In Canmore, Alberta, there is giant head. This head – a figurative sculpture of granite – pokes up from the ground from the mouth up, and with closed-eyes it sits in sleepy silence while the Rocky Mountains and their snowy alpine peaks tower over it.

Near it, a sign tells us that this sculpture is called ‘Big Head’ and was inspired by a variation of the town’s name in Gaelic – Ceann Mór – meaning literally ‘big head’. It is, in typically Canadian fashion, meant to be a slightly goofy but earnest public artwork that harks back to their Scottish Roots, despite the fact that the town has more in common with an Austrian mountain village than anything I know of Scotland.

Artist Al Henderson said he ‘liked the idea of playing on the words Ceann Mór, and literally designing what it means’¹.

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As someone who regularly works within the public realm, I often wrestle with public artworks that I encounter to try and unfold their purpose and function and successes. But whether this ‘big heid’ is a good or a bad piece of public art or not ² , I find it a useful way to introduce to these meandering scribbles as it illustrates a certain literalist approach within public art that, I believe, stems from public art policies that are underdeveloped and overly cautious.

Policy fundamentally underwrites the final format of public art. It is its skeleton: its basic frame. Its default shape from which something grows – the chia-pet on which the cress of public art flourishes. So it is important that its shape be one that is malleable to the needs of each different context and inspirational to each individual artist, and supportive to each unique community. Due to a recent trend that tries to avoid any possible (real or imagined) litigation and legislates against any possible (real or imagined) risks or threats, what many municipalities are facing around the world – and what we in Scotland must resist – is a current move to a corporate and sanitized formatting of public art policy that undermines the very reason to have public art in the first place.

What I mean is that public art policy is now often becoming one of ‘public art as ornament’³ (ie, an accessory to the landscape/cityscape) rather than ‘public art as social challenge’ (i.e. something that asks difficult but important questions of a community.) I accept that sometimes we all need a bit of ornamentation, and there’s nothing wrong with prettying things up a bit. But the fact remains that it is the artists and artworks that take risks and challenge us, which are the ones that push us as a culture towards new thoughts, new suggestions, and new – and possibly better – ways of being.

That, I think, is a given. But how, then, do we legislate for risk? How can we write into the core of our approach to public art a clause that encourages challenge? Is that at all possible in this overly litigious culture? I think so. And while this is not a critique of having a policy – on the contrary, I think it important that every place should have one – I think that what I am trying to recognise is that risk can seem to be an anathema to the very bureaucratic nature of a public art policy. However, it does not need to be this way. By exploring some of the various shapes and plentiful forms of public art policies available, we might be able to find examples that challenge us to (re)explore our relationship to policy and (re)find ways towards a public art planning that supports exciting, challenging works.

Not so many miles away from Canmore and its Big Head – just over those peaks of the Rockies and to the southwest, sits Seattle. A lovely rainy city, it traces its edge over Pacific like the smooth driftwood that washes up on its beaches. A merging of city and nature that dissolves into itself in the grey of its beautiful low hanging clouds.

Seattle has an interesting model of public art policy, one that has taken its time to grow from its original mandate implemented in 1973. Since its inception it has a collection of more than 373 permanently sited and integrated works and 2,800 portable works, and runs in tandem with museums and galleries within the city. Whilst I cannot be sure if it succeeds in implementing this ‘risk’ I mention since I have not visited every single artwork in context⁴, as a model it can go some way to suggesting workable public art policies. And while I do not have time to go into detail of every aspect of their mandate, there are three core strategies that are worth exploring: its transparency, its public involvement, and its multiplicity of approaches.

“Water Works” by Douglas Hollis, 2005. Seattle. Image courtesy City of Seattle.
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Like many North American cities, Seattle has a ‘1% for Art’ funding stipulation that requires that 1% of the eligible construction costs must go towards a public art fund. In Seattle, this construction pertains generally to any new builds for the city, or any renovation works on public buildings that increase capacity or significantly improve a facility. It was one of the first to initiate such a funding scheme and over the past 38 years, little has changed of its original ‘Public Art Ordinance’, which I think is a testament to both its success and its implementablity

Its opening paragraph reads: “The City accepts a responsibility for expanding public experience with visual art. Such art has enabled people in all societies better to understand their communities and individual lives. Artists capable of creating art for public places must be encouraged…”

The language is telling: The city declares, publicly, that is responsible. Not that it will support it, nor that it encourages it. No – it accepts that it is accountable. It also recognizes that public art has a function and that function is important, and that it must “[expand] public experience with visual art.” This is important: it recognizes the temporal nature of art – that things change and a public’s experience and expectations will change and develop over time. It recognizes and values the importance of context and in doing so, has an in-built immunity to cookie-cutter artworks that eschew risk or challenge.

“South Park Lights” by Franklin Joyce, 2006. Seattle. Image courtesy Jacqueline Koch.
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This transparency of purpose is written in the simplest of languages, and the entire ordinance – less than 1000 words in total – covers key definitions, funding, and responsibilities. Along with a more in depth, annual Municipal Art Plan (which is equally as accessible and readable) the Seattle Public Art Programme recognizes the importance of relationships with other departments of the municipality. Ruri Yampolsky, Program Director, says it quite simply: “We… partner with other city departments to shape public art policy.” In doing so it acknowledges that it is not an isolated department: not a bolt-on experience. As way of example, she sent me their Standard Operating Procedures (Municipal Art Plan), the first two points of which are listed below:

1.0 Purpose:
1.1 To establish the procedure for the development of a Municipal Art Plan, and for the implementation and conservation of 1% for Art projects in accordance with the Municipal Art Plan.
2.0 Organizations Affected:
2.1 All City departments, other government entities and community members/groups. ⁶

It is not tacked on but knitted into the fabric of the government, from initiation to construction to conservation and maintenance. This has undoubtedly developed through its many years of existence and so has become a natural part of governance, but it is also because the political will exists to make it so⁷.

Not only that, but it publishes its ordinance and policies for every person to read. This transparency speaks of a core level of openness and, in this approach, public art in Seattle is not a strange creature – it is a well-known and well-heeled beast. It is not hidden behind obtuse rhetoric and complex bureaucracies, but accessible, both in language and availability, and readily so. In such an environment, challenging and risky works can develop openly because a framework already exists in which an informed community can take part.

“Bridge Talks Back” by Kristen Ramirez, 2009, Seattle. Image courtesy Trina Ramirez.
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This informed community is also an active part of Seattle’s public art decision making process. Yampolsky explains that all “artwork selections for projects in neighborhoods have community representation on the selection panel, and the artists often use community members as resources as they develop artworks. [And] generally, for all projects, apart from community reps on a panel, we (and the artists) participate in public engagement meetings, present artworks in progress to the community; sometimes artists respond quite directly to community interests when developing their projects. We ask communities not what do they want to see specifically as an artwork, but what characteristics would they like to see in an artwork.”

Like the strategy of transparency, this engagement allows communities members to be knitted into the fabric of all public art projects. Their mandate calls for the city’s population to be an integral part of the commissioning, shaping and manifestation of the things that will exist within their neighborhoods. Here, an artist can take advantage of this open and transparent situation by collaborating with an engaged audience by challenging expectations and exploring new experiences.

To do so he or she has a multiplicity of avenues to choose from. These avenues include direct commissions, as well as more responsive and developmental approaches, an example being the Artist Authored Plans that Yampolsky describes as “typically written as part of an Artist-in-Residence project, which is administered in the same way a commissioned project is. We work with [any given] department⁸ to see if an Artist-in-Residence would make sense, write a scope of work for the residency, and we select an artist through an open competition process. Usually the scope involves having the artist work part-time in another city department (the department has to be on board with the residency), observing, talking to staff, looking at upcoming capital projects, developing ideas for potential projects for him/herself and other artists, and then the artist writes the plan, which helps as a guide for future work with that department. Our general 1% for Art projects do not result in an art plan, and some residencies are more documentary (eg, a photographer in residence, who creates a suite of photographs based on his or her experience), but a more ‘run of the mill’ residency does typically result in an art plan.”

So along with mandated policies, artists have an opportunity be part of the authoring of their project’s own polices, rather than being shackled by pre-existing formats of what a piece of public art can be, and how it should be implanted. It offers a plurality of approaches that resists a standardization of approach, and encourages a diversity of experience, both for an artist and for a community. It reminds me of the open sentences of Municipal Art Plan: The Public Art Program of the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs seeks to enrich the lives of Seattle’s residents by providing diverse public art experiences⁹.

Detail of “An Equal and Opposite Reaction” by Sarah Sze, 2005, Seattle. Image by Bill Mohn courtesy of Seattle Opera.
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The last of these diverse experiences the Public Art Program offers is something they call the Public Road Map. Yampolsky explains “The Public Art Roadmap provides guidance for communities looking to initiate their own projects, but we don’t manage projects that the community initiates. We may point communities to other resources, or encourage or discourage certain activities, but we are not involved in the implementation of those projects. The roadmap is sort of a DIY guide.” A comprehensive booklet (144 pages!) it details every step possible for a community to navigate their own public art project: from gathering steering groups, to funding suggestions to artist selections, right down to maintenance and insurance.

Essentially, they are giving away an open-source public art policy. They are putting the tools of production into the hands of whoever wants to develop projects, and this generosity of management can only help foster a sense of community support for public art, and allow creative and challenging art projects to develop. By operating in unison with the entire city department, through a transparency of language and accessibility, through its community engagement and through a plurality of approaches it has knitted together a public art policy worthy of exploration and emulation.

Seattle’s Public Art Programme fosters an environment that offers “new ways of imagining human relationships and civic processes,”¹⁰ and one that offers a framework on how we can initiate policies that encourage “risk”.

Yampolsky is under no illusions that it is easy: “We try to do the right thing, but there are certainly challenges and bumps along the way, it’s not always smooth sailing.” In this current economic climate it is especially difficult when civic money is seen to being spent on art, whilst friends and family are losing jobs. But with such ground-level support for public art it is both easier to do because of its history and its strategies, and because it is worth the challenges.

I am not suggesting it would be easy (or desirable) to just cut-and-paste this policy and graft it over Scotland. Certainly it will be confoundingly difficult to format something that pleases everyone. But that does not mean we should not attempt to learn from this model. Despite a general outlook of gloom – which I would argue is more of a national trait than anything to actually be concerned about – I would argue that here in Scotland we’re on the right path for public art. And this is important to acknowledge: it will give us energy. These discussions are exactly what is needed and these debates are encouraging. This plurality of discussion is a step in the right direction.

¹ http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM6ZR2_Big_Head_Canmore_Alberta

² I recognise those terms are problematic. Such is life.

³ Here I refer to the ornaments I find on my grandmother’s mantle. They serve the same function – they are reminders to things, clues to a shared history, and of a certain aesthetic.

⁴ It is also hard to talk about public art without experiencing it first hand. In this way, it is a bit like dance – it has to be somewhat experiential and without that experience, language fails slightly. In this case, we do out best to examine the rhetoric with the results.

⁵ The eligible annual revenue typically holds around the $2 million USD (£1.25m), though it fluctuates due to the economy, obviously.

⁶ My emphasis.

⁷ This is perhaps a more ‘European’ approach to support of art – because it is what a government does and should do, without question – and stands in sharp contrast to current national policies which blatantly undermine it existence.

⁸ Examples of departments could be Dept. of Transport, Dept. of Planning and Development that have a wide remit, or more specific departments, for example the Fire Stations renovation project or the Public Parks Dept.

⁹ Seattle Municipal Art Plan, 2010.

¹⁰ http://www.workinginpublicseminars.org/
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Image Credits: further details.

Title: Detail of ‘An Equal and Opposite Reaction’
Artist: Sarah Sze
Location: Marion Oliver McCall Hall lobby, Seattle Center
Year: 2005
Funding: Commissioned by Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs with Seattle Center 1% for Art funds
Photo: Bill Mohn courtesy of Seattle Opera

Title: ‘Water Works’
Artist: Douglas Hollis
Location: Cal Anderson Park, Seattle
Year: 2005
Funding: Commissioned by Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs with Seattle Public Utilities 1% for Art funds
Photo: City of Seattle

(Note: the artist served on the design team that developed a master plan for the new park. One of the paramount design elements is ‘Water Works’.)

Title: ‘South Park Lights’
Artist: Franklin Joyce
Location: South Park Branch Library, Seattle
Year: 2006
Funding: Commissioned by Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs with Seattle Public Library – Libraries for All bond 1% for Art funds
Photo: Jacqueline Koch

Title: ‘Bridge Talks Back’
Artist: Kristen Ramirez
Location: Fremont Bridge, Seattle
Year: 2009
Funding: Commissioned by Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs with Seattle Department of Transportation 1% for Art funds
Photo: Trina Ramirez

(Note: the Fremont Bridge Artist-in-Residence project culminated in a public art performance and a temporary sound artwork.)