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The Village of Palmetto Bay’s Art in Public Places Advisory Board conducted a virtual meeting via Webinar on Thursday, Sept. 9, to discuss ongoing and upcoming projects.
The meeting, open to the public and advertised in advance via emails and on the village website, started at 6 p.m. and was adjourned at 7:25 p.m.
Advisory board members Donna Underwood, chair; Dana Pezoldt, and Gary Traczyk conducted the Webinar meeting along with Maria Pineda, Community Development Liason.
Absent were board members Jamie Wasser, Jaqueline Prussing, Liz Amore and Mary Elizabeth Maggio.
Discussed were three current projects:
• The roundabout at SW 168th Street and 82nd Avenue with art by Xavier Cortada;
• The Village Hall Art Swap Program, and
• The Franjo Road Traffic Circle AIPP selection.
Pineda brought the group up to date about the project at SW 168th Street and 82nd Avenue.
“The construction was completed last month,” Pineda said. “Today they finalized the wild flowers. They were out there this morning placing 100 wildflowers around the perimeter and that should be becoming lush at any minute now. I met with Xavier Cortada and he was pleased.”
There will be a formal ribbon cutting in October.
Regarding the Village Hall Art Swap Program: two artists, both Palmetto Bay residents, will be exhibiting from five to seven pieces of artwork each at Village Hall for six months. They are Megan Wallace and Ira Rubins. Dana Pezoldt explained that a meeting had been arranged with board chair Underwood and the artists.
“They expressed interest in displaying their work,” Pezoldt said. “The manager has expressed interest in having a gallery night open to the public so that everyone can take a look at the works that are being displayed.”
Next was the Franjo Road traffic circle art project that is being funded by contributions from Sandpiper Development which is constructing a building across from the traffic circle.
A call for sculpture applications was sent out and 12 artists responded.
Board member Traczyk presented a PowerPoint display of examples of each artist’s work. The board members discussed the merits of each one for the site and a short list of four artists was selected who will be invited to create a proposal and a maquette (a small preliminary model of a sculpture).
Those artists are Owen Morrel, Michael Szabo, Alan Binstock and Jeff Reed. All are accomplished artists with numerous exhibitions and sculptures in cities around the country.
They will be offered a stipend of $1,500 each to do the proposals and maquettes. The budget for the completed sculpture that is selected is $200,000, and the total budget for the traffic circle project is $440,000.
Traczyk was praised for putting together the presentation, researching it, and looking at all of the artists’ work online.
“I had all these hours and I just enveloped myself into it,” Traczyk said. “It was great for me as an artist because it’s inspiring to see what other people are creating,”
The Art in Public Places Advisory Board is composed of members with diverse backgrounds such as architecture, fine arts, urban planning, landscape architecture, product design, history of art or architecture and interior design. Each member must hold a least a bachelor’s degree in their field and be appointed by the village council.
The Art in Public Places Program is entirely funded by companies or individuals requesting a building permit for the construction or remodeling of a commercial property whose total improvement or construction value is over $250,000, excluding land acquisition, who pay a onetime fee of 1 percent of said construction value into the trust fund; or any individual who is requesting a building permit for the construction of two or more residential units valued over $250,000 in aggregate or a single family estate home valued at $750,000 in aggregate, excluding land acquisition.
Residential property taxes do not pay for the program.
For information about the program visit www.palmettobay-fl.gov/296/Art-in-Public-Places-Program-AIPP.
