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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Public Art Selection Committee - 09/24/2019 South Burlington Public Art Selection Committee 575 Dorset Street South Burlington, VT 05403 Tuesday, September 24, 2019 Champlain Room Meeting Minutes In Attendance: Trice Stratmann (Chair), Jean Sebastien Chaulot, Amanda Holland, Penne Tompkins, Michele Bailey Also in Attendance: Ilona Blanchard (Staff), Jennifer Murray (Library Director), Philip Godenschwager (Artist Finalist – 180 Market Street), Steve Roy (Project Architect – 180 Market Street). At 5:40 PM, Trice Stratmann called the meeting to order. There were no comments from the public. No minutes were presented. 180 Market Street – Discussion with the Artist – Trice Stratmann led off the discussion by welcoming Philip Godenschwager, introducing herself, and asking everyone to introduce themselves. The purpose of the discussion in to exchange design ideas with Philip in order for him to develop a design that could be recommended to the City Council. His piece is very much the piece that the committee would like to see in the new building, but there are some aspects that did not seem to be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. There was a discussion regarding ideas to make the piece more visible to see it from the outside, such as being in the lobby or being on the exterior of the building. Steve Roy noted that the building lobby had been very compressed from the original concept and did not have much extra space left in it for a large object. Philip Godenschwager said that placing the piece on the outside of the structure should come off the table unless the City wanted to provide additional funding to weatherize the piece on an outside wall. The committee asked some clarifying questions about the design and structure and Philip stated that the piece would be hard wired to glow and also to tell time. All the sides would be transparent; lit from behind with LED lighting. A change to the sides would make it less busy. He suggests 3 historical designs. Penne suggested seasonal sides, in keeping with the changing leaves. Everyone agreed that they liked the back panel a lot. There was a question regarding whether the panels the Committee liked could go in the wall between the library and the lobby. Philip liked the ideal of the column being surrounded by glass. There was also a discussion of affixing the clock to the ceiling between the floors to look down on it. South Burlington Public Art Selection Committee 575 Dorset Street South Burlington, VT 05403 Steve noted that fire rating is something required to be considered. Windows need to be continuous. This is also an issue for continuing objects between the floors. Phil said he would keep the focus on the front similar to the existing design. Phil would like to see if the piece can be lower on the column and shrunk so that it may be seen from the library door. There were questions more specific to the current piece: Maybe the leaves could be lower if they were made of metal? Maybe there could be more tendrils? Philip said he wanted to keep hands off the sculpture, it was not going to get hurt unless vandalized. Ilona asked if there was something to integrate the sculpture into the column to draw people up? There was a discussion about cladding the column in wood, sculpting it as a tree trunk, or bringing the galaxy feel to the column or adding a character to the column looking up. Philip wanted the piece to largely stand on it’s own. Jean-Sébastien asked about light dimming. Philip said the lights would be designed specific to the piece and could be adjusted and responsive to daylight. Ilona noted that other lights in the building would be responsive to ambient lighting and be on automatic controls. Philip said that he was thinking about landscapes on the sides with country village on one side and a new City center on the other. Members noted that they really like the back. The feel of people communicating and reading is nice. Question came up if the roman numerals were right considering that less and less people use watches or clocks at all. Generally, the committee was fine with the roman numerals. It was decided that the next meeting would be October 15 at 6 PM. Philip would provide drawings of a revised concept at the next meeting, and later, once there was agreement from the Committee, develop a design. Philip explained that once the design was agreed to, he would develop full size drawings of the design with refinements. The meeting was adjourned at 7 PM.