St. Charles hesitant to fund large-scale city art project
St. Charles could be in the running for up to $1 million in public art funding that would expand the annual Sculpture in the Park and bring an unprecedented interactive art display to its portion of the Fox River in 2016.
But city officials were hesitant to commit any matching dollars Monday night, though they did agree to at least see the early stages of the plan through.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge is a new competitive grant program that will give at least three cities up to $1 million over two years to support a temporary public art project that drives the local economy. Elizabeth Bellaver, of the St. Charles Arts Council, wants St. Charles to be one of the nearly 1,400 cities invited to submit a proposal.
But part of the proposal to get the money involves having solid prospects to pay for a portion of the project.
Bellaver envisions a project that's already seen success in London and Scottsdale, Ariz., called "Voyage." It involves placing a number of small floating paper-like boats with LED lights, which can be controlled by viewers' smartphones, on the water, in this case, the Fox River.
A London-based art team, Aether & Hemera, would be commissioned to bring a larger version of the exhibit to St. Charles in late summer 2016. That project would combine with a vastly expanded Sculpture in the Park offering as well as other large art installations that would stretch from Mt. St. Mary Park over the river to Pottawatomie Park.
Normally, the annual Sculpture in the Park offering involved nine to 10 artists getting paid $500 each for various artworks. Bellaver's plan envisions 20 or more artists getting paid $2,000 to create displays.
"Think of this as an advertisement for the city," Bellaver told aldermen. She said such a display could bring thousands of dollars in tourist money to the city. But first the city has to agree to help fund the project.
Bellaver envisions a top cost of $400,000 to make the event happen. About $300,000 of that would come from the Bloomberg grant, if successful. The remaining $100,000 would need to come from local funding, which Bellaver asked aldermen to contribute to Monday night.
But that's a six-figure cost aldermen said isn't in the budget. They were hesitant to commit to any specific dollar figure with Bellaver having no firm funding commitments from any other group in hand yet.
She envisions the St. Charles Park District, St. Charles Arts Council and some combination of crowdfunding and/or smaller donations from art-friendly organizations to account for the $100,000.
Aldermen debated amounts ranging from $50,000 to no funding for the project. They finally agreed to let Bellaver pencil the city in as a possible funding source but with no dollar amount committed at this point.
Aldermen said they will wait to see if the city makes it through the first cut of the application process before talking about hard money.
The application is due Dec. 15.