BANGOR, Maine — The City Council approved a $1,000 matching grant for controversial floating artwork planned for the Kenduskeag Stream this summer.
The 8-1 vote during the council’s regular Monday night meeting makes Anna Hepler, a respected Eastport artist, Bangor’s first recipient of an Individual Artist Grant. She will work to secure the additional $5,000 or $6,000 needed to build the installation.
The floating sculpture, which she described as an abstract-form buoy, would serve as part of her exhibition with the University of Maine Museum of Art. The museum’s director, George Kinghorn, encouraged Hepler to apply for an Individual Artist Grant through the city.
Hepler cautioned the rendering she submitted to the city, which depicts one angle of the abstract 3-D piece, was only a proposal and could change in appearance based on funding constraints, available materials or how she is feeling when she is creating it.
That rendering sparked a lively debate on social media, drawing criticisms from a few different camps: those who didn’t like the design based on that one image, those who thought it looked like female genitalia and those who felt the city shouldn’t be spending $1,000 on public art with a difficult budget season looming.
Councilor Ben Sprague, the lone “no” vote, was in the last group. He expressed concern that leaders in Augusta would see this as an unnecessary expense and use it against the city as it pushes to have revenue sharing restored in the coming budget season. He said his vote had nothing to do with the aesthetics of the sculpture.
“We’re in a unique fiscal environment right now, where every expense is being looked at with a fine-tooth comb,” Sprague said.
The $1,000 comes from the Commission for Cultural Development’s budget of $10,000, which the council allocated to promote and grow arts and cultural offerings in the city. In that sense, this grant is nothing extra and is being used for the purpose for which it was assigned.
Councilor Joe Baldacci argued lawmakers might not be swayed from the portion of Gov. Paul LePage’s proposed budget that eliminates municipal revenue sharing, so the city shouldn’t cull its support for the arts because of concern about how it might be perceived in the state capital.
For the Bangor arts community, which turned out in force Monday night and packed the council chamber, this issue was about much more than a small grant or the comments criticizing the proposed design.
The arts have taken a significant funding hit in Bangor in recent years, as budget constraints have forced the city to tighten its belt. In 2011, the Commission for Cultural Development had a $25,000 budget. This year, it’s down to just $10,000.
Councilor Sean Faircloth decried the “misplaced perception” that the rendering submitted with the application accurately represents what the finished, 3-D product would look like. He also said the city can’t allow comments on Facebook and the Bangor Daily News website to hold sway over good public arts advocacy.
“Government by Facebook does not strike me as judicious,” Faircloth said.
Sprague said that in spite of being on the losing side of the vote, he would be there this summer when the installation is lowered into the water to celebrate a new addition to Bangor’s public arts.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter @nmccrea213.