I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm like to call the Ashland Public Art Commission to order for March 27th, 2025. Welcome, everybody. I think we are going to fly right past the citizen. But given that there are no citizens in attendance this evening at this time. There is something I've been asked to bring up and that is the art show at the Hanover Arts and Activity Centers. So Susanna Wagner asks me to bring this up. So it is April 4th and 5th at the Hanover Arts Arts and Pusen to the Artist Showcase and Marketplace. Thank you. This evening we have two discussion items on our agenda. The first item is the Fall Line Trailhead artwork and I will yield to Miss Miller. committee to see if we can see the committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's committee's just about this RF recap. I joined Miss Richards on our team who is the staff liaison for that committee and did a quick presentation for them not just about this RFP but I presented to them to kind of like the broad strokes of the purpose of the public art commission. The objectives and goals that you all have adopted and outlined in the master plan as well as your work plan. So they went into this RFP process understanding kind of what the vision and goals of the commission are as well since this is a collaborative project As I reminder as I said before this RFP is ultimately being issued By the Parks and Wreck Committee and they will have the final selection of the piece because it is coming out of their budget But a subcommittee that will right make recommendations of finalists is going to consist of members that we've identified of the Public Art Commission and a subset of the Parks and Rec Committee to kind of whittle down those as well as Council Member Barnhart will sit on that subcommittee as well. So before I kind of go into the next steps on that, which is going to be in my staff report at the end, but I'm happy to kind of jump ahead. I just wanted to kind of walk you through the overall RFP. Again, this is very much in line with the kind of standard, but what is becoming kind of our standard structure for an RFP? We've set a proposal deadline for April 14th. It's been live since March 14th, so that gives us about a month to come up with a kind of a rough proposal, not a final submission but a rough proposal, the final submission will be presented to the Parks and Rec Committee if they are chosen as a finalist. The budget that the Parks and Rec Committee has stipulated is that the project should not exceed $30,000 and per our previous RFPs, it needs to be inclusive of all artist fees and materials. There's kind of our boilerplate about Ashland, our boilerplate about ownership. And then specifically when we're talking about the artwork location and specifications, this location is along Robinson Street, which is a street but almost kind of looks more like an alley in downtown Ashland that is fronted. It's kind of the street that is in between where the red vein entrances and the library plaza. And this is a prominent site, which is great, and it serves as a key entry point for the fall line trail. Again, the actual trail head for the fall line trail is there at Carter Park just outside of downtown, but the town under Miss Richards leadership is going to be kind of creating an extension of that trailhead to drive folks from that trailhead into the downtown area to obviously encourage them to stop during their cycling adventure or whatever and have a bite to eat and shop. And so it is going to route them down Maple Street and then they will come all the way down Maple Street and it will direct them to take that left onto Robinson. Obviously, we don't want to dump them onto Thompson Street. That's a very busy roadway. So we'll bring them kind of into the rear of the library parking there. And there are going to be additional amenities there, especially to appeal to cyclists, like bike racks and things of that nature in that plaza area. But what the goal of this is really to create some sort of functional artwork that could serve as a meeting spot for people that are going to either end in Ashland or head out from Ashland. So the specifics around what this artwork is, we're intentionally similar to the gateway, left kind of vague because we want to see what the artist come up with. It needs to have seating of some kind, given the shape and dimensions of the space, something that is kind of usable and accessible from all sides. I'm just going to scroll down to the location. So as you see here, this is that kind of rounded area that sits kind of at the backside of the library next to Redvane there, where those picnic tables currently are. Before anything is installed, the picnic tables will be removed and that landscaping bed there will be filled in. So it is quite a bit of space that this piece could realistically take up. And Ms. Richards has already kind of done the legwork and discussed this project with the library. They're incredibly excited about having some sort of feature right outside the library and it being an asset to their building as well. So the only request they had is if possible that it could be kind of kid friendly in some way as well. So I think with some colors and different elements, I think it could be a really fun piece downtown. So currently it is live on the Commonwealth of Virginia's proposal website, which is called We call IWA. There's an entire public art section there as well. So they are hopefully we're getting some good responses and we're receiving all submissions through that. We're kind of trying a different, our purchasing agents suggested that we try a different method than just emails for greater exposure, as well as better transparency to comply better with purchasing guidelines and best practices for the Commonwealth of Virginia. But I've also already posted it, across posted it on Americans for the Arts and a couple of the other places that we posted the last piece that we called out for. And that just, that post just directs them to please apply through this portal at this link. So I still think we're going to get some great exposure. I don't have an administrative access to the back end of this website, so I'm not exactly sure how many submissions we've received so far, but given that we still have a couple of weeks, I think we learned with the last RFP, we usually get kind of a lot towards the very end at the deadline. So I would hope that we would have some soon. So once I, once the deadline for this closes, I will be reaching out to those members who we've identified will be a member of the subcommittee to start talking about dates for those subcommittee meeting and how we'll be sharing those submissions for your consideration as well. And I'm happy to share the entire suite too with the rest of the commission even if you're not sitting on it just for your curiosity. Obviously to kind of see what kind of artwork we're attracting, right? It's always good for us as the commission to be learning those kinds of things. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Obviously, no changes can be made at this point. But the parks and rec committee was incredibly excited about this opportunity. Really taking it, they really were diligent about taking into heart kind of the goals of the art commission and respecting kind of making sure that their selection aligns with the parks and rec Master Plan and the Public Art Master Plan. And there are a lot of overlap there, the priority locations and things like that. So I do think this is kind of a fun small project, but it creates a great opportunity for collaboration. Anybody have any questions for clarity or anything like that? Okay. Thank you. Moving on to our second agenda item, Art and Orbit program. Is it Miller? Well, the first question is, do we like the name? I love it. Okay. Full credit where credit does do. AI came up with that. So I just threw it in there. I said, generate some ideas for me about an art and loan program that is related to the center of the universe. So I thought that was a pretty good, fun little twist on the idea here and makes it stand out, hopefully. Because you see a lot of these programs. When you look at these RFPs, there are a lot of communities are doing these, so we do want ours to stand out in some way, and branding can definitely help do this. So, what you see before you is a very first rough crack at an RFP for this program. I want us to have a discussion tonight about it and get your ideas. There is absolutely no necessity or real need to approve or adopt any kind of version of this. You'll have another bite at the apple at our next meeting because this program is not actually going to launch until next year. But I did want to kind of start the conversation because there are so many variations of these kinds of programs out across the country and everyone does them a little bit differently. So what I tried to do is based on the conversation that we had that you all had at our last meeting and some of the things that especially Miss Bax brought forward ideas from others that she had found that she liked. I tried to kind of pull some of those into this and kind of try to melt that together in a way that what I thought might work best for this community, given the goals of the commission and kind of what is possible. So I'm just going to go roughly through it. I'm not going to read it to you obviously, but I do want to just call out a couple things that might be up for discussion. under program details. I've suggested six sculptures to start. The reason I'm starting at six is opposed to like an eight or a ten or a twelve is because there is a considerable in the startup of the program. We're going to incur costs. So we have to pay for engineering. We have to pay for construction. We're going to have to do site planning and all of those things. And if we kind of later on when we talk about the kind of how these pieces will be mounted, if we kind of stick within a certain standard, we won't have to incur engineering costs every single year if we add another one. So just trying to be conscious of the budget that we have available, I want to make sure we have the money at this present time and this fiscal year to successfully kind of execute the beginning. Also given space is available in town and a lot of construction going on with England Street and everything. I want to make sure we're placing things where they make sense and then opportunities may present themselves in the future. So six felt like a manageable number, enough of a number that it would be enough for people coming to see, but not so many that it kind of is harder for the commission to execute and for staff to follow through on. As we discussed at our last meeting, the rough timeline would be a kind of an April to April time frame so that gets us into spring. I selected an install date just kind of off the calendar of mid-April. These dates are subject to change more specifically depending on our public work's teams availability to do it. places do one day install, some take an entire week, and initial conversations I have with our public works teams. They would much rather do it over one to two days than drag it out over the course of a week. So we are probably going to be looking at a very specific two day time frame in the final RFP based on what works for public works. For this stipend or honorarium, whatever we would like to call it, I just threw in here $1200. That kind of strikes the middle ground between what we've seen. So I've seen 1,000 and I've seen 1,500 and I've seen 1,200. So that puts us like middle of the pack, but you know that's open to discussion. If you wanna talk about being on the higher end of that, to stand out or maybe attract more artists, that's certainly up for discussion. And I'll have a reminder about what the budget we have available here in a little bit. Under the purchases section, this was something we talked about last week, but there's a last month, but there's a little bit of something in here that I really liked that I saw another locality do. So a lot of localities obviously offer that during the term of the year, it's on loan, those pieces are also available for sale. So if anyone sees a piece, they like it, they have the option to buy it and take it into their private possession at the end of that one year loan contract. A couple of localities I've seen had an option in here where I'll just read it. The Public Art Commission may select a work to be purchased for inclusion in the town's permanent collection. This is determined in the fall of that exhibition year and then it includes a budget for purchasing that piece. And so before I go forward with the rest of that, what I like about that is, and there's more language that can be put in here, is it doesn't necessitate that the commission buy a piece every time, but a piece is comes one year and it seems to be a particular favorite of the community, or it seems like a great opportunity to get a piece by a particular artist. You would have that option budget allowing to purchase that piece. It would still be de-installed from that temporary location and a new kind of permanent home would need to be found. But it would be written into the terms of the lease program that the town would have the first right of refusal. So if another buyer came in and wanted to buy it, the town gets first ability to access that piece. So that kind of gives the commission an option to kind of slowly grow the permanent art collection over time. If a piece seems to fit with kind of the goals. There's a couple things in here about a people's choice and and some awards for winning things. And this kind of gets at the community engagement element. So. There's a couple things in here about a people's choice and some awards for winning things. And this kind of gets at the community engagement element. So all of these loan programs have, our own loan programs have some element of crowd involvement or public involvement. What that looks like here, that's up for you all to decide. I don't really have an opinion one way or another if you don't want to do people's's choice and you want to do a like a someone place did like a C in response where they encourage people to like come look at the art reflector right on it and submit that somewhere. So there's a wide variety of options that could be done for that component. Before I move on to the next bit does anyone have any questions or comments about the first section? Yes? Two comments in language. One, I found that the people's choice are a little bit confusing. We had the word also in there. There will also be a people's choice, both. Just to clarify, that has not part of the... Yes. Yeah, I'll just do it like a paragraph break maybe. Yeah, yeah, sure. And then at the top, I think the word competition is always toxic to artists. Can we call this a, like it says, the opening sentence, conducting an open entry competition, we just call it a curated exhibition. Opinions, others? I like that idea. Because every curated show is in some aspect of competition. It's fun petition, but it's just about. I think it sounds It's it sounds nicer. What did you call it a curated exhibition exhibition? Any other comments on this first page? How do we feel about the $1,200? Don't want to commit to it now and think on it, but does that feel right? Yeah, I think if the difference is 12 or 1,500, that's a marginal difference. We can talk about doubling or tripling it, that would be a real discussion. But I think that, sure, it won't something for a year, for 1,200, or it gets it back, this means it doesn't. And how does everyone feel about the option to buy a piece? Is that something the commission would like to like? That's a great thing. That's a great, really good thing to do. OK. Great. I'll leave that in there. OK. So going on to the next page, we have our boilerplate under artwork requirements. So I pulled some of this language from every locality seems to do it a little bit differently, and some are definitely more staff-intensive than others. So trying to strike that balance between the resources that we have available, but also providing a format that is still appealing to a wide variety of pieces and can be fit. Because really we're talking about myself as well as our engineering team upstairs to kind of execute the installations. And so this language, I don't feel any one way about it or another, but I did see this often said, garden size or larger. If you all as artists have ideas about a different way to say that, happy to amend that. And then it puts some sort of height requirement on it, just because we do want the pieces to be visible for the space, right? You don't want something small. You do want it to have a presence. And then this is something that we talked about with our engineering team and Todd Evans, who leads our public works teams, who would be doing the install, is suggesting some sort of combination of two by two or three by three plents or concrete pads, depending on the location. That variability is not so significant that it creates a lot of work for the teams, but it also, I think, probably provides enough variability that depending on the shape of the sculpture, you have some options there, but again, I would welcome your feedback on that. And then, you know, this is not something for you all to solution. We're working through this and I'm reaching out to my contacts, but the actual attachment, how they are attached to the pads. And it seems that most localities use some sort of a metal plate that is supplied to the artists. They adhere the plate to the sculpture and then the plate adheres to the base. So it is kind of a connector of sorts depending on so then it's up to the artist to determine how to how they'd like to affix the plate to their piece. We're not doing that for them. We're only connecting the piece to the base itself. And that also requires less staff expertise in house of trying to figure out how to attach different things. You know, that's a professional art installer, which we do not have. So trying to look around and see what the options are. In a cursory look on Google, there are a lot of options out there with professional art suppliers and things who create things of that nature. So that connector piece would obviously be selected and vetted through our on-call engineering team before we design and install the plants. So we would be designing the plants off of whatever the connector piece ended up being. And they do seem to have, not to get to in the weeds here, but you all might have questions. One of them I saw had pre-drilled holes that are in a circular pattern. So it's not like four corners. So then depending on the dimensions, you could attach it in three places. You could attach it in two places. So it does give the artist's flexibility around where they attach it to the piece. So again, the good news is, as we are not inventing this concept, there's a lot of stuff out there already that is available to us. We just have to find the right thing for our team to use and that works well with the spaces that we are going to select. And then of course, there's a lot of information about here that this is going to be outside. It needs to be weather resilient. There's language in here about the installation. Again, the date is TBD with rain alternate for insurance purposes and legal purposes. Most localities do this and I spoke with our insurance company as well. So the artist or artist representative must be present for the installation to make sure that it's done well and to their specifications and that, you know, the angle they want facing a certain direction is the right angle. And then the piece is not insured by the town until it's mounted to the plent. So the artist must have insurance for transportation, installation and de-installation, and then once it's attached to our physical property, it goes under the town's insurance policy. And that seems to be a pretty common practice across these programs. Any questions about that page? I have a question. Yes. I noticed that in the section that says for outdoor display only it's imperative that submissions withstand the elements and abuse of outdoor, of an outdoor display. No hanging suspended sculptures, no water features, no sculptures made substantially a film, spray film, insulation, et cetera. What about electricity? Or do we to say no sculptures requiring electrical hookups? Yeah, because there won't be electrical on site. Right. We're not going to, we don't want them to think there would be. Yeah. Yeah, any electrical components, maybe we could specify that. Like there is no on-site electrical connections or anything. I think about the phone part is interesting. I mean, that's what I work in. No Arthur Brooks. But foam as a core. I mean, I built a 15-foot tall airplane for King's Dominion that was substantially foam, but the outside of it was fiberglass. Steel armoured trees inside, with concrete coatings on film. And it's just a common way to make things. Yeah. I mean, I'm not wedded to it. I mean, if you all as artists feel like we could evaluate them piece by piece to determine the integrity for outdoor display, like if it's a piece, like what Arthur is describing, maybe, you know, maybe that passes the standard for outdoor resilience. I had a thought on sort of what you're saying with just some of the wording in general. Instead of just being a hard-know, it could be highly suggested or it is suggested. I don't know, you know. It's more about the exterior than interior. I mean a bronze statue statue is substantially air. Yeah, I think, and then in some way, I mean, again, this is something I would need to drill down on with staff here internally is we need some verification or assurance that it is weather resilient because you don't want to have a sculpture mounted to a plentham, then after three months, it looks terrible. Yeah. You know, or it starts to degrade or something, you know. So there would have to be some standard in place, we would have to have some standard in place in which to evaluate its integrity when you, when you as the commission are trying to decide what to choose. Sure. That has to go into the consideration somehow. So I think a way to do, just to figure out a way to do that. Maybe part of that could be addressed in the artist's experience with creating outdoor specific sculptures. Yeah, and they would have to give a detailed description of materials used. And so then that would be something that would be up for discussion here, you know. So I'm fine amending that language to make it a little less prescriptive if that's of year-olds interest. I was even thinking that like each piece of art submit a must be at least for a heat tall. It is suggested that I don't know. I just was like, what if there's something really cool that comes along that isn't for a free talk? But I know why the language is there. I'm just wondering if we put suggestive is it more work on us? You know, I don't know. So but. It may just degrade the quality of submissions. The broader you may, I mean, you want to strike that balance between being specific enough that you get qualified what you're looking for, but you don't want to be so prescriptive that you rule out like something that might be a good fit. I mean, I think the fourth-four feet is advisable given the locate. These are going to be next to major roadways. I think anything, even if it's really cool, anything under that visibly is going probably going to get lost. I like the four feet in one dimension to add at least four feet tall automatically fulfills that requirement, but if you just leave it four feet in one dimension then I think that Okay, so it satisfies then if it's like wide or you know that yeah, it still has a presence to it And we're still gonna choose them based on right right still have to choose it. Yeah But it gives artists a sense of what scale we're looking for. Other comments on this page? Regarding the potential degradation of a piece that's made out of foam or something else, could we put some sort of language in the contract that gives the town of Ashland the right, reserves the right to evaluate the piece if we, or to contact the artist, or to pull the piece if we notice that the piece is starting to fail. That would definitely be a question for the lawyer, but I'm sure they, I have examples of contracts from a couple locations that had done these programs including our my colleague in Colorado And I'm betting they have something in there that gives them the right to remove a piece for a variety of reasons like graffiti or you know Whatever something happens. There's got to be an out there to Legally would be my guess. So I'll look around and see what the standard is It could be something as simple as the paint, not adhering or any number of things that could cause it to deteriorate. OK. The next kind of talks about the submission. So most say for ease in reviewing only one sculpture per application. That doesn't mean only one submission. It just means you need to do a new application for each sculpture. So that allows the commission to evaluate them separately rather than having a bulk come in. I think it's just, it's a process, ease for you all. Artists may submit up to three applications. However, the six sculptures chosen must represent six different artists. I think that's important because that's the purpose of the program, right, is to get as much exposure for a variety of artists as possible. So I am not wed either way. It's up to you all to decide if you want to allow more than three applications. It's completely up to year-olds decision-making here. And then each piece, again, I'll change that from not four feet tall to bit in one dimension. And then there's just some, again, all this stuff about how it will be adhered to subject to change depending on what people much smarter than me that have engineering degrees say. Installation dates and then, of course, just a reminder, please do not submit things that won't fit on the plants. And then selection criteria, again this says C attachment A but that's just kind of from the previous one but will include something and again that is up to, we're not, we don't need to decide what the selection criteria is but I think it can be pretty standardized from kind of the previous selection criteria that's been used. That's the idea is to not have to invent new selection criteria every single time you do an RFP. And then the timeline here, this is all up for debate. I just kind of went on off of how other localities break out their timeline. So it seems to me that most localities that do a spring installation do initiate a call in the kind of winter, prior with a longer deadline just to give it enough time to be seen. A jourying date about a week after that deadline and then artists are notified within two weeks or so of being accepted. And that early acceptance, I think, is important because obviously it gives the artists time to make sure they can get here for the install, prepare for that. And so, and then the de-installation is kind of roughly scheduled for a weak shy of the installation of the next round. So in talking with our public works team, they'd rather do it all at once. So we have the first year where you do the install. And then for the next year, they de-install and install kind of within the same four to five days. So it's like a quick switch over. That allows them to kind of handle their workload and just kind of do it all in one swoop. Questions about this page? I have another suggestion. Sure. So so your play, well that makes, your middle plate will be welded to your middle plate on your point. It may not be welded, it may just be bolted. It'll be attached to something like that. And then your plate must be able to fit. That's okay. I'm just thinking of, I'm gonna let's just say you did a banana that was four feet wide, right? As long as it's on some kind of like a little mini pedestal or something with the plate on the bottom of it, that the sculpture itself doesn't have to fit on the plate itself does. Right, yeah, just so if it was wider than three feet in one air, it doesn't need to, the whole thing doesn't need to fit on it. Right, it just needs to be securely attached. I have a question. Sure. Are we gonna send a picture of the locations and the plate to the... Yeah, so the idea would be, well, the locations, we'll talk about that next, but the proposed locations would all be identified by the time the call goes out. And hopefully the plence should be in place by then as well, because you can't, the idea is to get the plence done and in place before it gets cold again, because it's problematic to try to pour concrete in the wintertime. So that is the goal. But if public works wants to go with the metal plate option, the idea would be that the town of Ashland would purchase the plates, and when the artists are selected, they would be shipped the plate. So then they could adhere the plate in their studio and bring the school, or they could do it here locally if they wanted to, but they would receive the plate and so that if they needed to make slight modifications to their piece to make sure it attaches, they would have ample time to do that. And then we would know for sure that it would fit to the pedestal because we sent them the plate. I like that. Yeah. So maybe we should say somewhere in that that the plate would be provided so that doesn't have to come out of the- Yeah and that came out of a conversation with public works this week so I didn't add it to that yet but we will make sure that's in there. And we'll include a photo of the place and the plate in the program. Yeah, even though the plints are going to be somewhat standardized, the call will include photographs of all the locations. They get an idea of what's around it, you know, what piece might fit best in this environment, because that visual is important. So are we going to allow the artists to specify a location that they would like their sculpture to go into or were driving the bus on where we want sculpture this? I think it's specific. I think it depends on what level of control you would like over it. I would suggest you select where they go, because you have a better understanding than they do just from a picture of what is around the piece, the context of the location. There may be some historical considerations to take access to it, how close people are going to want to get to it. But you know, you can certainly ask them for their preference. It doesn't mean you have to honor that preference. Yeah, I think it would be good if there were some language to say, you know, if they had as part of their concept, why they would want it, you know, in a certain place. And then, you know then we certainly evaluate that. And we might learn something from there if they have a feeling and an opinion on why their sculpture might fit better. So they might have a consideration that we hadn't thought of. Doesn't mean we have to do it though. Exactly. Okay. Any final comments on this? And again, this is not going to create a final version. We'll just revisit this with more details at your meeting in July. OK. So the next thing I have is let's talk proposed locations. So what you see on your screen and it's linked in the staff report that is in your packet as well for later use and I will share this link with you as well as I have created a Google map of the rough, this is a rough sketch of our downtown, it's not like the exact borders, but being one of your, per your master plan, one of the priority locations for placement, given that we're doing six pieces, I think it would be wise to concentrate them in the downtown area for maximum impact because ideally people would be able to walk the entire collection pretty easily and and them in the downtown area for maximum impact because ideally people would be able to walk the entire collection pretty easily and readily. So what I've done here, I think it's also important to consider not only where these pieces should go but what's already here because you don't want everything to be clustered around everything in one location. So the blue dots, and there may be one or two that are missing here, are where we currently have artwork, where there is already public artwork in existence. And these are kind of the major pieces. Some of these are on private property, and some of them are on public property. So you'll see the murals, the sculptures by Charles Threshly, those things are all in here, as well as things like the library plaza with the man reading the newspaper and you know those kinds of things which are considered still very much public art. And then the next layer, this is where we have art coming. So on the far right of your screen, that represents the Gateway project there. I'm going to skip that middle one in first second and I'll come back to that. This green dot here is the future functional artwork piece that the Parks and REC team is working on. And then this piece, I'm saying it publicly, but it is a secret at this point. This is a private, the town of Ashland is commissioned Harper and Lively to create a piece of public artwork as a symbolic kind of gift of gratitude to President Bob Lindgren, who is retiring from Randolph-Macon this year. And so there will be an unveiling for that. That is going on the site of the Welcome Center property along England Street. There's a nice little mulched bed there that they don't have much going on. And so that piece will be installed to later this year. So that's important to kind of note that. And then of course we have the Mid-Atlantic Railroad Park kiosks, which are going in, which are Hart Park History, Public Art, Historic Artifact. These are the locations of all those kiosks around town. So in looking in that, and then looking at what is available to us in terms of accessible space, again, the idea being that these pieces do need to be able to be walked up to. They need to be in safe pedestrian accessible locations. And so this top layer are the locations that I in conversation with our staff here in the town manager are proposing. And some of them you'll see are a TBD because they are on private property but the first location is right here at Town Hall and if you can see in this picture I know it's a little bit small but that red square represents where the sculpture would go so if you look out this door right, right outside Town Hall, we have this little in-set window place that is, in my opinion, just screaming for a sculpture to go because it's just kind of this random in-set space. I think it would be a great feature. It's right by our front door. And so it's got really good visibility. And also could be viewed 360, because you could see it from inside at the windows. So that's location one. Location two because of visibility is at the train station, right, at the visitor center. There's a lot of mulch bed here. There's a lot of opportunity here to put a plenth or something. If that doesn't look like a viable location, I couldn't get a good Google Street View of it. But the other side of the train station facing the tracks, there's possibility to maybe put a Plenth kind of under the portico as you like on that side. But you know given that we have so many visitors coming in and out by train and even people just traveling through, I thought it would be a great missed opportunity not to put something close enough so that train travelers could kind of catch a glimpse of it. And they've got Secretariat on the other side, which is kind of cool. All right, going down center street, Hanover Arts and Activity Centers. This is private property, but I, so I need to have a conversation with your executive directors who will have to take it to the board, but given the mission of the Hanover Arts and Activity Center, the number of public events they have on the lawn there, I think some sort of reimagining of their front bed and signage that includes opportunity for sculpture could be a great not only curb enhancement for them, but a great location for a piece of artwork that kind of rotates. So that's a pending discussion. We would have to have a conversation with Ms. Holloway at the Arts and Activity Center and their board. But for this one and the other ones that are suggested to be on private property, that would simply be a public art lease agreement. We wouldn't be seeking permanent easement. It would be the exact same agreement that we have with Randolph-Macon with the Secretaryate monument. So the town of Ashland owns the monument itself, and we lease the tiny rectangle, or not so tiny rectangle, that the horse is sitting on. And so if for some reason and the future Randolph-Macon decides they want their little square back, we would take the monument and relocate it somewhere else. And so this would operate similarly. We would just be leasing this little two by two or three by three section of their property for artwork, and then it can be relocated if needed. So that's Hanover Arts. So as you can see to the before I move on to the other three I wanted to just comment we have a lot of artwork right here in this cluster right and we've talked about before the arts and culture district and making sure that we are kind of spreading the love all down England Street and kind of tying these two pieces together. The England Street project that's starting now is a big piece of that by extending that sidewalk down England Street to visually tie it together, but that can also be done by placing additional artwork as well. So the first location I am suggesting is the former site of the Diane Hale building. There's a private property owner that owns that building who I have been talking to about doing something. She is not at this time to my knowledge. Have any imminent plans to develop that property into anything eventually. It will be probably developed into buildings. But why not activate a vacant space in the interim? And so what I would propose to her is that for a period of maybe like a five-year lease or whatever, we place a plan at that property to liven up that space a little bit and to visually connect the caravades with the rest of downtown. And then should in the future, she want to develop that property or have an opportunity to do it, then she would be able to terminate the lease and we would relocate the plent to another location. The next location is outside thrill of the hunt because Miss Leiden and her husband, they have quite a bit of grass there. We may actually have enough public right of way to place a piece there and not need to do a lease agreement. I would need to get engineering to go out and tell me exactly where the property lines are. But I think in front of her kind of grassy area would be a nice curb appeal for her. Even if we don't need a lease agreement, we would still go to the business owner and make sure that she was okay with the placement of the piece there. Given that she has pop-up markets and events inside that gated area, I would think that she would be excited about having something that would kind of draw people visually to her business. So that's the second location. And then the third location is obviously a piece of property that we already own, which is nice. It's the property that the Ashland Police Department sits on. This is the side, so this is a long Randolph street. So the gateway piece is obviously here and this is not set in stone that it goes right here. Visually they look very close together, but they're actually not that close together. This piece could be located anywhere kind of the we wanted to on the lawn of the police department. There, the nice thing about that too is, is you have this kind of circle of artwork here. So you've got like the gateway over here, potentially a sculpture here, and then you've got a mid-Atlantic railroad park exhibit here, and then another one down at the park. It's nice too, because it's close enough to the park that if there's kids on the playground, they could walk up the sidewalk and check it out. And it just is kind of a nice way to add something to that big open lawn. It would be easy for people to see it. So those are the three locations that we open lawn. It would be easy for people to see it. So those are the six locations that we've identified. I'm open to other ideas. If people had other ideas, it was difficult. This is already a pretty cluttered area with a variety of things. And there are opportunities to kind of dress up certain corners, but the challenge is enough space, right? Is there enough space for a piece that is visible and big enough to make a presence that doesn't overwhelm that corner or cause sightline problems with traffic and people trying to turn in and out. So all those things were kind of under consideration. So with that, I'm happy to take comments or suggestions. What about South Taylor Street Park? So South Taylor Street Park is going to be under construction for a while. It's being renovated. So I think and the other thing we have to that you all need to is, is, are, do you want to concentrate these in like a downtown area, or do you want to focus on them being in parks? Parks are always an option, but they're not, you can't walk the collection necessarily in one day. So maybe, I would say it's something maybe would be good for like the next year. You could start adding them to parks after you do maybe pick let's focus on this neighborhood for the first iteration then the next iteration we focus on parks or neighborhood gateways. So you could take a phased approach to it like that as well. Yeah, I was just thinking for an inclusive inclusivity, you know, consideration. But yeah, I think if we let folks knew that this was a growing thing. Yeah, maybe next year you do three and you pick three parks, you know, to put them in. I really like the spots that you identified, so I'm on board with that. And then I had a question about, so the private property that we would lease, is that that's part of our budget. I mean, that would come out. And is that a, that's a yearly lease? We would probably do more than a yearly lease with a, with a good out clause for the, for the person we're leasing from just to reduce paperwork and staff time. So we don't have to annually renew it every single year. My guess is this is the only one that would want to terminate the lease at any time would be the property owner of Diane Hale when that property goes into development. But even, for example, let's say that property had a developer interested today, it would probably go by going through rezoning processes and everything. You're looking at still probably three years until something actually happens there. So it would still be probably worthwhile to do the least in the time being. OK, thank you. I just had fun with Google Maps. It's a good looking map. It's a lot of fun. It is. It's exciting. It is kind of nice to see it, because we've obviously like we cataloged like a list of them in the visitor app. But there's something about seeing it visually like that. I'm a very visual person, and obviously I'm speaking to an entire group of artists. But when you see it kind of all layered on top of each other, you realize we have quite a bit of art going on and that maybe you don't realize. So it's kind of nice to see it. I also think this is helpful to determine future placement. So I will continue to, this isn't just a map for this project. I'm trying to just kind of build out this map. I would like to capture some of the artwork that we have that's on private property, but I want to be sensitive to those residences. And so there is a plan I will be asking permission if they're interested in having like Mr. Threshly, obviously we know his residence has a lot of artwork in his yard. And so if they're open to having those on a public map, then I will be adding those as well. Okay. So I guess all I need is confirmation from the commission and we don't have to take a vote or anything that everyone is kind of on board with pursuing these locations. So I'll continue kind of working with our engineering department to start site work and reaching out to those private property owners. If for some reason any of the property owners are not interested in having placement there, I will be developing kind of secondary options that are kind of still within this same footprint. If that is the desire of the commission to kind of focus on a downtown a launch and then kind of face to expanding maybe outside that footprint. So I'll just keep everyone. I'll have an I should have a good update in July on where things are. Thank you. Welcome. All right. Moving on to our next discussion item. The staff report? Yes. Does anyone on the commission have any updates or anything they want to share first like things they've been doing or pieces they have exhibited or that kind of thing? Not to put you on the spot miss backs, but how was your photographs? Oh, it was great. I didn't sell any, but that's okay. I had a good time. I went up to Pennsylvania to my mushroom exhibit. It was fun. It was a good thing. Good. Looking forward to the next one, which is not, I don't know what that is, but open to the idea. It'll be something. Something comes along. All right, let me pull up. I'm not going to pull up staff report. I don't think I'll just read. So I just have a quick staff report update on a couple of things. So the gateway artwork it can't work on that continues and it's been a journey. I'll just say that. I've learned a lot because we had to change our location. But the great news is, is I have assigned easement agreement for the sports page property location. And of course, since the other side is the Ashtonham Police Department, we don't need anything there. And so now that we have assigned easement agreement, we are full steam ahead on getting site and construction plans done. I've met on site with the engineering firm as well as Talian Armstrong, who's our on-call contractor multiple times, to kind of figure that out as well as been back and forth with Harry on a couple of things. I don't have an estimate specifically for completion and installation. In my last conversations with Harry, he started fabricating, which is very exciting. He was a little delayed in getting started because of a piece he was working on before was delayed from the hurricane damage. So he was late finishing that. And then his challenge at this point now has been getting supplies, getting materials because a lot of the folks who supplied his materials had devastation from the hurricane. So he's just keeping me in the loop. He still thinks he's going to be able to obviously, it's not going to be a summer installation at this point but probably fall. And that's just fine because we had delays as well and are in with having to relocate the site. And so we're full steam ahead on that. Again, in July, I expect I will have kind of an estimate. The one thing that may cause a little bit of delay on construction is our on-call contractor is also our on-call contractor for the England Street project. And so I would imagine that we are going to get behind the in line to all the sidewalk construction that is about to start. That said they are a great vendor, they do a really good job. It's also possible he may send like a small team off of the England Street project to get started on the pedestals and things for this project. So I will just keep everyone up to date. I have also been going back and forth with Harry, our planning director, Ms. Nora Amos, the gentleman who does all of our signage here in town, as well as the electrical engineer on the project, just talking through the lettering. Our signage vendor will be fabricating the letters for the base of the pedestal. Again, there's a lot of cooks in this kitchen because everybody has a very specific job. The electrical engineer is figuring out kind of where the conduit needs to go to connect and then Harry and our planning director are talking through the lighting considerations. Not in the sculpture itself because that's been figured out and all good, but how to light the letters so that they're dark sky compliant. Usually when you have letters like that they're kind of backlit, but that's a no-go with our town code. And so we think we found a really great workable solution where the letters are inset into the bricks. So there's like a slight break overhang. And so our signage provider, he's found a almost flush-mounted light to mount it under the brick there. So it will be not visible really, except for maybe like a thin black. And it'll light the letters from above. So the light will be cast down, which so we'll still get that effect of lighting on the letters at night time. So again, lots of moving parts. I'm learning a lot of things about things I never thought I would learn about. And so that's where we stand on the Gateway project. Still really excited about that. I already updated you on the Fallign Trailhead project. The next thing I want to just touch on is one of your work plan goals, which is community engagement. And we had a great conversation last time about kind of what projects in the community might be interested in public events. And the consensus at that time was to kind of start with potentially some pop-ups at farmers markets and doing some activities. I indicated that there is budget for supplies. And so I reached out to the market manager and every third Saturday during the season, they have a space for a community booth. And she would absolutely love for the art commission to come once, twice, whatever is doable and do a little art activity or some art education for any of the kids or families that come through. So below you will see the dates of all the third Saturdays of the market season. And so if there is a date, you know, if you want to do one Saturday to start and then see if you want to do another one, but I would welcome input from you also we can go ahead and lock down a date so that it is kind of a first-come-first serve So if there's any kind of guidance from anybody that is is particularly interested in this element I would welcome your input One two. How many want to do I? have a Suggestion or consider We used to have a chalk walk in Ashland. It wasn't really a walk. It was at the library plaza. But it would be neat if that would be a really good community engagement project, because the cost would really be just logistics, making sure everyone was safe and stuff. But it would be need to do one as a true walk, especially looking at this map, you know, to see art popping up on the sidewalks and you know, directionally kind of drawing people into the downtown cluster. So was that done like as one night or one day? It was a one day then Main Main Street did it. Now, in Ashland. But yeah, it was always done like in the confines of the plaza to be able to chalk walks are designed as walks where you know, draw people through town. So other thoughts? So you know those, I don't know what they are, but you put your face through them and you have like the image so you could be like a banana or something. I think it would be really fun to have like a community thing where we create one of those with everybody. So I could do a paint by numbers thing and people can come and paint a section of it. And then somebody finish it off like myself just to outline it and make it really nice. And, you know, that could be something that is part of the town and, you know, a great engagement thing for the future for everybody to have. I like that idea. I'd be happy to help. I would, if we're looking at dates, the 16th or the 20th, like towards the end of that range, is better for me. I mean, that would give us more time to plan. I think the 16th, it's the same. Same, 16th or 20th because of summer vacations, I think those would definitely work the best. Okay, so and then whoever is available, whoever else in the commission is available and interested could help out. it could help out. It doesn't have to be a full commission event necessarily, but Miss Hollander would, so the could I designate you as kind of the lead on that project with Miss Boles help? Yes. Okay. I also like Arthur's chalk idea and I think that would be so fun to do. Me too. Even if we did just one side of a sidewalk here on another time. Yeah, the biggest issue would be the safety logistics when you're spreading throughout town. So we have to get the police to do that. Yeah, I'm guessing that's why the police department probably made it happen in the pausa for that reason. Pedestrian safety would be my guess. An option it wouldn't get necessarily the walk factor that you're talking about, but you could do a chalking, I'd have to get permission, so don't quote me on this, but if you did it during the farmers market and you wanted to chalk out here, in front of Town Hall, Duncan Street is closed during the hours of the farmers market. So you wouldn't have any cars going back and forth. So it would be a little bit safer and it would be during the farmers market. So you would get some, you would be reliant on people showing up on a particular day or time. It would be spontaneous, right? If they were at the farmers market and they want to contribute to the chalkwalk, they could. Again Again I would have to get permission to chalk up the front of town hall but I speak not speaking from Ms. Barnhart but I'm guessing our council would love that idea. I really like that idea. I was thinking the same thing like if we combined Arthur's idea of the chalk walk with the on the market day. Then that's our idea for what we're gonna do at the farmers market. And it could be maybe it spreads to also at the library plaza or just get the police keep involved as far as how big can this get safely and logistically. Because it would be nice to see it spread as big as possible. About a force safety being built. Time we promote it before. Like you were saying it is going to be spontaneous, but can we also say, you know, August 16th? Absolutely. There is a shop wall at the farmer's market. Yeah. And these would be whatever you will do at the farmer's market would be promoted, right? We'll make sure people know that there's going to be a public art component to it so that they should come and be ready to have fun and engage with that and the same with your idea. So the day, if you decide to do that kind of paint by number community art project on the 16th, we would definitely promote that as an activity for the day at the Farmers Market. Can you tell me when school starts? Is it about the 15th of August? No, I think it's like the 21st. It's usually that 21st or 26th. The teachers probably will've probably gone back then. Yes, I was just thinking if it's the weekend before school starts. We should ask the educator in the room. We usually come back two weeks before. So they come back when please. Teachers come the first part of I'm just thinking if you did it all this time. I'm just trying to just you know do one year at a time. I don't know. Wash it like the 16th. I'm just trying to just you know do one year at a time. Oh, washing. Let me get into this. I thought my thought is if it was this it was like the money after the 16th a lot of parents may be out of town still let last gas for summer. So I was just wondering and August can be really hot if you're out there painting on the sidewalk. That's true. So September might be more enjoyable. Having cooked before when they did it at the library but was so hot by lunchtime to get how to stay in your zone. And that, yeah sorry I'm just double checking that date. Yeah. So do we want to go forward with the 20th as the, okay. And then another idea for the chalkwalk, and this is a different event. But that might be a nice thing to coincide with, like, an Ashland forth Fridays as well. That could be a more evening, that kind of event where there's already kind of arts and culture stuff happening. So that could be kind of an add-on to downtown Ashlands forth Fridays event if you wanted to have a community component to that. So that's another option if you didn't want to consolidate it all on farmers market days because that gets a pretty wide range of folks coming families and stuff coming out as well. Yeah so the 18th is the first day. So it would be the weekend before which I think is nice timing. Do you have a preference? Less hot. I think it's good on the activity, right? Like, chalk, I think, would be better when it's not so hot. Yeah. But absolutely. My number could work. So. Yeah, I think if we were going to refer to it as a chalk walk and people remember the chalk walks, it was like a kind of an all day event, because artists would spend hours on their pieces. I remember. I did it, and didn't you buy the block? Like didn't you have to buy the block? I forget how they were sponsored or something. There had to be some fundraising element if it was Main Street, yeah. Yeah, but we could do can do it helpful. We want to do it. But yeah, I think doing it as a Saturday event where it was artists could spend however long we wanted making the masterpiece. Okay. So then do we want to pencil in potentially the kind of community art painting for the 16th? Or do you want to do them on the same day? The 16th of August? Yeah. It's a good point about like how hot it could be. And not in. I mean there's advantages, there's pros and cons to doing them on different days and doing them on the same day. If you did it on the same day, it could be like a public art takeover of the farmer's market, basically. Like we could brand it that way of like it being like. Yeah, and then not everybody is just like bottled and that two, one thing, you can spread out between like what you would like to do, you know? So I think having it on the same day. All right, well, why don't I pitch that to the farmer's market manager that we kind of do an art explosion at the farmer's market? It's a good idea. Well, we could probably find some pop-up tents, you know, so kind of things, what am I thinking about? You know, this little tent shape. Yeah, for shade. I'll have shade for people. That would be nice to do. Okay. Okay, so I'll get in a football and all that kind of crazy stuff in September. There's always something. All right, well I will check with Ms. Macomba who runs the market and see if she's cool with a September 20th. I'm sure she will be. And then I will follow back up with you all to confirm that date so you can put it on your calendars. Okay. Okay. And then the last thing on the list here is you have just our upcoming events that are kind of either arts and culture or arts and culture adjacent. Secretariat Day is on Sunday. I will not be in town, but for those that are, go check that out. Obviously Arthur mentioned the Ashland Artist Showcase here at Hanover Arts and Activities. and library is doing an Ashland Author Day, which I thought was kind of cool. We have a ribbon cutting for the Berkeley Town Heritage Park. On April 19th, that's a Saturday. I've been incredibly involved in that project, so I just wanted to mention it, but also because there is a public art component to that. Harper and Lively are doing the basis of the signs for that park and they're doing kind of vignettes of like Berkeley Town and Gandhi and it's going to be really, really cool. So if you're around and you want to come out, it's 11 from 11 to 1, we are going to have, it's kind of more than a ribbon cutting but not a full blown event is what we're saying. The celebration itself will be happening on the trail side that connects at Archie Cannon on that side near the school. So we're suggesting, the celebration itself will be happening on the trail side that connects at Archie Cannon on that side near the school, so we're suggesting people park at Ashland Elementary and walk down. We'll have remarks by people that have kind of been integral in the project, the Black Heritage Society, Randolph-Macon, and others, as well as performances by the Ashland Elementary fifth grade chorus, the Patrick Henry step team, and Shiloh Baptist Squire is going to sing as well. So a lot of excitement around that, and if you've not gone to check out that trail, it's really beautiful. It's kind of on my regular walking route. So go check that out when you can. Hannah Rose got talent is later that day. That's the finals. I think the kind of audition part is earlier than that. And then Ms. Richards has a new partnership with Hanover County Parks and Recreation, which we're really excited about because she's a staff of one. She has limited capacities in the amount of programming she can put on. So she's partnering with them. It's kind of a win-win because they have staff that we do not and we have park amenities that they do not. We have a pool, we have a pond that you can fish in, things like that. So I mentioned there's a lot of activities that she's doing with them over the course of the summer but this one on May 17th is she's doing a paint by the pond so there's going to be an artist there and they're going to be kind of doing painting tutorials and things that to Jarnet Park. And that's free of charge. Who is it? Who's Miss Richard? Amy, our Parks and Rec Manager. Okay. And we know who the artist is. I don't. I'm sure she does. I think we are supplying the location and Hanover is bringing the artist. So I'm not sure if that is yet. But it may say on the event listing, which all of these events are listed either on our website or the visit ashlinva.com. And if you can't find the info, just email me out. I'll send it to you. And then the very last thing I want to just mention offhand is when it comes to RFP and submissions as we're continuing to kind of level up what the commission is doing and the volume of projects that you guys are doing which is frankly really impressive given how nascent this commission is. I've been looking at a more professional and streamlined solution for issuing RFPs and collecting those calls. And so I've had a series of phone calls with the sales team at CAFE, call for entry, which is kind of a standard bearer for publishing and receiving calls in the art world, not just public art. And for a very reasonable fee, we can set up an account with them, collect all of our submissions through that website, set up juries. So each of you would have an account where you could log in and rate and evaluate remotely. So it's not happening on the fly necessarily at meetings. And it just has a lot of robust offerings. It's FOIA compliant. So everything that kind of is cataloged in there can be downloaded if needed. And so I am arranging for in my budget to go ahead and purchase a subscription to that tool, which will kind of become the place where all the public art commissions go out through. And then you can obviously continue to post them other places, They'll just apply through this portal. The great thing about it is it is highly popular with artists across the country. I think on the sales call they said they had like something like 90,000 artists that have active accounts. If you post you have to pay pay for your account, but it's free to artist. The artists have to create an account, but it's completely free for them. So I think it's right at the target demographic that we're looking. It also, it shows that the town is serious about public art and really wants to make sure that we're kind of in the running with other localities in terms of what we offer. So my goal is to have that account up and activated. By the time we issue the call for the loan program and we can collect all of our submissions through there. But if you have questions, again, I didn't get it on the staff report, but it's called Cafe Short for our acronym for Call for Entry. And if you're an artist looking to apply for things, there's a lot of options on there. And then the last thing I will say is we had our last budget work session on Tuesday, and I presented my budget proposals, including my capital project lines, funding requests, which include public art at the first public work session. The budget overall looks like we're on track for a balanced budget. Obviously the town manager is watching what's going on in the world very closely. There are a lot of concerns about a risk potential recession. So just trying to be mindful of committing to cost that commit the town to multi-year expenses in case we see a dip and travel since a lot of our revenues come from meals taxes of the interstate So but it's going to be overall a kind of a standard budget year for us. I have put in a request for 75,000 in the public art line item fund for projects. Last year's request was at 50,000. That's going to cover most of our, all of the work we have to do to get the plenths in place with some left over. That request is an idea to kind of step up that ask each year incrementally. Early conversations with the town manager, I think we're gonna land at 50 again next year. So whatever we have left at the end of this fiscal year that doesn't get spent will get added to that 50,000. And the idea being is that that does give the commission some money to spend on public art, but that you don't expend it every single year. You grow it incrementally so that if and when an opportunity comes to do a massive acquisition, that is something large, say a piece of artwork at Interstate 95 that will cost a lot more than $100,000. You kind of have built up that bank over time. So that's the kind of goal with that pot of money is that we kind of just keep it growing and growing and growing so that it's available when an opportunity comes along to kind of do something on a larger scale. But that, I'm happy to answer it.