The staff presentation is only 20 minutes long, another 15 minutes of repeating and public comments – one comment I found intriguing, from the artist.
Basically, the want to remove the bike racks, 11 of the stones and carve a path through the middle.
My initial reaction is – seriously? And that will do what? I don’t think I get it, and I don’t see it making the desired impact, whatever that might be.
I think they should just experiment with the ideas to activate the space and see what happens.
And, I just had to ask the artist what she thought after the meeting. I felt like they were just taking a drill and randomly drilling a hole in a piece of art. Apparently there is some ability to move the stones around, but the hard path through the middle just seems to tear it apart. Why not be strategic, do some colored concrete or patterns in the cement and make a wandering path through the area if one is really needed? As the artist points out in the video, the planters seem to negate the effect they are trying to have. Plus, the vacant buildings there are probably a bigger problem, imagine if the 4 doorways had businesses in there and they did some more activities in the area? And, imagine if we had a downtown, permanent, comprehensive day center with a way for people to get their basic needs met (storage, showers, laundry, etc) and services. I don’t think carving a path through an art installation is going to accomplish anything, except ruin the art. And worst of all . . . sigh, it doesn’t appear the artists is getting paid for her work to rearrange the stones. Doh!
