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Tuesday, August 03, 2010
New Mexico Artists Out of Luck on Project for NMSU
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
A $171,000 large-scale art project commissioned by New Mexico State University will be done by an out-of-state artist, and that has one Las Cruces painter fuming.
A seven-member selection committee in Las Cruces recently chose five finalists for the project. None of them lives in New Mexico.
George Mendoza, who has gained international success designing cotton fabrics, said the state's limited public arts money should be reserved for New Mexico artists, particularly in tough economic times.
"Galleries are closing, nobody's buying art," said Mendoza, who submitted a piece that included tiles, murals and quilts.
Officials involved in the selection process say the competition was opened to artists nationwide to attract a wide pool of proposals from those experienced with large and complex public art projects.
The university wants a large-scale piece that will be suspended in a three-story glass atrium at O'Donnell Hall, the home of the College of Education.
The finalists announced on July 19 are: Lynn Basa of Chicago; Judith Collins of Lakewood, Colo.; Daniel Goldstein of San Francisco; Tim Prentice of West Cornwall, Conn.; and Koryn Rolstad of Seattle.
The piece will be funded by the state Art in Public Places program. By state law, 1 percent of public money for building and renovation projects must be spent on art.
The NMSU project attracted 359 proposals, 36 of which came from New Mexicans. The committee expects to select a finalist in November, with work to be completed next year.
Mendoza said had his proposal been accepted, he would have employed a number of local artists.
"We can't find one artist in Albuquerque, Santa Fe or Taos who could handle this project?" Mendoza said. "I find that hard to believe."
The seven-member selection committee was comprised of NMSU officials and Las Cruces residents.
"The committee felt that in order to get a big enough pool of artists to choose from, we needed to open it up to artists all over the country," said Chuck Zimmer, manager of Art in Public Places. "Had we left it to New Mexico artists only, instead of having 359 choices, they would have had 36 choices."
He said some Art in Public Places projects are limited to New Mexico artists. But he said if the state limited all competitions, other states would retaliate by barring New Mexico artists from competing for their projects.
He said the program in 2009 purchased about $400,000 from New Mexico artists, although he didn't know the total value of art purchased through the program that year.
Selection committee member Wynn Egginton, director of NMSU's Education Research and Budgeting office, said the committee's intent was to find the best artist available with the experience required to fulfill the project.
"We're trying to bring artwork to our community that answers the (need) and brings high-level visibility to our public art," she said.
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