[OMS_MANAGERS] Murals and public comment/feedback

[Dan Fleishman]

Tkeisha,

My response will be coming from the perspective the city more than from the main st group.   When Revitalize Downtown Stayton approached the City with a public art project, the city staff was hesitant to be the judge of suitability.  We recommended to the City Council that they create a public art committee.  I researched what other Oregon cities had done and based our code substantially on Ashland’s (if I recall correctly) and borrowed from a few other cities as well.

You may wish to have a similar conversation with the City of Sheridan.

Dan Fleishman
Planning and Development Director
City of Stayton
362 N Third Avenue
Stayton, OR 97383

Ph 503-769-2998

www.staytonoregon.gov<http://www.staytonoregon.gov/>

I am working from home several days a week.  On Tuesdays and Thursday, you will generally be able to reach me at 541-207-2558.

From: OMS_MANAGERS <oms_managers-bounces at omls.oregon.gov> On Behalf Of Eddie Nelson via OMS_MANAGERS
Sent: Monday, June 6, 2022 9:33 AM
To: Oregon Main Street Network Members <oms_managers at omls.oregon.gov>
Subject: Re: [OMS_MANAGERS] Murals and public comment/feedback

Good Morning Tkeisha,

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the artist.  My first instinct is to just ignore her and it will eventually go away.  On the process,  I would recommend a committee that would include different individuals from Sheridan and have artist submit their samples to be decided.  The building owner should have the final say as to what will be put up on their building.

When we did wing murals in Dallas, we showed the building owners the sample before we proceeded.  There was also an agreement with the building owner that they signed which had the sample attached.

Looking forward seeing your new mural.  I come to Sheridan often to see friends.

Hope this helps.

Eddie Nelson
Economy Vitality Committe
Dallas Downtown Association




On Monday, June 6, 2022, 09:12:53 AM PDT, Sheridan Revitalization <revitalizesheridan at gmail.com<mailto:revitalizesheridan at gmail.com>> wrote:


Hi All,

We just had our first mural go up in our small town of Sheridan, which was done in cooperation with our Main Street Group (Sheridan Revitalization), the property owner/manager and the local artist. It's a brightly colored mural with Oregon and local elements (trees, animals, our bridge, etc) and in the shape of a mandala. So far most people really like it, even though it's not totally finished as the rain started.

The issue we are having is that another local artist/muralist attended our meeting last week and then went to other local non-profit meetings (Chamber and Rotary) to state her strong dislike of the mural and of our process in having the mural go up or doing them at all. She likened the mural to looking like a seagull pooped on the wall. She was rather offensive, but it got me thinking that maybe we do need to look at how we go about choosing the murals and getting public feedback?

We started on this project actually before Covid, when we mentioned the plan publically on social media, also in the local paper and continued the discussion during almost every public meeting, which were also advertised.

We had originally looked at having the artist coordinate with the owner and then submit three artwork ideas which we would let the public vote on, but it got way too complicated so we decided we would let the artist and property owner decide on the artwork, with the agreement that it wouldn't be anything political and that it would include a bigfoot. The idea is to have a bigfoot hidden in each mural, to tie them all together and to bring interest in the idea of a walking mural tour of the town.

Does anyone have a workable process they have developed to get the public agreement/feedback on murals or are you willing to share how the artwork gets approved, or if it gets approved? I don't want to make things more complicated, since it's really just a feat for us to get a mural up at all, but I also don't want to create needless upset within the community. As a note, there is no public ordinance as relates to murals or public artwork.

I have heard that this local artist who is making a fuss about the mural does not have the best reputation, and has been known to be confrontational, so I don't want to make major changes just because she has a problem, but I do want to make sure we are comfortable with our process moving forward.

Thanks!

Best,
Tkeisha Wydro
Sheridan Revitalization President
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