Percent for Art : Houlton Courthouse

PERCENT FOR ART COMPETITION PROSPECTUS:

OVERVIEW: Houlton Court House

The Maine Arts Commission is making a call to all artists living in Maine to submit proposals to design, create and install artwork at the-Houlton Court House in Houlton, Maine. Total project budget is approximately $15,000; submission deadline is November 9, 2009.

The Percent for Art law in Maine reserves one percent of the construction funds for all state-funded building projects to provide art work for the public areas of these buildings and /or their exterior renovations and additions.

BACKGROUND:

The Houlton Court House, listed on the National Historic Registry, was built in 1852 in an Italianate Colonial Revival style. A major renovation to the second and third floor interior of the building was recently completed. The finished space was designed to compliment and preserve the building?s historic character while accommodating a fully modern courthouse function for today?s needs.

The Percent for Art Committee is calling for proposals for the second floor of the building including the hallways outside the Clerk's Office and the two courtrooms. The committee is also interested in art for the courtrooms.

The first courtroom is a small, intimate room where family law is practiced. Art will be considered for the wall behind the bench, the back wall, and the side wall with windows. It is the committee's request that the artwork be sensitive to the purpose of this courtroom and has a calming affect.

The second, larger courtroom functions for all other legal matters before the Court, serving the broadest needs of the people and the community. Art work will be considered for the large wall behind the bench and the two long side walls. The back wall of the courtroom will display historical portraits of prominent past members of the Judiciary. The artwork should reflect the broader use, stature and the significance of how the Court functions for all the people.

Photographs of all areas for consideration and the dimensions for those spaces are available on the Maine Arts website at http://mainearts.maine.gov/public/percent/Site_Documentation/HoultonSite.pdf. Any or all of these spaces may be considered.

If you have questions about the architectural elements, the architect representative for this project is Mark Carter and he can be can be contacted at: northpeak@mfx.net. All other questions can be directed to Alison Ferris, Assistant Director of the Maine Arts Commission at: alison.ferris@maine.gov

PROJECT BUDGET

There are approximately $15,000 in Percent for Art funds available for this project. These funds will be used to commission work(s) from a single artist or artist team. An artist budget proposal must cover all design, fabrication, transportation, documentation and installation expenses, including any building or site modifications associated with the artwork.

SELECTION PROCESS

A Percent for Art selection committee of five members will jury submissions for the project. The committee will review the materials to determine whom to invite for a second round of evaluation. Artists selected for the second round will receive a $500 design fee for refining their proposals. Final proposals will include detailed models, drawings, renderings, and samples of work and/or materials depending on the nature of the proposal. All finalists will present their final proposals to the committee in person. Please do not submit detailed models, drawings, samples, or final proposals for the first round of the selection process.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE

All professional artists who work in Maine may apply for consideration to this project. Artists who are employees of the Houlton Court are ineligible for Percent for Art projects at the location where they are employed, as are members of the selection committee and their immediate families. The project is open to all artists age 18 and over, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, military status, sexual orientation, marital status, or physical disabilities. Artist teams are eligible to apply, including teams of artists from multiple disciplines. Contact Alison Ferris at the Maine Arts Commission with questions at 207-287-2710 or alison.ferris@maine.gov.

DEADLINE

November 9, 2009 at midnight is the deadline for submission of preliminary materials. Materials received after this time may be excluded from consideration. Materials are usually evaluated within a month of the deadline and all applicants are notified shortly thereafter of the committee decisions.

MATERIALS NEEDED IN INITIAL SUBMISSION

-A current concise resume (sent as an email attachment or on a CD).

-A brief written proposal (sent as an email attachment or on a CD) describing your work and what you plan to do to address the potential art area(s). Write approximately one page about what your concept and approach will be in addressing the public art space(s) of the site. Please do not submit detailed models, drawings, samples, or final proposals for this round of the selection process. A simple sketch may be included to clarify your idea if necessary, but it is not encouraged. Emailed documents must be sent as attachments, not embedded in the email.

-A rough budget estimate (sent as an email attachment or on a CD) to give the committee an idea of your general compensation expectations. A precise budget will be requested for those invited to the second round of evaluation.

-Five digital images of your recent work (sent as an email attachment or on a CD) resolution of 96 dpi at a minimum of 5 x 7 inches. Jpg or pdf format no larger than 1.5MB per image. If an artist team or artist organization applies, they may only submit five images for all artists. The optional proposal sketch does not count as an image.

-A list of the submitted images (sent as an email attachment or on a CD) identifying title, artist, medium, size, location, and other pertinent information about the image submissions.

All submissions should be in digital form. Document files should be in pdf or doc formats, image files in pdf or jpg formats. Name each image file with your last name first and name of the document, e.g.: ferris_alison_resume.doc. To have your images viewed in a certain order you can number them, e.g.: ferris_alison_1_Title of the work.jpg. Use underscores to separate words in file name, not punctuation. Please make sure submissions are labeled correctly, that you identify the Percent for Art call you are applying to, and that your name, address and other contact information is in every document. Improperly submitted or incomplete submissions may not be accepted.

HOW TO SUBMIT MATERIALS

Emailed materials should be sent to:

alison.ferris@maine.gov

For email, please write: Houlton Court House, in the subject line. Please attach all images and documents to the email, embedded images or documents written in the body of the email will not be accepted. Please send document files as Word docs or pdf's and image files as jpg's or pdf's.

Mailed materials should be addressed to:

Percent for Art Competition: Houlton Court House

C/o Alison Ferris, Assistant Director

Maine Arts Commission

193 State Street, 25 SHS

Augusta, ME 04333-0025

Contact Information

Contact: Alison Ferris
Phone: 207/287-2710
Email: alison.ferris@maine.gov