A team of thirteen public art professionals, scholars, and advocates has been formed as a Senior Advisory Committee to the Public Art Archive™ (PAA™). The Archive™ is the free, highly searchable, online database of public art that is being developed by the nonprofit organization WESTAF.

The overall task of the committee is to guide the development of a multi-year project whose initial goal is to collect public art images and text for public art in the United States and Canada and eventually around the world. Initial key tasks of the committee include: advising on the development of a public art-specific collections management tool that will be joined to the database; updating the PAA project team at WESTAF regarding emerging developments in the public art field; and informing the development of strategic partnerships to further the work of the project.

These thirteen individuals bring a wealth of professional experience and knowledge from their respective fields to the committee and represent a national reach. The group is comprised of practitioners, scholars, conservators, project managers, and advocates from the museum, funding, academic, technology, and governmental spheres. The group will convene in person in January, 2013 to begin their work.

The Public Art Archive™ is a project powered by the Western States Arts Federation. The site launched in 2010 and is quickly becoming the go-to source for high-quality, comprehensive information about public art.  The site is distinguishable from other public art sites by the comprehensiveness of the data collected for each artwork in the site; its use of authoritative vocabulary terms from the Getty’s Art and Architecture Thesaurus; and the sites ability to accommodate a wide variety of audio, video, and other supplementary material. WESTAF welcomes the following people as senior advisors to the project and looks forward to working with the group.

Following is a list of the members of the WESTAF Public Art Archive™ Senior Advisory Committee:

Jack Becker, Minneapolis, MN
Jack Becker is the founder and Executive Director of Forecast Public Art and the publisher of Public Art Review. Becker is the former program coordinator for the Art in Public Places program for the City of Minneapolis and former Arts Development Manager for the City of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Cameron Cartiere, Vancouver, BC Canada
Cameron Cartiere is Dean of Graduate Studies at Emily Carr University. She is the author of RE/Placing Public Art (2010), co-editor of The Practice of Public Art (2008), co-author of the Manifesto of Possibilities: Commissioning Public Art in the Urban Environment and author of the online resource, The International Directory of Sculpture Parks & Gardens (www.bbk.ac.uk/sculptureparks).

Erika Doss, South Bend, IN
Erika Doss is Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies, Notre Dame University. Doss is also author of numerous publications, including Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American Communities (1995), and Memorial Mania; Public Feeling in America (2010). In addition, Doss is the editor of the “Culture America” series at the University Press of Kansas and is on the editorial board of Memory Studies and Public Art Dialogue.

Greg Esser, Phoenix, AZ
Greg Esser is Associate Director of the Desert Initiative at Arizona State University. He has served as the  public art administrator for the public art commissioning public art agencies of Denver, Phoenix, and Los Angeles County. Esser is the former manager of the Public Art Network, a project of Americans for the Arts.

John Grant, Denver, CO
John Grant is a public art consultant and Creative Project Manager for The Lipski Group, Junoworks, and JGrantProjects, and Curator of the Anthony R. Mayer Collection. Grant formerly served as Director of Denver’s Public Art Program, Deputy Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Director/CEO of the Denver Center for Fine Photography, and Director/CEO of the Grant Gallery.

Cher Knight, Boston, MA
Cher Krause Knight is Associate Professor of Art History at Emerson College, where she focuses on modern and contemporary art and architecture. Knight authored the book Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism (2008, Blackwell Publishing). She is the co-founder of Public Art Dialogue, an international professional organization devoted to providing an interdisciplinary critical forum for the field. Knight also co-founded and co-edits the journal Public Art Dialogue, published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis. She is currently co-editing The Blackwell Companion to Public Art with Harriet F. Senie.

Marilu Knode, Saint Louis, MO
Marilu Knode is the Executive Director of the Laumeier Sculpture Park and Aronson Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Knode formerly served as Associate Director and Head of Research at Future Arts Research at Arizona State University. She is the former Senior Curator at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Visual Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Knode has an extensive record of lecture, panel, and jury activities, including: ArtForum Berlin, Yale School of Architecture, American University in Cairo, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Knode has written for several periodicals and institutions, including Art in America, Flash Art, and the New Art Examiner.

Jim McDonald, Seattle, WA
Jim McDonald is a Senior Program Officer at The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. McDonald is a founding board member of 4Culture and Vice Chair of the Artist Trust Board. He formerly served as Public Art Director for the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs; Curator and Manager of the Safeco Art Collection; Manager of Cultural Programs for the City of Kent, Washington; and Curator at the Tacoma Art Museum.

Nisa Mason, Austin, TX
Nisa Mason is responsible for conservation and maintenance of the Landmarks Preservation Guild’s public art collection. She manages acquisitions and commissions of new works and oversees general operations, public relations, marketing, and education programs. The Landmarks Preservation Guild offers students an opportunity to practice the care and maintenance of works of art in the Landmarks collection. Prior to joining Landmarks, Mason held development and administrative positions with several nonprofit organizations, including The San Antonio River Foundation.

Richard McCoy, Indianapolis, IN
Richard McCoy is Conservator of Objects & Variable Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. At the museum, McCoy leads efforts to conserve the artworks in the 100 Acres Art & Nature Park and throughout the museum’s varied properties. McCoy also serves on the program committee for the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art–North America. At INCCA–NA, he leads the effort to document Tony Smith’s artworks using Wikipedia with tools created by WikiProject: Public Art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Public_Art), a global documentation initiative he co-founded in his teaching in the Indiana University Purdue University–Indianapolis Museum Studies Program.

Elaine Paul, Boulder, CO
Elaine Paul is Director of the Art and Art History Visual Resources Center at the University of Colorado. Paul oversees a multimedia digital collection that is part of the University of Colorado’s Digital Library, which documents art, architecture, and other forms of visual culture. As a digital librarian and as chair and participant on various committees that built the University’s digital Library, she has experience establishing standards and best practices relating to metadata, digitization, copyright, and other considerations in the creation of digital collections. An active member of both the Visual Resources Association and the Art Libraries Society of North America, Paul has presented a number of papers at both organizations’ conferences on topics such as strategic planning, cross-campus collaborations, and social media.

Renee Piechocki, Pittsburgh, PA
Renee Piechocki is an artist and public art consultant. She is currently Director of the Office of Public Art, a partnership of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council and the Department of City Planning. Recent projects include a public art plan for the City of Charleston, West Virginia; and a public art strategy for the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy in Boston, Massachusetts, in collaboration with Jennifer McGregor. Piechocki collaborated with artist Tiffany Ludwig as part of Two Girls Working on a national, interview-based public art project “Trappings.” Their book, Trappings: Stories of Women, Power and Clothing, was published by Rutgers University Press in 2007.

Ruth Wallach, Los Angeles, CA
Ruth Wallach is the Head of the Architecture and Fine Arts Library at the University of Southern California. She maintains a website that catalogs public art in Los Angeles, http://www.publicartinla.com. Her master’s thesis in public art studies was titled “Re-Creating the City; Place-making Through Public Art.”  Wallach has written extensively on the topic of public art as a narrative layer of urbanity.

Contact: Rachel Cain, Public Art Archive™ Manager Rachel.Cain@westaf.org  |  PublicArtArchive.org

The Public Art Archive™ is a project of WESTAF, a nonprofit arts organization.  To learn more about WESTAF, please visit the website at WESTAF.org.

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