Art leaders and enthusiasts gathered in the Phoenix Art Museum’s Whiteman Hall Friday night to reflect on the Phoenix Arts and Culture Commission‘s 30 years of establishment.
The Phoenix Arts and Culture Commission was approved by Mayor Terry Goddard and the Phoenix City Council on April 16, 1985. The mission has been to protect, serve and advocate for excellence in the arts and culture for the people of Phoenix, Mayor Greg Stanton said. During the 30 years, 170 public arts projects were created, a community grants program and arts and culture learning programs were developed, and three bond initiatives built and expanded major cultural facilities, Stanton said.
Alberto Álvaro Ríos, a Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University and the inaugural Poet Laureate for Arizona, moderated “Phoenix Arts and Culture @ 30: A Conversation.” The discussion was first of several events this year to celebrate the commission’s 30-year anniversary, said Donna Reiner, the Phoenix Arts and Culture Commission chair. Reiner introduced the panel, who discussed the past, present and significance of arts and culture in Phoenix.
Stanton was first on the panel to speak. He said the arts add to the quality of life, and the community needs to do more for the arts.
“We need to do a better job of bringing the creative sector into all of our decision making at the city,” Stanton said. “(We need) the innovat(ion) and creativity that artists bring to the table to help solve our issues at the city in transportation, sustainability, economic development, even public safety.”
Terry Goddard, former Phoenix mayor from 1984-1990, and Deborah Whitehurst, the founding executive director of the Phoenix Arts Commission, discussed the development of the commission and its mission. When asked why it was important to form an arts commission when he was mayor, Goddard deferred to Whitehurst, who recalled an old joke.
“What’s the difference between Phoenix and yogurt?” Whitehurst said. “Yogurt has culture.”
Goddard said he knew as mayor that Phoenix needed a better presence in the arts. Shortly after being elected, Goddard and the council helped the Phoenix Symphony stay in business.
“The bill was for $650,000 and we took that very seriously,” Goddard said. “The council basically said ‘yes, we can’t live without the Phoenix Symphony.'”
Whitehurst recalled the arts commission had $673,000 in grants in its first year and said the commission hustled to get the money to the art organizations and schools throughout the city.
“We did an open grants process with committees and open review and all of the things you do when you’re a good grants manager,” Whitehurst said.
Gretchen Freeman, the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture’s first Public Art Program Director, and Ed Lebow, the current Phoenix Public Art Program director, discussed the city’s public art.
“The philosophy of the staff is really that quality design and art was for everybody in the city,” Freeman said.
Early on as director, Freeman said a road map was developed for the logical places that art could be put in the city. She said many of the city’s infrastructures were being built at that time, so she had artists and engineers work together on the development of freeway overpasses, solid waste management facilities, parks and streetscapes. Such works include the Thomas Road overpass and Dreamy Draw Pedestrian Bridge.
“The simplicity of letting room in public design to ask what if we tried it this way is an extraordinary step for any form of government to take,” Lebow said.
In discussing the future growth and significance of Phoenix cultural institutions, both James K. Ballinger, the recently retired Phoenix Art Museum director, and David Hemphill, the executive director of the Black Theater Troupe, agreed Phoenix is still full of potential because it is small and new enough to make things happen.
Ballinger said the first bond election had a huge influence on the arts community. He said the help of a good mayor is impactful, and that Stanton needs to be reelected.
F. William Sheppard, who served on the Phoenix Arts and Culture Commission from 1995 to 2001, talked about the work of the art commission, noting Her Secret is Patience in Civic Space Park and the gallery at city hall.
Sheppard said he is working on a new public art project with the Friends of Phoenix Public Art to raise money for public art maintenance.
“We get about $50,000 a year from the city to maintain the public art works we’ve got. We need about ($100,000), so some of its falling into disrepair,” Sheppard said.
He asked the audience to tell their city council members to give leftover money to the arts, saying anything could happen with budget come May.
At the end of the event, Ríos read one of his poems.
“The paint is ferocious, but it is tenderness. Finally, all of this. Pointed to and meant for us.”
Contact the reporter at Hbosselm@asu.edu
