The ‘special meeting’ of the Pagosa Springs Town Council, held on October 12 via ZOOM, was convened for a very specific and timely purpose.
Election-season public art.
The art teacher at Pagosa Springs Elementary School, Kelly Lewis (who appears in the bottom right corner of the ZOOM screen above) had submitted a request to the Town, asking permission to paint a mural depicting a wolf image, on some Town-owned structure. She was not particular about where, exactly. But it had to be a wolf image.
She has received funding for the mural, but the funding was continent upon the mural being completed by October 16. As noted, the special meeting was held on October 12.
Ms. Lewis’ proposed mural might have looked something like this:
Would the Town government provide a public wall, somewhere in downtown, to accommodate Ms. Lewis’ mural?
The short deadline for the project completion was apparently to be related to Proposition 114 which appears on the current Colorado ballot. Proposition 114, if approved, would require the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to create and carry out a plan to reintroduce and manage gray wolves by the end of 2023. Wolves would be reintroduced on Colorado lands west of the continental divide, with the exact reintroduction locations to be determined by the commission. The commission would also manage any distribution of state funds that are made available to “pay fair compensation to owners of livestock for any losses of livestock caused by gray wolves.” The measure would also direct the state legislature to make appropriations to fund the reintroduction program.
The mural that Ms. Lewis was proposing to the Town Council was one of 21 art pieces selected by the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, which in turn had received funding from the Sacharuna Foundation for art projects related to wolves. According to Valerie Rose, arts coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, the organization has been promoting a statewide art initiative called “Restore the Howl” since August, with the goal of funding public art that feature wolves… and “help start conversations between people about wolves”. The project was to feature six large murals, three smaller murals, mixed media, as well as some sculptures, to be created and installed in the month of October…
… that is to say, to make their appearance just as the Colorado ballots were being mailed.
A couple of wolf-themed art pieces were indeed created for walls along Durango’s Main Avenue this month, and were featured in a Durango Herald article by Seth Marvin-Vanderryn. Here’s a detail of the mural painted by artist Parker Ledford.
From the Durango Herald article:
One of the reasons Durango artist Parker Ledford finds power in art is because, in art, words are not needed to convey thoughts, feelings or ideas. The power of wordless communication can be seen, and felt, in Ledford’s new mural depicting a howling wolf on the North Main Laundry building.
During the Town Council discussion, it quickly became clear that three of the Council members — Mat deGraaf, Rory Burnett and Matt DeGuise — were fully in support of providing a public location for Ms. Lewis. A bit more slowly, it became equally clear that the other three Council members — Mayor Don Volger, Shari Pierce, and Nicole Pitcher — were uncomfortable with the political motivations that were requiring the mural to be completed by October 16. Although Ms. Lewis’ proposed artwork was attractive, an approval would have created the appearance of political support for Proposition 114 by our elected officials. With the votes split 3-to-3, neither side was able to get a motion successfully approved… so no action could be taken… and the proposal failed.
Later in the same meeting, the Council approved the idea of having Ms. Lewis’ elementary school students create ceramic tiles, which would then be applied to a public surface somewhere in downtown. The final decision about the location was left up to Town staff, working with Ms. Lewis.
Public art can be controversial — due most often to the fact that successful artists see things differently than the average man or woman on the street. That “different perspective” is exactly what makes some individuals successful as artists; they challenge us to perceive the world in new ways. Great art asks us to step outside our comfort zone, climb out of our box, take a fresh look at ourselves and our surroundings.
This different perspective — while being one of the things most valuable about a work of art — can easily make ‘the public’ uncomfortable when it moves into the realm of ‘public art’. It’s one thing for an art collector to purchase a provocative piece and hang it on their wall at home. It’s quite another thing for my government to fund a controversial concept and have it installed in a public location.
Unfortunately, as a result, we often end up with insipid, wishy-washy public art. This is not entirely the fault of the artists, nor of the organizations that fund public art. Both the funders and the artists are leery of making meaningful statements in a public space — even though the highest aspiration of a successful artist is to make a meaningful statement.
One of the ways artists manage to avoid controversy, when proposing and creating public art, is to completely leave out the most controversial element in any profound work of art: human beings.
Leave the people out of the picture, and you’re probably going to be safe.
Read Part Three, tomorrow…
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.