Public Art Conference Archive—2001

Study Session: Public Art Master Plans

Presenters: Gretchen Freeman, Freeman Whitehurst Group, Phoenix, AZ, and Jean Greer, Arts And Science Council, Public Art, Inc., Charlotte, NC
Notetaker: Narisara Vanichanan

Summary
The presenters will focus upon the various types, tasks and timelines of master planning from their different perspectives—of program director and of art consultant. Determining when to plan, writing an RFP or responding, shaping the vision, structuring the scope, contracting and managing the planning process are key points for discussion. Community engagement, cross-disciplinary thought, and educational outreach are all necessary components for a relevant plan. Implementation phases and funding strategies will also be addressed. Sample documents will be made available for review.

This session was for persons starting, midway-thru, updating, or researching information on master plans for public art. There are many types of plans as there are communities. The most important point is that the plan must be a reflection of the community itself.

General tips:

• As a general guideline for an urban city, pre-planning should occur about 2 years ahead of the planning stage itself. Monies should be accumulated, and building advocacy for interested members and stakeholders is your utmost priority.
• Prepare yourself and your community. Look at the city’s/town’s capitol plan and become secure on where the potential funding is.
• Audience is important in any public art commission, and the market process will determine how vast the project scope will become.
• Have on board the staff, including a full-time administration person and support help, even part-time. This process is labor intensive.
• Have also a steering committee who will follow the planning effort from beginning to end.
• Assess the political climate and try to understand, inform, and include those needed.

What do you need from a public art master plan?

• Ask where is the logical positioning of the art.
• Where is population growth boom, major improvements and general improvements all over the city?
• Remember the guidelines for accession/deaccession of art and maintenance of public art.

Items to include in the Request for Proposals (RFP):

• State what you want to achieve up front, including your own goals.
• The regional description of the community.
• Page on demographics.
• Public art planning in relation to cultural planning.
• Scope of services.
• A diagnosis of where you are, issues, and what you have to achieve.
• List of deliverables.
• Schedule of planning, keeping in mind a minimum of two years for evolution and acceptance of having a master plan. Implementation should be projected as well.

Keeping the right frame of mind

• Smaller projects can take less time, but still undergo the same process.
• It’s good to be ambitious and excited, but be realistic as well.
• The key is good preparation with a steering committee to act on one’s behalf.
• Look for who has the political power to push something through.
• It’s more meetings and presentations than you think.

How to Work with Consultants

• It is a necessity to work with a consultant or at least have an outside perspective for a short-term.
• Sometimes, a consultant can say or position things effectively better than a internal person.
• One must understand how to work with consultants and how to use their external perspective.
• Always get references on consultants.

The consultant person or team must be

• Flexible.
• Able to adapt to the community.
• Curious about how your community works, its people and its planning and involvement processes.
• A good listener
• Inventive and creative
• Able to work with you
• Call references and meet in person. Use your intuition.
• Have sense of adventure or excitement.

Not all community members have the skill to work together. They recommend someone to work with the community. A consultant team or consultant working as needed with support services.

Tips

• Work with the city’s public historian
• Work with artists from the beginning.
• The process is the product, it’s about getting consensus in the community.
• There needs to be time for preparation and implementation, over a number of site visits
• Create a schedule of public visitation/public talks.
• Have leaders in the private sector on your steering committee.
• Create a vision, know where the vision is headed, and the funding changes that need to happen.

Producing a plan

• You must speak one on one with those who they are going to effect.
• Tie the document to the growth of the city—what is its economic forecast, population trends, industry indicators?
• The city’s systems are the key—Departments of Transportation, Parks, and Education
• Building projects are harder to integrate into that process.

Benefits of general master plans

• Emphasis identity of the city.
• There is more landscape and streetscape architecture planning done.

Preplanning Stages

• Diagnose the need, strengths and weaknesses in planning the community.
• The Pre-Planning phase takes a year or longer.
• Be ambitious for yourself and at least five years for oneself.
• Look at who the stakeholders are, from the beginning through the approval process/acceptance phase.
• Often the budget is the divider.
• Understand the community’s improvement plan, know where the community is going and growing.
• Look at where the flow of money is going for the next five years.
• See where your vision fits into all of this.
• Access the political climate, have a well-informed advocate throughout the entire process. Make it clear what it is that you need.
• Clarify the guidelines, policies and procedures, and see how what those needs are and how they may change.
• Ask if there is a cultural action plan in place? A redevelopment district?
• Speak with the relevant city agencies and say what you hope to implement.

Questions from Participants:

Q: Sometimes one person is everything—the creator and implementor of the plan. Is that bad?
A: It doesn’t look good, unless that person has the political leverage, he/she is lost.

An outsider will often have a more global reading of what needs to happen. As part of the central communications or admin department, the consultants would rather see you wait and explore what to do, and do it well, rather than have no shelf life.

Q: How much is a public art master plan?
A: It depends on the scope—public/private, $10,000 to $500,000 sometimes. Remember to solidify your own funding base. You don’t have to have all the answers, but the money to pay people. The process is the product.

Q: Can the master plan be done in-house?
A: The person or agency needs an outside perspective. Sometimes it is valuable to have someone outside the community deliver the messages. Evaluate that for yourself. Q:Also a person can review it with a fresh new perspective. If it’s an uphill situation or a budgetary/funding shift, one can be involved but not saddled alone.

Q: Do you work with consultant teams or a single person?
A: It depends on the project. One person tends not to get the broadest perspective, but can find resources in the community to assist. It can be team-like work though, and a balance of resources engages different kinds of thinking. Communication throughout the team members should be lead by the team leader though.

Q: What exactly is a master plan of a city?
A: The master plan of a city is:

• It is the definition of a community by its residents.
• It’s a consensus about who they are, their past with original research, and should reflect what your needs are.
• It’s policy, guidelines, procedure and funding sources.
• Reflects a city’s unique physical landscape or geography, as well as any distinguishing
• features.
• Maintenance of gifts of public art/sculpture, loans of art and other art master plans.
• It’s tied it to growth and urban development or redevelopment.
• It can be capitol improvement programs, placement of projects, where certain things have
• occurred in the past
• It’s accessioning, de-accessioning policies of art works.