Four granite and cherry benches with black leather seats and hand-carved reliefs – at a cost of $32,600 – now grace the Statehouse lobby as the second installment of public art paid for with money set aside under law as part of the $31 million renovation of the building completed in 2001.
If you think the price tag is too high, take comfort in the fact the benches are both beautiful and functional. And, they were the least expensive proposal submitted in the last round of artistic bids to spend the $240,000 set aside under the Percent for Art program for the Statehouse renovation. The program stipulates that up to 1 percent of the construction budget on public buildings has to go for original artworks.
A $75,000 painting – “First Light” by well known pop artist Richard Indiana of Vinalhaven – and a $66,000 set of sculptures designed like ship figureheads ultimately were rejected by legislators.
In an earlier bid award, $50,000 was spent for inscriptions on granite in the underground connector between the Statehouse and the state office building.
That leaves roughly $157,000 to spend in a competitive process that no doubt will continue to be drawn out and raise the public eyebrow.
Percent for Art projects – most noticeable locally when new schools are built or old ones renovated with state dollars – are still controversial, even though the law has been on the books since 1979. In the case of public schools, a maximum of $50,000 can be used for art purchases.
Donna McNeil, who handles Percent for Art at the Maine Arts Commission, said $300,000 is spent annually, on average, through the program. Since it started, $7 million has been spent at 410 sites across the state involving 673 artists. Projects currently taking proposals are the Cony High School in Augusta and the Dale Elementary School in Hallowell.
Recent projects locally include artwork installed at the Knox County Courthouse and at elementary schools in Lincolnville and Belfast.
Valdemar Skov, the woodcarver from Waldoboro who created the benches, understands the concern about how the money is spent. “I know some people are going to roll their eyes at the price of these benches.”
“I’m a taxpayer too,” said Skov, who just saw the notice that $47,000 is available for art as part of the renovation of Cony High School. “That would buy a whole bunch of desks,” he said. On the other hand, while “the Percent of Art program costs a lot of money, if I didn’t think it was worth it, for us as a society, I wouldn’t participate in it.”
Skov said it was five years, almost to the day, since he submitted the first draft for the benches to their installation in the Statehouse lobby earlier this month.
It wasn’t until November of last year that the Legislative Council, made up of leadership from both parties, finally picked Skov, but rejected the other two artists.
“It’s a difficult process. For one thing you have a committee making the decisions and they have this money and by law they have to spend it. From the artists’ points of view…(they) have to do an awful lot of work before they are guaranteed a job and then only a few actually get the work,” he said.
Skov said he thinks his design was chosen for the Statehouse because it was functional.
“I’m not trying to make a statement, but more trying to build something nice and appropriate that fills a need,” he said.
The woodcarver and furniture-maker, who specializes in ornamental carving, is not new to the public arts world, although he doesn’t rely on it for his living. He did the carvings for the Speaker of the House podium – a replica of the podium from the early part of the last century – that was installed as part of a renovation of that chamber in 1998. He also made 24 dining chairs for the governor’s mansion, but that project was privately funded by the Friends of the Blaine House.
David Boulter, executive director of the Legislative Council, which makes decisions about the day-to-day running of the Statehouse, said “the benches are more in keeping” with the lobby space than the other proposals submitted.
The Legislative Council hasn’t restarted the process to spend the remaining $157,000. “There’s no point in hurrying. It’s important that it be done right and accepted,” Boulter said.
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