Courthouse Art Meeting 12/10/08

[artsunit]

Our Courthouse Art Committee met today in the mayor's office in Fall River to discuss the Courthouse Art Proposal, with Sen. Menard, Rep. Rodrigues, Rep. Sullivan, Rep. Aguiar, Mayor Correia, Chief Justice Mulligan, the Chief Justice's lawyers, the architects, and the contractors. Arts United was represented by Kathy Castro, Patrice Cloutier, Emily Rothschild and Jeff Carpenter.
It was a victory for the status quo for now. The court can not allow performances on their property. So no electricity or water outlets in the plaza - we were told any plants there must be drought-resistant. There will probably be no change to the layout of the planting beds but Mayor Correia asked that they take a look at the Whaling Museum plaza in New Bedford and see how that is landscaped so it doesn't become "nicotine park".
Carpenter said that in this economic climate it would be possible to raise funding for a plan that transformed the downtown and brought people together but if it's just art to beautify the plaza, I don't think we'll have much success raising serious money.
The Chief Justice did warm up to the idea that would could project images on the side of the building facing north to the side plaza, from a projector on the next door neighbor's building. Thanks to Rep. Sullivan for pushing for this.

It was left that the architects would discuss with the Court what they did think they could allow and they would set up another meeting with Arts United to discuss. Rep. Rodrigues made an effort to keep them open to the idea of electricity and water outlets in the plaza. Many of the elected officials thought that this meeting was an auspicious start and that it "wasn't over yet".
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Arts United | Fall River
http://www.artsunitedfallriver.org/