. For me, the latter offered the biggest conference take-away (the tantalizingly oxymoronic term also mentioned in a previous Public Art Network session). Read the rest of this entry »

Liesel Fenner

It has been a whole week of public art blogging from 19 PAN peeps!

Thanks to everyone who contributed, and keep the Tweets, Facebook shares, comments, etc. coming.

Topics ran the gamut, from Leo Berk’s ‘non-typical’ artist residency working with the King Country (WA) bridge division, to Katherine Sweetman’s (first and final) blog–as-art-intervention for the San Diego Union Tribune.

As we noted, many of the bloggers will be presenting at the Public Art Preconference, June 15-16 in sunny San Diego. (Re-click on the link: the site is updated every day).  Read the rest of this entry »

Melinda Childs

After spending the past few years developing an Artist Services program for Forecast Public Art, I was thrilled to hear that the Public Art Network is creating conference content to specifically serve the needs of independent public artists.

I was honored when PAN asked me to facilitate the first ever Artist Track sessions. I soon realized I didn’t exactly know what that would entail since there was no precedent.

We’re conducting an exciting experiment, and I hope you will be inspired to take part!

The PAN Preconference is a natural opportunity for public art program administrators around the nation to connect with artists seeking projects and commissions.    Read the rest of this entry »

Katherine Sweetman

On November 7, 2010, artist Katherine Sweetman made an inflammatory and controversial blog post on the San Diego Union Tribune‘s new Sketchbook blog. The post lasted only 13 hours on the newspaper’s website, but by that time it had already gone viral.

The blog post, its repercussions, and its interpretations have been written about by the Los Angeles Times’ Culture Monster blog; ARTINFO.com’s Modern Art Notes section; VoiceofSanDiego.org (and response by Union-Tribune Editor Jeff Light); San Diego City Beat; San Diego Reader, the Bay Area Observer blog; the Fishbowl LA blog; San Diego Visual Arts Network blog; the OB RAG blog; EditorsWeblog.org; fnewsmagazine.com; and others.

Ms. Sweetman will discuss her San Diego Union Tribune blog post at the Media Infrastructure session of the Americans for the Arts Public Art Preconference.

Below, please find her initial blog post reprinted in its entirety:   Read the rest of this entry »

Liesel Fenner

Welcome to the Public Art Network (PAN) Blog Salon!

Blazing and buzzing all this week, join us as public art professionals from across the country discuss all-things public art.

In particular, we will be highlighting topics of the upcoming Public Art Preconference, “Innovations in Infrastucture,” June 15-16, in San Diego.

Feel free to forward the blog posts to others, comment, and/or Tweet – Let’s broaden the network of conversation and community.

We hear a lot about the term ‘infrastructure’ these days. The Preconference will be discussing how public art is incorporated in a myriad of types of infrastructure, including not only our built environment, but also media, the changes in how public art is reviewed and critiqued; social, the community involvement that informs the art itself.   Read the rest of this entry »