A downtown St. Albert mural is set to be taken off display and put into storage, council learned in December.
The mural, called Healthy Communities, was commissioned by the city and done by local artist Bella Totino-Busby in 1998. The piece depicts two people walking a dog while other people swim in a nearby river. For the past 24 years, the mural has adorned the south-facing wall of 12A Perron Street, the current location of Wildrose Dental.
The city's existing contract with the owner of 12A Perron Street is coming to an end, and when the city went to create a new agreement with the owner this fall, the owner requested the city pay a fee for the mural's continued display, a report to council written by Andrea Bowes, a public art associate and registrar for the city, reads.
A representative from Nguyen Scott LLP, the company that owns 12A Perron Street, was unavailable to comment.
“The owner is open to [negotiating] a fee at below market value, [with] market value for the space being $350.00 a week for a total of $18,200 per year,” Bowes wrote.
However, since “fees for the display of public art are not normal practice as art does not elicit direct measurable income for any party,” Bowes' report says the city's citizen-based Arts Development Advisory Committee (ADAC) decided last month not to move forward with entering into a lease with the building owner to display the mural.
The ADAC's decision also took into consideration, Bowes wrote, that if the city were to pay to display a piece of public art, it would mean the city would have less money available for any potential maintenance of other public art pieces or to take on any future public art projects. As well, entering into a lease agreement to display public art might set a precedent, which could lead to a “reduced ability to meet the objectives of the public art policy.”
“We, as a committee, considered it a privilege to have an art piece at your facility because it draws people, it's a nice thing to have downtown, so, [the committee] decided that it should be moved to a location where it can be fully appreciated,” Coun. Shelley Biermanski said. Biermanski serves as a non-voting council representative on the ADAC.
According to Bowes' report, city staff will remove the mural from the building and move it into storage sometime early next year, after which the piece will be examined for any potential need for repairs or conservation work before being available for installation elsewhere.
“Our weather can be tough on pieces like that,” Biermanski said, adding that while the full scope of repairs isn't known, it will definitely need cleaning.
Artist Totino-Busby said the fact the mural has been displayed downtown for as long as it has is a real accomplishment.
“When the mural was installed, my arrangement with them was that the mural had to look OK for five years,” she said. “That was the goal.”
“It's outside, [and with] the sun and UV and all that, you don't expect them to last, but obviously it lasted a lot longer than that.”
Totino-Busby said over the years she was only asked to do some maintenance work on the mural's wood frame, and that was roughly eight years ago.
The Healthy Communities mural was also the first major piece of public art in Totino-Busby's career, and since the turn of the millennium she and her husband Verne Busby have produced a handful of pieces for other Albertan cities.
“I can't even remember how I found out about it,” Totino-Busby said of the city's call for proposals in 1998. “I just designed something, sent it in with my information and my [resume] and I remember being away in Red Deer at Red Deer College because I was in their summer program, and my husband phoned and he was like, 'you got the mural!'”
“The city was great, they had a setup for me and some room, because it takes a lot of space to do a big piece like that, and I think it took me a month, maybe a bit more, going every day.”
Totino-Busby said if the city displays the mural again she hopes it's somewhere where people can take a closer look at the piece so the different layers of paint can really be seen.
“After all these years, I don't know how it looks, but colour-wise it always held up.”
