Hung on parking garages, adorning buildings and decorating creek walkways around San Luis Obispo are hidden treasures. These art pieces were put in place by the Art in Public Places program, a committee under the San Luis Obispo County Arts Council, “ARTS Obispo,” which helps the city decide where to place public art pieces and pick which artists get commissioned.
“I think the cities have realized it’s important to have a public art program,” said Jim Jacobson, a local artist who has several art pieces around San Luis Obispo. “It makes a city so much more attractive and so much more revealing as to what it stands for and what it’s about.”
The statue of Puck in the Downtown Centre, the signs identifying each level in the Palm Street parking structure and the Child and Bear fountain in Mission Plaza are just a few examples of art pieces that have been installed over the years as a result of the Art in Public Places program.
Jacobson was one of the first artists selected to create a piece for the program and the first piece he completed was the mobile in front of the Parks and Recreation Department building. He said he read that the city had gotten money together for public art and wanted to be a part of the program.
“I’ve been a part-time artist just about all my life and I thought (the public art program) would be an exciting way to get involved in making larger pieces and some pieces that had a significant amount of money behind them,” Jacobson said.
Now a full-time artist, he said there wasn’t as much competition in the early days of the program when there were only 10 proposals instead of the most recent 70, but Jacobson considers himself fortunate to have been commissioned.
He worked on two more mobiles in the Mission Plaza area and a hand railing on Santa Rosa Street in front of the Frank Lloyd Wright building. He said there wasn’t much money involved with the hand railing but it didn’t matter.
“It was just so exciting to do something that would tie in to the Frank Lloyd Wright building, which I thought would be quite an honor,” said Jacobson, who includes the famous architect as someone who inspires and influences his art.
Jacobson has worked on many more pieces for the program and said he enjoys the entire process of public art. Jacobson calls the historical research that goes into creating his art, and the design process of creating something that will work in a specific location, exciting.
San Luis Obispo has several ordinances in place to fund the creation and display of public art around the city. One ordinance states that 1 percent of all the money from capital improvements (meaning any buildings the city builds) goes toward a public art fund.
A second ordinance for private developers was later added to the San Luis Obispo Municipal Code, stating that 0.5 percent of the money the developer spends goes toward public art for that building. If the developer chooses not to do public art for their project, or it’s determined not to be suitable for public art, the developer can put the money in an in-lieu fund. From this fund, the city can fund new art projects, as well as complete repairs and maintenance on existing art pieces.
“The most important thing (the private developer ordinance) does is it provides the city a way to do matching grants,” said Art in Public Places committee chairperson Ann Ream.
After one of the original founders of the program, Bill Beeson, passed away, the arts council wanted to honor him with an art piece. The council asked the city if it would match the money they raised, up to $10,000, and the city agreed because it could use the in-lieu fund.
When the city decides it wants to put a piece of art somewhere, an extensive selection process is completed before the artist and artwork is chosen. A Request for Qualifications is sent out as a call to artists who want to participate. Artists then submit their resume, references and a narrative of what their vision is for the site. A jury of five to seven people from the community decide which artist and artwork they think will work best for a specific space and then the artist can begin the creative process.
ARTS Obispo helps facilitate the process of finding the artist, getting jurors and then distributing the art piece when it is finally finished, but they are more of an advisory body to the city council, said ARTS Obispo program director Alissa Maddren.
“To reach out to the community is very important and for them to get involved in public art,” said public art coordinator Shannon Bates. “The most significant way they can do that is to be part of the jury,” she said, adding that they often seek people to do just that.
Certain people have to be on the jury, such as a community member or business owner in the area where the art will be placed and artists, Bates said. The rest of the jury is made up of people who are simply interested in picking a piece or being involved in the community.
“It’s a big commitment of time, but it’s also something that’s interesting and fun and a great experience; you get to be involved in the community,” Bates said. “A lot of our pieces will be there for hundreds of years and you could say, I was involved in putting that piece there.'”
After the jury selects an artist, their artwork moves to the Architectual Review Committee and members of the public are allowed to voice their opinion at this time. Ream said it’s written in the guidelines for the Art in Public Places program that the public have the opportunity to express their opinions on each proposed project. The city council will then either approve or not approve the piece.
Currently, a stainless steel sculpture set is proposed for a site across from the Apple Farm restaurant. The project has already been through the jury selection and review process and is near construction, Bates said.
Other projects in the works for the public art program include reconstructing the fountain at Marsh and Higuera streets and a piece of sidewalk art that will go in front of San Luis Obispo Little Theater.
With the economy in its current shape, some may wonder how the city can fund all these public art pieces. Bates said it’s a question that comes up a lot when the city is forced to cut positions because of budget issues but it’s important to know where the money comes from. Most of the money for projects, such as the Marsh and Higuera Streets fountain, comes from private developer fees.
The ever-shrinking budget is cause for some concern among those involved in the Art in Public Places program.
“(The program) could definitely go away,” Maddren said. “It’s one of our big concerns right now because our budget is so thin (the city council) might look at it and decide (they) can’t do that.”
The percentage of the capital improvements that go toward public art could be reduced to 0.5 percent which is something the council has done previously during slow economic times.
Bates said she doesn’t predict too much of an impact right now because the city uses a lot of money from private developers (not the city budget) and the money used for current projects is from the city’s budget two years ago.
“(Some people) are saying that development won’t be down because this is the time to develop,” Bates said. “Land costs are low, construction costs are low so maybe there won’t be that decline in development that we’re predicting and then our public art fund will be pretty healthy.”
Even with the budget concerns, the program remains strong for now and an important part of San Luis Obispo culture. Ream said she recently drove past the Hey Diddle Diddle sculpture (which depicts a cat atop a fiddle on the corner of Marsh and Garden streets) and saw a young girl on her father’s shoulders with her nose touching the cat’s nose.
“That sums it all up,” Ream said. “There’s all this language, and it’s good language, but it’s the language of public art helps the community, it does this, it does that. It’s all true but to see that, to see the language come to life was really wonderful.”