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OUR PROGRAM
The CACHH Civic Art & Design program solicits
and facilitates the inclusion of artist–designed functional enhancements
in otherwise ordinary elements of the urban infrastructure. By managing
the work of artists as members of the design teams that work to build
the city’s operational fabric—bridges, sidewalks, parks, memorials,
fountains, airports, and even signage—the Civic Art & Design
program brings artists’ strengths to bear on the mundane, helping
to enliven the workaday, and injecting the unexpected into the ordinary.
Artists’ contributions of meaning and beauty, ambiguity and clarity
are compensated through professional contracts that make work on civic
art projects an effective earned-income venture for artists, providing
an important and practical addition to the traditional avenues of gallery
sales, commissions and teaching that provide income for working artists.
The work of the Civic Art & Design program also permits (and promotes)
the model of creative collaboration. It is often said that Houston is
a city of neighborhoods, and when projects are proposed for an area,
CACHH considers imperative the solicitation of input and participation
from the project’s future neighbors. When neighborhood representatives
are given the chance to participate in the design process for a new
bridge, or a new park, or even a coordinated program of streetlights
and signage, the project can become a source of pride, and a marker
of community identity.
Department staff work extensively on the front-end of each project and
collaboration. In every case, the scope of work to be executed, and
the process by which artists are selected, is tailored for the requirements
of the specific project.
Civic Art & Design in the
Public Sector
With principle funding from the City of Houston’s “Percent
For Art” ordinance (passed 1999, and requiring a certain percentage
of the budgets of City capital improvement projects to be set aside
for artistic enhancements), CACHH Civic Art & Design works extensively
with the City of Houston, and City departments including Parks &
Recreation, Convention & Entertainment Facilities, the Houston Airport
System, the Health Department, the Fire Department, Public Works and
Engineering, and others. In addition, the department works with Harris
County, the Texas Department of Transportation, and the Metropolitan
Transit Authority (METRO).
Civic Art & Design in the
Private Sector
The Civic Art & Design program also works in consultation and under
contract with businesses and organizations in the private sector. These
entities include Keep Houston Beautiful, the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment
Corporation, the Old Sixth Ward Historic Association, the University
of Houston, Central Houston Civic Improvement, the Houston Downtown
Management District, DiverseWorks Artspace, the Art League of Houston,
Project Row Houses, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the O’Kane Gallery
and others.
General Services
CACHH Civic Art & Design provides a resource library for use by
artists and design professionals, and maintains a slide library of work
by artists working
in (and interested in working in) the field of civic art. Department
staff present slide lectures for interested parties, and sponsor and
co-sponsor workshops and lectures on the challenges, potential, and
nature of civic art collaborations. CACHH Civic Art & Design also
participates actively in the national dialogue
on civic and public art, through publications, conference participation
and advisory relationships.
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