Olympia art flap

By Alec Clayton on December 28, 2010

ALL OLY IS SAYING IS GIVE ART A CHANCE >>>

All we want is some nice art on the walls at the new Olympia City Hall. Is that too much to ask? All we want is for the city to support local artists by spending money that is already approved, set aside and required by law. But it looks like our elected officials are trying to prevent that from happening, or at least delay it.

The Olympia Arts Commission did everything right. They formed a jury of arts professionals to recommend a short list of artist proposals to a citizen advisory panel and ultimately presented four proposals from local artists for City Council approval. And the council shot it down. The vote was 4-3. Mayor Doug Mah and council members Jeannine Roe, Karen Rogers and Steve Langer voted to table the issue until the council's Jan. 4 meeting. Voting against were council members Stephen Buxbaum, Craig Ottavelli and Rhenda Strub. As reported by the Olympian, Rogers questioned whether we should be spending so much money "in lean economic times."

Hey, council members, get this: The process has long since been approved; there has been ample opportunity for public input (actually much more than is provided by most cities); the money is there and the proposals actually total nearly $15,000 less than the budgeted $35,000.

Local artists are up in arms. They've been sending e-mails back and forth and posting comments on Facebook. I've exchanged e-mails with a few of the local artists, including one that was on the advisory committee and one who's art was selected. Since some of the issues are sensitive and I have not been able to get permission to quote everyone - even though posts on Facebook are just about as public as you can get - I have decided to use pseudonyms in attributing the following quotes.

Tom: "I am really disappointed in the lack of leadership that the council has shown. I am particularly dismayed that its members would conclude that they were uninformed when the staff gave them a four-page report on the process, which involved countless numbers of people and their time since at least last March. The jury process alone was nearly seven hours, 56 artists submitted and several hundred works were considered. ... The lame excuse of ‘spending money in these hard economic times' was really weak.

Kay: "Excessively disappointed. I feel like the commission did everything right and still got slapped down."

Firestarter: "It's such a mess! ... The quote from Karen Rogers (in The Olympian) makes me want to tear my hair out."

Jen: "Ah well. So it goes."

Alex: "Philistinism continues to plague Olympia in its quest for art for its new city hall."

Cathy: "Personally, I've been repeatedly disappointed by the comments that Karen Rogers makes regarding the inappropriateness of purchasing artwork during economic hard times. Just what exactly does she think artists do during lean times, crawl under our beds with our paintings and wait until the recession goes away?"

Earlier, a council member suggested that City Hall should have rotating art exhibits and that artists could loan art for exhibition. Arts Commission spokesperson Stephanie Johnson said there are walls inside City Hall that will be set aside for rotating exhibitions that could be used for many different shows, such as children's art and traveling exhibitions. This would be in addition to the four purchased works.

Some of the artists took that suggestion to mean the city could get art without having to pay for it.

Ruby: "Attention all artists: do not ‘lend' your artwork to the City Hall. ... the City is stiffing artists, no one should decorate those walls for free."

Tom: "This issue really speaks to how the arts are perceived in Olympia. There are many who are vocal and feel that the arts are unimportant and should not be supported financially. The fact is the arts contribute millions to the local economy. Arts Walk alone brings in more money to support businesses like restaurants than to the artists that are showing. When people contact the Chamber of Commerce about the community, they want to know about the arts and culture. Why does our arts community always have to feel that they need to justify their existence? Why is it the one profession that people assume that we will gladly show and give our work for free? ... A community without art is a community without soul."

Watch for more on this in my "Visual Edge" column this week.