Notes from the field
Practical writing on stewarding public art.
Why the Map Comes First
Cities invest in public art, but struggle to help people find it. Here's the case for opening the guide directly to a map, and what your team can learn from seeing the whole collection in context.
How to Evaluate Public Art Mapping Software
Most programs never run a formal procurement for deciding on a public art mapping software. Here's what to compare, some details on cost, and questions you should ask yourself before you decide.
How to Inventory a Public Art Collection
Most programs run on a spreadsheet that drifts out of date over time. Here's a practical way to turn what you have into a real catalog, one record at a time.
What It Costs to Run a Public Art Guide
Every conversation about a public art guide reaches the budget question, and it deserves a straight answer. We don't publish a price list, and this essay explains what would be on it if we could: a scoped onboarding priced by the state of your records, a subscription that keeps the guide running for years, and the places programs usually find the money.
How to Evaluate Public Art Mapping Software
Most programs never run a formal procurement for deciding on a public art mapping software. Here's what to compare, some details on cost, and questions you should ask yourself before you decide.
Ten Ideas for Your Next Public Art Tour
The hard part of a public art tour isn't the walking, it's finding a handful of works that belong together. Here are ten ideas for a public art tour you can set up, from a twenty-minute lunch loop to a full afternoon on a bike path.
What Happens When Public Art Goes Away
While an artwork is standing, you can photograph it, measure it, and assess its condition when you choose. Once it's gone, you have only what somebody wrote down. Plenty of public art was never meant to stay, so treat the location in your art catalog as something changeable, even if it's in a "permanent" location.
Where Is It, Actually? Pinning Public Art on a Map
Six decimal places on a coordinate describes eleven centimeters of detail about a measurement your phone can only make to within five meters. Precision was the part that was already solved. What actually stops someone finding an artwork is that it sits indoors, the gate is locked on weekends, or the piece moved last spring. Here is what to capture, which point on the artwork to pin, and why access hours belong in the record.
How to Photograph Public Art for Documentation
In a public art guide, an artwork's photos pull a lot of weight. You'll want a full-page hero, a map thumbnail, a representation of the art piece's condition, and—if available—a plaque photo. Here is what to shoot while photographing public art.
How to Document Public Art When You Don't Know the Artist
A photo, a pin, a measurement, and the date you stood there make a real record, even without an artist's name or the date of installation. Here's why incomplete documentation beats none at all.
How to Inventory a Public Art Collection
Most programs run on a spreadsheet that drifts out of date over time. Here's a practical way to turn what you have into a real catalog, one record at a time.
Why the Map Comes First
Cities invest in public art, but struggle to help people find it. Here's the case for opening the guide directly to a map, and what your team can learn from seeing the whole collection in context.
Introducing Civic Collection
We've been building map-first public art guides for a while, but we've now put a name to it: Civic Collection. Here's an overview of what an art guide includes, what we learned from building the Calgary Public Art Guide with Calgary Arts Development, and why it's worth it for your city to organize your public art records.
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