Let the dialogue continue!
Christine Marie Davis has already posted a response to Michael Paglia's "Ridiculous Dialog: City" blog. But she expanded on that response in a letter that we're posting here -- in the spirit of a true and open Dialog dialogue:
When I received the notice I was stunned for all the same reasons you have written about. But here is the thing that hit me personally as a local Colorado artist.
For months, I have been contacting all sorts of arts and city organizations to line up debut venue for my public art project, the "Pet-o-Mat" -- a mini museum of tactile art, funded by the Black Rock Arts Foundation. I have been working on this piece for a year. It is the first of its kind and I am the first Colorado artist to receive Black Rock funding. Most of the materials used in the piece are found and reycled - or green, including a used vending machine. The piece is interactive, touchable and intended to reach audiences that do not normally attend art museums. It is specifially designed to invite DIALOG, interaction and inquiry, and those goals were written into my grant proposal. All of these merits apparently are of absolutely no interest to city and state arts/cultural organizations.
After months of contacting the Office of Cultural Affairs, Colorado Council for the Arts, SCFD, Westaff, DIA, Denver Visitors Bureau, Denver Public Library, COLA, Downtown Denver Partnership, Republic Plaza, Wellington Webb Building and more, I have not been able to locate a venue in Denver and at this point I am just going round and round so that I am forced to begin looking at private venues or going outside of Denver.
It is unbelievably sad that the city cannot get behind Colorado artists when innovative, timely and appropriate projects are sitting right in their own backyard.
Any ideas, help or suggestions you may have to help locate a venue would be appreciated I have quotes from people I contacted; most are things like "I am sorry, but we don't have any information that will help you."
For more on Davis's projects, go to www.tactileart.com or www.pet-o-mat.com.
