1. Public Art City of Vancouver
Jan Ballard
Ballard Fine Art
Eric Fredericksen
Public Art City of Vancouver
Hello, my name is Alix Sales and I am the head planner for Cultural Spaces for the City of Vancouver. While I am no longer focused on public art I spent many years working with the lovely Bryan Newson – now retired – who developed Vancouver’s public art program close to 30 years ago.
I am presenting on an private sector artwork: Finger Paint by elizabeth macIntosh. on behalf of my colleques: Jan Ballard the Public Art consultant on this project and Eric Fredericksen, who submitted this artwork

2. Finger Paint | Elizabeth McIntosh
The Charleson
Onni
1398 Richards Vancouver, BC
Budget: $380,000
The artwork was commissioned as part of Vancouver’s Private Sector Program, in which public art is commissioned through rezoning development projects over 100,000 sq ft at a contribution of just under $2 a square foot (>100,000 sf at $1.98*sf)
& 2 options – developer commissions artwork or provides cash to the program
*********************************************************
Option A | Art Plan, Inkind
Option B | 80% cash
Elizabeth McIntosh’s Finger Paint brings a bold, vibrant and personal expression to a neighbourhood in Vancouver’s downtown dominated by glassy, monochromatic towers.
Finger Paint | Elizabeth McIntosh

3. Finger Paint was commissioned through an art plan that identified the elevator core that runs up the side of the building as a potential site - an unbroken 30 Feet wide x 416 feet to the sky vertical , offering a canvas of exceptional scale and unusual proportion.

4. Elizabeth McIntosh
Elizabeth McIntosh is a painter who has shown her work across Canada and the USA since receiving her MFA from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, in 1996.
The panel selected a Vancouver painter Elizabeth McIntosh

5. Artist Process
So she began at a scale completely opposite to the opportunity—that of her iPad and studio work, which she sketched on with her finger to develop the forms bringing forward. a bold, colourful painting that would explore both digital and analog techniques.

6. Elizabeth McIntosh – Finger Paint
Transferred to painted and cut Alucobond panels, the design expands from a finger’s touch to the massive scale of the residential tower downtown,
elizabeth intended to bring together many contrasts:
soft shapes, and hard edges,
human to monumental scale,
organic forms to a grid,
bright colours to grey and glass
solid to transparent
the artwork enlivens the monochrome skyline with an almost shocking flowering of unrestrained colour.

7. Response Public Response One word. Yuk.
this has ruined #Vancouver skyline. #EyeSore and I now have to look at this everyday I look out my window
Yes! We need colour in our cityscape ….… let’s get some imagination going!
Upon its unveiling, Finger Paint caused a ruckus, calls to the City, stories on TV, radio, and newsprint. As always the loudest voices, even if in the minority, were negative. For example…..
TheY questioned how did this eruption of colour, and messy form pass through Vancouver’s the bureaucratic processes?
***************************************
, and tight regulatory apparatus of Vancouver—a City alternately held up as a model of city planning and denigrated as “No Fun City”?

8. Process Not Politics
“Public art plays a huge role in building communities. It starts conversations and is a place maker”.
Councillor Raymond Louie
1 Public Art Plan
2 Artist Selection
3 Design Build Install
4 Launch Maintain
Fortunately that was quickly and surprisingly answered by our politicians including then councillor raymond louie who was very clear…
The reason for this goes back to Bryan Newson and the many artists and consultants who have tirelessly worked to ensure artist-centred public art policies, which seek to build opportunities around artists’ practices, separate from the structures of city planning, and politics.
Vancouver’s Public Art committee approves the plan and process. Artists are selected by a majority of peers – ideally on their practice.
Good selection processes and strong artists will ultimately support the visions and values of the City.
A good example of this . 10 years ago as the lead planner for vancouver’s Olympic and paralympic Public art Program I was able to work with karen henry and other to launch Vancover’s first artist’s initiated projects – in which artists are asked to submit their ideas for public art. In 2010 this resulted in many works including ken Lum’s Monument for East Vancouver.
Public Art Committee approves plan & process
Independent panel with art experts selects artist
Final approval focuses on technical (not artistic) review

9. Views
ultimately the City has embraced this work, which appeared so alien when first unveiled.
*******************
This extends even to thinking about the dominant culture of artmaking in Vancouver—known for its photographic and conceptual approaches to art, the City seems an unlikely home for this strong, formalist exploration of colour and human touch. But

10. Visible from across False Creek, the artwork has become a beacon and landmark, and also a touching image of human presence in an often wet and grey city scape.