Rochester Arts and Culture Collaborative December Newsletter

We hope you all are enjoying the many and varied arts and cultural offerings around town as 2015 comes to a close. Winter is a great time to experience the arts!

Here are the latest updates from RACC about the teams' projects, all of which will be welcoming community input and engagement so read on:

Public Art Master Plan (PAMP) update

There was a meeting December 7 of the steering committee overseeing the Public Art Master Plan development. Two RACC representatives, Mary Ellen Landwehr and Dave Beal, are members of this committee. The meeting, held at the Rochester Area Foundation, was open to the public, as all these meetings are, and a few people were in the gallery.

Dave Beal is also on the sub (management)- committee, which meets in between meetings of the larger group to do the administrative work necessary. They have created a project document, laying out components, process, and timeline.

The PAMP steering committee has divided into three teams:
• City-wide master planning team –  which will focus on how the project intersects with all the other master plans currently in the works.
• Community Engagement Team – which will focus on stakeholder research and outreach in various forms. Their first activity will be stakeholder focus groups and the team members contributed names of potential participants for one (or more) of six focus groups: hospitality & business, culture & religion, artists, students, educators, and neighborhoods. The focus group meetings will start in January. Other outreach efforts such as an online tool and input collection boxes (for team members to bring with them to other committees/groups they belong to) are also in the works.  Mary Ellen Landwehr is a member of this team.
• Plan development team –  which will focus on principles, priorities, and governance. Their first priority is a working definition of public art, which has yet to be determined by this group for PAMP purposes.  Dave Beal is a member of this team.

The next meeting will be in March. Watch for information about time and location and also watch for upcoming opportunities from the Community Engagement team to give input

Art4Trails Update

Mary Ellen Landwehr gave a status report on Art4Trails. After the SEMAC grant was declined and it looked like the project would have to be cancelled, an anonymous donor contributed $5000, and that, combined with current funds in hand and an offer by supporters to send out fundraising letters, led the team to keep going. They extended the deadline to December 14 and received 17 project proposals from 13 applicants (two submitted three proposals). The judging and selection of five projects will happen in January. The Rochester Parks Department will handle the installation work.

Next steps are the planning an event to announce the winners and also planning the events surrounding the actual unveiling of the art along the trail in June.   The Art4Trails committee has an events committee working on these plans, and the C4 events committee will collaborate. Involving cultural groups as well as artists in these summer "capstone" events is a priority of the team.  Let us know if you would like to be involved!

There is also discussion among various art leaders in town about the future of Art4Trails beyond this inaugural occurrence. Further updates on that as ideas coalesce.

Armory proposal Arts and Cultural Center update

Steve Troutman and Debi Neville of the Spaces team are working with a committee that is crafting a presentation in response to the RFP put out by the city for re-use of the Armory. The proposal is for an Arts and Cultural Center in that building; there is a small performance space on the third floor, meeting, office, classroom, and studio space on the second floor, and a commercial kitchen and large meeting space on the first floor. It is an exciting opportunity for small arts organization and individual artists who would benefit from shared resources and opportunities for collaboration.  Please let us know if you would like to know more about this vision.

For the RFP presentation, this team is working on a communication plan, an LLC and preliminary non-profit status for the group, a business plan, and communicating with other potential partners in the space (e.g., Veterans Museum).  

In other spaces news, there is no new official news about the Chateau Theatre, except we applaud Annie Henderson's column in the Post Bulletin regarding opening the theatre to artists and arts organization on a short-term basis while long-term use is being decided. Keep it activated instead of sitting dark and empty (or used only seldom for big meetings)! The DMCC board is certainly interested in moving ahead on plans for the Heart of the City District (with a possible RFQ being put out in January?) so it seems as though we are on the cusp of real change and opportunity.

Stay in touch with RACC

Please follow RACC on our Facebook page, read earlier updates on the blog, follow us on Twitter (@RACCMN) and reach out by email to raccnews@gmail.com.  

Other ways you can be involved:

• engage with the Public Art Master Plan when those opportunities arise 
• watch for updates about public events surrounding Art4Trails, including the winners announcement, and 
• express your interest or reach out with your questions regarding the Amory re-use proposal.