Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order. Thank you all for being here. First meeting
of the year. And my last meeting is June. So, okay. First things first, a call, I did the call to order
welcome. Agenda item number two, a review of the December meeting minutes. If you all can remember that far back.
So the minutes have been distributed and read. Are there any corrections, noted corrections, to the
December minutes? All right, fantastic. An aye motion to approve the minutes. Can I get a verbal second,
please? All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay.
Fantastic. The minutes are approved. Holly, would you please give us a picture of the financials? Mm-hmm.
I'm going to change scripts. Oh, I'll do it. Sorry. OK, cool. Thanks. That was my job. OK. Hi, everyone.
Happy 2026. Here's our budget for the year. So money has not changed. It just lives in different places.
pops in the city's accounts this year. So historically, we've had money from the city's general fund
and from the local income tax fund. This year, ESD's entire budget is part of the local income tax fund.
Don't worry, that doesn't mean anything's going away in the future. It was just a decision the comptroller's
office made when they were allocating funds for 26. So because of that, things
look a little prettier. So bottom line, we've got $130,000 from the Lit Fund this year for grants, and
then we've got our usual $50,000 for the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association. That gives us a total
of $180,000 to spend on grants.
That's around the amount of money that we spent in 2025 on grants, including that overage that we had
for the Arts Operations Grant Cycle. In addition to the $180,000 for grants, we've still got that $5,000
for workshops and other professional development opportunities we'll provide to early career artists
and probably non-early career artists as well. In the past, we've had $16,500 for public art projects.
That money still exists in our budget. I just don't want to necessarily put it here until we come up
with a real idea for spending it. And so what Gerard and I agreed on is we're just going to kind of
see how the year starts, like we're going to talk a little bit about our strategic goals for the next
two to three years in the meeting. And so I think we'll spend the first six months of the year thinking
about if there's anything that aligns with those strategic goals that we could use those extra funds
for. And then I'll put it back in the budget. I just want to hold off for the minute. And I think we
probably will also want to be mindful as we're choosing whether or not we want to spend those extra
funds of what kind of situation we might be in with organizations funding being pulled by
just state and federal and other agencies that we might want to be prepared to make quick moves on the
way we were kind of able to at the end of the last year. Does anybody have any questions about that?
OK, great. Money. Perfect. It's there when we need it, though. Yes, it's there. Yeah. Thank you, Holly.
Before we turn it back over to you for city updates, I do want to just take a quick moment and acknowledge
Brandy and Lynn are here in person. So I know we've seen some of our other meetings, but I just wanted
to take that moment in. And actually, could we just quickly go around the room and everyone just say
their name just so we can put names to faces here. Gerard. I'm Laila. I'm Neda. Christina. Lynn. Gretchen.
Betsy. Paul. Chaz. I'm a staff liaison with Holly. And I'm Holly.
Perfect, thanks all. That's pretty good. January's gonna have a hit or miss in terms of attendance,
so this is great. Oh, and he is online. Okay, great. Agenda item number three, city updates. I have
two updates. Number one, we have a council liaison.
Yay. We used to have one, like when I started and people are like, but they never come. And so we asked
and they were like, oh yeah, we did away with that.
But now they're bringing it back. And so Sydney Zulik, who is actually also now city council vice president,
is our liaison. And that's great. She'll be a super awesome advocate for us. And she'll join us for
at least some meetings this year. So I'm really happy about that. The other thing I want to report on
is finally, after years and years and years, we're getting ready to launch our public art database.
publicly. So I think we talked about this a little last year, and Elena, who was my O'Neill practicum
student, helped me revitalize it and worked with our IT GIS department to do not just a revamped database,
which is really a spreadsheet,
of artwork but also creates a publicly accessible map that folks can use to do self-guided tours and
just learn more information. So we're finally going to launch that at the end of this month. I just
found that out from GIS today. So we'll do a press release and some promotion around that.
It's not the complete list of all of our public art. We just agreed that if we tried to revamp everything
at once because there are hundreds of listings in this, it would just be way too overwhelming, and it
would never get done. So we've got a really cool, robust list of the most recent and most beloved 20
works of art. And what I'll probably be asking you all to do over the course of the year, and we'll
probably talk about this more in the public art subcommittee meetings this year, is just help us get
the rest of those entries from the old list more up to date. And I'll also be working with another practice
to come student this semester to also help with that. And she's also going to help me on an initiative
to get signage on all of our art this year. That's what I've got. Great. Thank you. Agenda item number
four, an update from the public art subcommittee chair. Hello, everybody. Happy New Year.
So the only thing I wanted to give an announcement about was just an update on the Convention Center.
So when we left off last month, we were looking at finalists and their applications. So we were able
to have a list of five finalists. So that's very exciting, especially coming from over 100 applications.
So being able to narrow it down, and there were very
great applications that came through. So that list will actually be released on January 21st at the
CIB meeting. And that will be followed by a press release as well. In addition, in May, we will have
a finalist chosen. So between January and May, we'll have the artists submit their proposals, do public
feedback, all of that great jazz. And then in May, we'll have our finalist. So yeah.
kind of where we are with the Convention Center at the moment. Awesome. Any questions for Christina
or about Public Heart? Yeah, I have a question. So how does the process usually go in terms of submitting
a proposal? Will there be a public presentation? Is it going to be who are they presenting to? How are
they going to be selected? In the past, we've kind of had them submit proposals, but it'll be like an
online version grid for
of public feedback. So that's kind of how that works. So people look at their applications? Just their
actual proposal. Oh, their proposal. Yeah, their design. And then they're probably like a description
or something with that. But then they kind of give their feedback that way. Oh, OK. Interesting. Are
we going to be asked to look at those? Are we done? Are we out? We want to look at them. Yes. Awesome. OK.
Is it the CIB or is it? It's the CIB. This is a little different because it's not city money. It's a
pot of city and county money that's owned by the Capital Improvement Board that's overseeing the entire
conventions that are expansion. So they have the final say. And there's actually, so there is, so the
Arts Commission, the Public Arts Subcommittee, and thank you all for your help, and Betsy,
reviewed the top third of the applications. We got 180. And we narrowed it down to five. The BAC subcommittee
just gave our recommendations for who we thought were the top candidates. And then that was shared with
a separate CIB recommendation committee that Christina and Rob both served on as representatives of
the BAC. And luckily, our
on who were the top candidates were pretty much in alignment. So yeah, yeah. And we just, we tried to
make that really clear and the materials that were shared with the recommendation committee. Yeah. And,
and we just, we also had such robust reviewers on that committee as well. Natalie Amanza is on it. Maya
Michelson is on it. So we just, we had some top experts helping us make the choices. So the reception
was good too.
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely, which I was very happy about. But basically, so I'll ask
the public art subcommittee to do the same thing once we have the final proposals. And I actually might
ask some of you to sit in on the interviews. And then we'll do the same thing. We'll make our recommendation.
The recommendation committee will also review everything, participate in the interviews. And then we
make the recommendation to the CIB. And then they say yes or no.
But I don't want to jinx it, but I don't anticipate we're going to get pushback from the CAB, especially
because two of the members of the CIB are actually on the recommendation committee. And they just were
very happy with the finalists that we chose and spoke out at the CIB meeting just saying they did a
great job, and we really endorsed the five finalists.
We'll do our best to make that happen for our final selection. Yeah, but all the finalists, it was so
hard to narrow it down to five. I wish we could do 10, but it's more money and work that we don't have.
So we're going to get something good. I mean, they looked amazing from the applications that you shared.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's going to be great. Yeah. Yeah, it's really exciting. OK, fantastic.
Any other questions?
All right, the final update. For real this time. Last year we thought it was the final one. This is
the final update from our grants chair, Leila. Yeah, I won't take up too much of your time. I'm done.
Last meeting ever. No, it's been a pleasure. Six years. It's been great. I feel very good about the
state that everything is in, having seen this whole
thing for the last six years. So Paul and Jared and I are going to meet on Friday to talk about transitioning
and building out a schedule for the grant cycle. And I'll obviously happily read for grants. So yeah,
thanks, everyone. It's been fun. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. I've got you a little retirement
I'm not tired of you. Open it if you want.
I also love wine. That's the perfect dinner. For those of you who have not been subject to my grant
reviews, I always provide Cheez-Its because they are a delicious and nutritious snack. The favor is
being returned. Thank you for your leadership for four years and your service over six years long.
longer than any of us here, so. We'll miss having you at these meetings. Okay, agenda item number six.
From your chair. So I'm gonna use this time to talk a little bit about
the strategic goals document that the task force consisting of myself, Gretchen, Paul, and Christina
put together. And I think in sort of discussing this, I'm gonna sort of blend this with an activity
that we usually do at the start of every year, which is kind of a discussion on like our priorities
and possible sort of like presentation guests and just sort of like questions and things that we want
on our mind as we enter the new year.
So a little bit of just a little bit of context for the document that was in the materials for this
meeting. We looked at the 2020 to 2025 strategic plan, which was sort of a three page document that was
A lot of like a page or a page and a half of it was just like basically different iterations of like
a mission statement and a summary or a vision statement, like kind of all of those things. And we took
that document. I think we pretty smartly and thoughtfully condensed that sort of like mission centric
language. And then we looked at the objectives and the goals that were there and kind of I think thoughtfully
updated them to reflect the work that the commission is currently doing and I think making reasonable
edits and reasonable changes to what we think we should be doing over the coming three years. And so
in some ways it's similar to what came before but it's a little bit more condensed. I think it's a little
bit tighter and I think it's a little bit more efficiently outlined
It's a little more user-friendly if anyone actually wants to read it.
maybe open up the conversation more broadly to sort of like priorities and things like that. I did want
to talk specifically about this document and get a sense for those for folks who who look at it if there
are any questions or comments or suggested edits or changes that we should make before we we finalize
it and sort of have the the city folks look over and then you know vote at vote on it in a coming meeting.
When I first was applying to a commissioner position, I looked at the old strategic goals and statement
stuff. And yeah, I think comparing, I think it's much easier to digest information. Yeah, I like that
it's shorter. I feel like it just fits better for what we're trying to, like the information we need
to get out is out and we don't have to say any more than that. So great job, guys. Nia says elsewhere
agrees and says it's nice, yes.
Yeah, from the grants perspective, I do appreciate that. Obviously, we want to advocate for increased
funding. The BU-EA element is an interesting aspect of that as well, highlighting economic vitality
through the granting process. And then, yeah, best practices for grant applicants is a great idea.
I don't know, yeah, all of that's great. I wouldn't do much more than that. Well, if I may. Yeah, please.
Having been on the committee, I was looking at this real closely for quite a bit. And there's one element
that might be worth adding here. It comes up in,
The document historically has been all about serving artists and arts organizations without as much
language as would be desirable, I think, on what is being done to engage the community with art, to
let people know how much there is, to let people know the kinds of things that are going on.
And so when I think about on the second page at the top about outreach. Can you guys go to that part
up there or not? Are you able to move it? Oh, sorry. That's my bad. Great. OK, so I think this would
be the place to put in some language that says that one of our main goals is to
publicize, encourage engagement of the community in the arts. All the rest is about making great things
for art. But I think without also setting the context of the community, we're missing something that's
really settled to what I've observed as we've been working. We think a lot about the community.
Didn't quite get in the document. Yeah, so one more bullet point there. Yep, that's it. I have that
noted. Do you have a bullet point written up? I don't. OK. But if people are interested. Yeah, I've
got something I can, yeah, I tagged up something that you said, and we can share with you and get it on there.
Well, yeah, so I think I'm happy to take other comments as folks are thinking through things here. You
can also, I think we'll probably look to vote on a draft of this at the next meeting. So I'd say maybe
between now and the middle of January, the midpoint in about two weeks or so, if you have any further
comments or suggestions or thoughts, feel free to email those to me.
And we can add those to the draft here. And as we sort of continue the discussion today, if other ideas
come up, feel free to let me know specific things for the document. So yeah, so last year, now I'm gonna
go ahead and broaden up the discussion. We had a, we just took a little bit of time to kind of reflect
on the previous year,
Things that went well maybe things that could be improved and kind of like just kind of like have a
discussion on Priorities or questions Or you know specific things to be aware of things that should
be on a radar as we're going into the year This can include you know specific things related to you
know procedures to to grants to outreach and
to presenters that we want to have come to meetings, particular folks that we want to work with or partner
with or engage with anyways. And so yeah, I'd like to maybe, or yeah, also just questions that we have
about things. I'd like to, yeah, go ahead and open up that discussion on, you know, reflecting on the
past year and looking ahead. Any thoughts or notes that folks have?
If we look at the goals and look at number six, it really points to something that I think we haven't
done, which is to help the various arts organizations and artists and art lovers around somehow get
together and advance art overall for the city.
And I don't know, it says foster discussions among various groups about how they can collectively address
challenges they face in common and achieve outcomes they share. I'm not sure exactly where the border
lies between the work that Holly does and where it's for us. Is it for us to help Holly figure out a
way to make this, or is it for us to figure out how to do it and then get it done?
I think that that's important for us to think about because we've done great things. But I think the
city, overall the population, which is continuing to grow and change, could be better informed and better
engaged and better excited about the art in Bloomington. It's very unwieldy the way
to communicate with all these organizations. You know, you have all these different media, too, and
people's interests are varied greatly. So I think trying to figure out how that is done, I think, is
going to be a challenge. I don't know. I mean, I know just at IU, you know, we used to have these committees,
you know, arts committee or whatever.
make you get together with other people, which was great. But we don't have anything like that here.
And what can we make that would be of interest so people really want to come? And everybody's super
busy, so I don't know. What format would it be? Meet at a bar? No. Can we do a once a year meet in person
with all the other organizations? Come if you want? Or is that too much?
I don't know. I don't want to make more work for you. That's the thing. But like Busker Chumlee, this,
business, whatever. Well, some of this it's like, I'm sorry, I'm going to say that just, you know, some
of it you guys as a commission can do. Like we don't have to do everything, which I think is where part
of this gets, like we have our, we have like a whole thing outside of this too. Like we're always the
main liaison. I'm just like co-laison with her to help.
You know, you guys have power to do some stuff too, right? Like it's not just, it doesn't have to be
just up to us. So I think, I just wanted to say that. That's good. Yeah, I think though it might,
you know, there are other partners in the community that I'm sure would help with the work. I'm thinking
specifically about Pillar Arts. You know, we worked with them a couple years ago to do that panel at
the Fire Bay Theater and the Waldron. It was Pillar and
constellation-ish. But they, we just kind of, we recommended to be on the panel. We invited them also
to make recommendations. And then we just kind of showed up. So they did a lot of that work. And I think
that some kind of model like that,
where we are working with other partners to kind of like have like a panel that is also a dialogue.
I think that something like that could be great. People loved that event, you know. Is that the one
you did at the wall? At the wall. That was awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was packed. It was like
standing room only. Yeah, that was great. With the panel. Yeah, yeah. And like you said, like we could,
we were able to rent the BCT for free.
Yeah, that was really cool. Yeah, and Christina and I, well, this was before Christina was the subcommittee
public art chair. But we were talking about doing this again, too. It's just time and whatever, because
we were talking about panels and workshops, because people liked it. But I think, obviously, it hasn't
happened yet. So it's like, yeah, it could be another push for you guys to kind of organize that or
figure out
You know, what could be best? Yeah, and we could think strategically around planning. One thing I'm
trying to do this month is we're thinking about other things that are going to happen this year. So
the convention center selection will be made. Undulate by John Resick will most likely be installed
in spring. So we'll want to do something about that. Chaz and I, we've been working to open the artist
studio space. There are people working in it now. We'll soon want to have an event celebrating that.
But just thinking strategically about when might there be a lull?
You know, or when my April or May I'm going to, this is going to get even grayer. Just thinking more
strategically about maybe that something like that could happen in the fall, you know, and yeah. Yeah,
yeah. Parks is coming for me. Double up on one of those? I'm thinking about it. Yeah. Yeah. There's another
that might be worth considering and then somehow developing a concept that's all about, that becomes
almost like a marketing theme or tag. So something a little bit like Columbus has art everywhere as
a theme for the city, right? And maybe there's some way in which there doesn't, it's not quite everybody
getting together and just
saying these are the things we do, let's learn about one another and help one another. It's also making
a kind of presence for art for the city. And I don't know that that would require that much. So the
Arts Commission Instagram was actually started by a member, by Essence Linden actually, when she was
on the council years ago. And I just wanted to say, as you were saying, that I thought
I've never used this, I don't know much about it, but technically there is one discovered. Alright,
I don't know. I'm not saying it has to be that, but they're not, yeah, they're not, so I'm not saying
we do this, I'm just saying, as you were saying that, I thought of it, so I'm also, and then like that
is the mission, and yeah, I'm just, I'm not saying this just, I'm just saying, I didn't know that was
the thing, so. Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Yeah, I don't think it's hot. An option could be it takes a little bit more logistical planning and
investment in terms of just capacity of humans. But if we're looking to foster discussion and having
a space for all of these individuals or some of these individuals to collectively address the things
that they're facing,
Just bringing people together, especially if they don't know folks doesn't necessarily always create
a space of trust to be able to talk about challenges or to address challenges. And so some of the spaces
that I've seen
with different leaders in the arts, specifically thinking about BIPOC or indigenous leaders, is they
create cohort models. And you could have various cycles of cohorts where you'd have different representatives
from those spaces. And then you would have topics each time. So then you're building those relationships
between those entities so they can discuss those challenges and think of strategies or share strategies
on how they've overcome some of those challenges. And then afterwards, they get a certificate or something
that they can put on their institution
institutions wall or put within their portfolio that then would add just in terms of their marketability,
but also they would leave with some sort of tangible skill sets and they'd also leave with
a squad of individuals that they now have a network to stand in solidarity around those challenges.
And then you'd have another cycle of the cohort. And then after you get a few cycle of cohorts, you
can bring those cohorts together because they all are part of the same system. And so you'd have 2026,
2027, 2028. And then you can have these larger sessions, but they have these common foundations that
they all belong to Bloomington. They all belong to the arts. Some of that times I think that creates
a stronger thread because you can bring folks together. You can have emails or
You can have Zoom sessions, but because they all belong to those same spaces and they've moved through
that same cycle, even if they've moved away, they tend to have stronger relationships and have a deeper
investment within their community or even just within the systems that they're operating with them.
I can send some examples of some of the cohorts that I've been a part of or the cohort sessions that
I've helped support.
Because I've had some with just indigenous artists. I've had like with art equity, or I think it's called
art equity that's based out of California. And it's just, it's different depending on what the capacity
of the institution is, and also just thinking of the human capital that you have to be able to do it.
Yeah. Awesome. Yes, yes, we saw that. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I know we haven't really had a time
I'm gonna have to talk about it again, but Paul and I have talked a little bit in previous years about
sort of like, I think better aligning the grant application with sort of the internal rubric that we
use. We've gotten a lot better over the last four years of sort of like tightening up the focus. I think
better aligning the cycles. But I know that,
Some of what's there is just a little bit of like muscle memory. And I think just kind of like formalizing
some of those things. And then also taking what we know about city processes now. And I think trying
to align our schedule with the like how the city moves through like creating MOUs and things like that.
And I know that we're gonna I think meet soon to talk about that. So that's definitely on the grant
side of things.
I think a big goal is to, I think, thinking about last year and what happened with the artistic advancement
grants and how there was just a lot of time between when they were told that they got the award and
when the money actually hit the bank. And I think if the expectation was set ahead of time, that's a
little bit better. And so I think just trying to tighten that up a little bit is definitely going to
be a goal for this year.
Any other notes, comments, thoughts? On that though, like working with the city, like the city's capacity
to process all this, I happen to know that sometimes we move faster than the city or at higher volume
than the city. I don't know, it's just something to be aware of. Oh yes, yeah. I know you're aware of
that, yeah. Do you have any forecast for that, how that might
be in the coming year? I think one thing Gerard and I talked about is just meeting with the legal team
to help. I think, again, I think we've talked a little bit about this at past meetings. We're just dealing
with a different type of scrutiny from the legal department right now
that we didn't know to expect. And I think also there was so much turnover in the legal department at
the beginning of last year. It was all new to them as well. So I think we've learned a lot about each
other in the last year. So we can be more prepared. But I think we just also learned what kind of slowed
them down in their review of the contracts
in 25 that wasn't happening in previous years. And so I think our idea is kind of meeting with the legal
department before we launch the first application, just to make sure that we're streamlining the application
as much as we can to make the work that they have to do easier. So again, I just don't think in the
past there was as much scrutiny of the applications
themselves, and this year they reviewed every individual application with a fine-tooth comb. So the
easier we can make it for them to process the information, the better it'll work. I think that is so
smart. Yeah, yeah. And again, I think, unfortunately, we've had 20 different lawyers in the past 18
months. And I'm hoping that the person that we're working with now, I think, is amazing. And she's so
thoughtful. And I feel like I also now have more
transparency and understanding of what is written into a contract that has also just made the process
easier. And so as long as that person doesn't go anywhere, I think we're going to. Last year was also
growing pain, so hopefully it will be better because of all of that. What's that attorney's name? It's
Audrey Brittenham.
She joined us at our August meeting. I'm glad you pointed that out, Leila, because it's also like, I
wonder if pushing the dates back for when they would receive it. I think we're definitely going to have
to do that. I think it's like we can just do stuff
overall to make it more realistic for everyone. But like how I said, once talking with her and saying
what is realistic is going to be important. Yeah, and then it comes early, that's great. Yeah, exactly.
You don't want people hounding you. Yeah, well, it's just embarrassing for everybody, you know?
And it's just, it's losing trust, you know? And I feel like, unfortunately, we took some hits last year.
when it came to trust, you know? And so we're kind of in a position where we need to be transparent
and rebuild that trust, so. I think the Arts Commission, when they, I don't know if they still give
out individual artist grants, but they would always have a clause saying, do not expect this money until
three months from now or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it'd be easy for us to do that. Right,
yeah, yeah.
Well, the final question I'll have here with, or I'll ask here is, so we had a number of really great
presentations last year. I know we had, I think, maybe I'm conflating time, but was the, did the opera,
Opera for Kids? Maybe. Was that last year? I know that Pillar Arts also came. Climate, or Artists for
Climate Awareness came and gave a presentation. I'm blanking on a couple others, but. First Friday.
Oh, yeah, that's right, the Gallery Walk folks. Yeah, just, I mean, are there any individuals
or organizations that we should have on our short list for meetings this year for folks that would like
to hear and maybe kind of give a short little presentation on what they do? So Zakiya Cinema is likely
going to have a permanent space, so it might be good timing to kind of hear from them. They just became
a nonprofit.
and they'll have like a physical space so it might thank you to actually Gretchen for being an arts
advocate in her day job to help them, but that might be good because they can also not just be like
about, because film's important too, it's an art that's overlooked sometimes, but they became a non-profit
and they might, maybe that could be useful to other organizations for them to talk to them about that
process and what that means and
how they got physical space and what they're doing to fundraise and stuff. So that just might be a nice
thing for them to present on and also then to kind of resource share to other organizations or people.
Right. Well, I mean, Cicada Cinema is a group that we've supported through our grant cycle over the
past couple of years. And hearing that they're officially a 501c3
a big deal, so I think hearing about that, that changes, and having a physical space, I think that would
be really great. I hear they're tough to get ahold of though, so I don't know how we're gonna get ahold
of them. Can I make a couple of recommendations? I think kind of to Paul's point about just like better
promotion, so the city is finally wrapping its branding study and thingy. I've heard that they're gonna
have like new things to start rolling out starting next month.
So it might be great to just invite them to come talk to us and think about how we should align with
it. It's the office of the mayor. The director of communications is housed there. I can help make that
connection. I think now is too early. I'm actually going to be in a meeting about that tomorrow. But
I can share more information. And the other thing I think might be interesting,
We, it sounds like there are gonna be some upgrades to Switchyard Stage, which just makes it a more
viable performance venue for bigger acts to be able to perform at. That might be a cool thing to hear
about. Is that Parks and Rec? Ish. Ish. Ish, yeah. Parks and Rec might be cool. It seems like it'd be
awesome to push some
It would be funded by someone like Crystal. Maybe we do that closer to when they are amping up their
outdoor performance series when the farmers market starts and they do their art market and things like that.
can invite the seratones to perform. They can do the Weezer cover that they do. So heart-rending.
Heart-rending. Great. I feel like in the past, Leila, for example, you've presented on
like exhibitions you've hosted. So I feel like that's an option, too. Oh, sure. Yeah. And like other,
like I know you're cycling off, but people who are actually on the commission, I always feel like that's
appropriate. If I have a commissioner checking. Yeah. Along those lines, I was wondering if it's helpful
at all, like city-wise,
if there's any art adjacent things that people should know about. I think about sustainability. They're
trying to work. They wanted to get in touch with arts organizations about sustainability grants they
can get. So it's like, I don't know, but stuff like that, when it's relevant and makes sense, I'm wondering
if we just keep that in our mind. Who's had a pride in Bloomington? Who's that? Zachary Taylor.
We should invite Lotus. We should just invite Lotus.
This is kind of off the cuff here, but I, because I don't know if there's a specific person here, but
I feel like we tend to get grants sometimes that say like, I'm gonna do this work with the schools,
or I'm gonna do this with that. And like, I mean, I know that there are ways of like connecting artists
with schools and that there is, you know, to a certain extent, a need there, but it's a little bit,
at least to my mind, kind of like fuzzy what that is.
hearing at all from MCCSE or someone involved in K through 12? Yeah, and I could think like, I mean,
we could, who's the woman? I believe she's at Fairview, Maggie? Oh, Oliver, oh yeah, who also does?
Yeah, and then, but then like thinking about people who have been successful in getting in schools,
because I don't, it's a tough nut to crack. Kid, I want to call him Kid Cuddy.
It's not Kid Kazooie. Kid Kazooie? Kid Kazooie, yeah. Thank you. Kevin McDowell. Yeah. And Erin Tobey.
Erin Tobey, that's also awesome. I know she worked with... Freelances. Yeah. I was gonna... I was thinking...
Lotus has been successful getting into schools. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
It's, I know you're talking about Bridges Mayo. Yes. Okay, these are all fantastic suggestions. As more
like thoughts and ideas and names and people, you can email those to myself or Netta anytime. Yeah.
Okay, I'm gonna move on to agenda item number seven, upcoming event and important dates. I think when
I last looked at this document, it was... Oh, you added some stuff, okay. Yeah, anyone want to shout
out any...
Upcoming events of note, either that they are personally involved with, or just that they know are going
on that should be. Buffy Brawn is February 20th. That's right. It's a Friday, and it's at FAR. Yes.
Oh, at FAR? Oh, interesting. Yeah, because the bell was... Sure. Yeah. We almost didn't get anything
last year. We had to full-rank. Yeah, it fills up. You know what, Tom? When are they filling tickets
for that, do you think?
I think they're actually there. It's on their Instagram. I think they're waiting until closer to the
event. I feel like it might even be like Valentine's Day that they're doing it. Yeah. Because they go
really fast. Yeah. I don't know. The auditorium is too...
something that Rhiannon Giddens and Silph Road are at the auditorium on, I think, March 12th. I'd have
to double-check. Mm-hmm, that's the 12th. Are you sure?
It's the rock one. Is it the cave one? It's not the cave one. Fireball. Visitors from Darker Worlds. 7 p.m.
Free. No call.
I think I'm messing up your cadence and I'll change it when I go back. Oh yeah, sorry. There's a Russian
event that we're doing about mythologies and material culture of the Slavic department. Is there anything
at IU Arts and Humanities Council
What's happening? Yeah, I can throw these on. We have an arts market on the 5th, February 5th. Yeah,
the first Thursday is on the day that Eskenazi was going to talk. Is the faculty show opening this Friday?
Oh, yes. Yeah. I'm really excited about that. Friday, 6 to 8. Everybody's going to the mall.
What is going on? What's happening in February? Anything? I'm sure. Is anything happening at the BCT?
Studio Ghibli. There's lots of good movies. Oh, the guy from Soul Coughing is apparently playing at
the Bishop. Who?
the guy from Soul Coughing. I saw it on the Bloomin' Tonian of all places. Good or? Recommended.
Oh my gosh, okay. It's 90s, anybody? I'm aging myself. Oh, that's right. Is it?
Right? It's in March, yeah. I think it's sold out. What's February? Anything besides? Buffy Prom, cover
bands of Steve Amato, and PJ Harvey. That's one of the Buffy Prom cover bands. Oh, sorry. Thank you.
I was like, Pj Harvey's from Bloomington? Right.
Okay, great, well yeah, this document, the link to it lives in the agendas and in the midpoint emails
and you're welcome to go in and update it at any time. And yeah, hope to see you all out at these events.
I just have to put you on the spot. Oh, yeah. Go back. I assume these dates aren't set yet, but are
you planning to continue the artist parties going into this year? Yeah. That's something Holly and I
are also going to try to do this month, is pop that out. Thought when and where to get that all scheduled
ahead of time. Because last year was also the learning curve
some of the new processes, things just take a lot longer as we all have learned, and not just grants,
but other things. So yeah, so the idea of probably not more than four, I'd imagine, but also connecting
them with some of the things that spring as well. So yeah, anyway. I think most of us have gone to those,
but I really recommend it. If you haven't made it optimal, I really recommend it.
I always go to them exhausted, because it's like 6 PM on a Wednesday or whatever. But I always leave
feeling rejuvenated, because I end up seeing people I know or maybe haven't seen around. And then I
always end up in conversation with some new folks. So I think they're a really great event. And we got
really good feedback.
for our end of year party this year. Yeah, and I feel like thinking about any trust lost with some of
the grantees who are still waiting on their money, we got a lot of emails from those folks in particular
thinking, especially for hosting. I'm trying to track how many people come. So if there's anything you
want to note to me that comes out of those, please tell us so we can just track it.
tells you something came from it, like, I met this person, and then this happened. It would actually
be great to know. Just so we can kind of say why they're important, and also the arts is important.
We should fund it, and et cetera, et cetera. But it's interesting. Thank you, Jordan, for the kind words.
Because also what Brandy was saying, too, is I've also heard that's really important, and then also
kind of these more in-depth, where people can sit down more and have these conversations, or also kind
of wanted and needed to.
So anyway, I think it's important to have them and also then look to these other outlets like panels
or the cohort things or whatever, workshops even, because of that. You can even save time in terms of
picking who's in the cohort based upon who you took grants out to. The grants that we would issue out
to artists, we would create a cohort within the year. And so everyone who received a grant would move
through the cohort model
with business development and linking together, which would eliminate multiple evaluation periods and
applications, because we would just take all of that into consideration. We're also trying to do this
with our studio incubator space, and lots of work trying to do that. Then we have that space, too, ideally.
What could you think about?
One last thing I want to share, if you all haven't been to the Waldron since the exhibitions opened
on Friday, they're really good. Oh, really? They include several artistic advancement grantees. Andrea
Alune has an exhibition downstairs. And another woman whose name I'm forgetting has this really awesome
printed on handmade paper made with mulberry trees.
It's just fantastic. And the prints were made at Haido Press's new studio space. It's just amazing.
I don't know if it was because of the artist party, but they were talking at the artist party in December.
And I don't know if that's where they connected and then made that partnership. But I'm going to ask,
because that would be pretty cool. Awesome.
All right, moving on to agenda item number eight, commissioner announcements. Does anyone have anything
that they would like to announce? All right. Moving on to agenda item number nine, public comment. One
number of public comments. Any comments? Well, sure, of course. I'll make a comment. Could you say your
name again, please, just for the record? You bet. My name's Joe Myers.
And on behalf of the public, we're looking forward to an exciting year in the arts. And I think we have
a table of really creative people here who can take us there. Thank you. Thanks. It's nice to hear.
Okay, well, with that, I will give
One final thanks to Layla. Thanks to Gerard. And I motion to adjourn the meeting. Can I get a verbal
second? Second. All right, the meeting is adjourned. Thanks all.