The City of Morgan Hill is inviting residents to help shape the future of public art in their community through a comprehensive master plan that will guide artistic installations for years to come.
City officials launched the public engagement process with the first of two workshops June 3, where Morgan Hill Library, Culture and Arts Commission members met with the community to discuss the preliminary approach for developing the master plan.
“The purpose of this workshop is to talk about vision and goals for the public art master plan,” said Edith Ramirez, Assistant City Manager for community development. “The public art master plan is a document that helps the city identify how we move forward with public art in the community. It sets the vision, it sets the path and the intention.”
The master plan will establish strategies and guidelines that influence how various city departments integrate public art into their work, from parks and environmental services to city planning projects.
Early community feedback shows strong support for permanent art installations that reflect the area’s agricultural heritage and natural beauty. A survey that has been live for just over two weeks has already generated 90 responses, according to John Lang, Morgan Hill’s housing and economic mobility director.
“People are very interested in having permanent art,” Lang said. “There is some desire to have a little bit of temporary art, but the preference is to have more permanent art, things that aren’t going to be going away any time soon. [Respondents] definitely want the art to reflect the beauty of the community, and help beautify the community.”
Initial survey results have skewed heavily toward respondents age 40 and older. In an effort to balance this, the commission has conducted targeted outreach to youth centers, including the Boys and Girls Club of Morgan Hill, Ann Sobrato High School and the CRC teen center.
The youth outreach generated 94 submissions from students ages 11-18, with murals emerging as the top priority.
“Everyone said murals are really important to them,” said Suman Ganapathy, member of the Library, Culture, and Arts Commission. “One submission said, ‘More murals, people don’t know the beauty they bring!’”
Young respondents also emphasized cultural representation, suggesting “a mural representing all cultures in Morgan Hill” and calling for more Asian art, Hispanic art and other cultural artwork.
The master plan development comes as the city prepares to implement a new funding mechanism for public art. Last year, the city council approved an in-lieu fee for art policy, requiring developers of new projects to either install public art or pay a fee to fund city-commissioned artwork.
“We don’t have the money right now, but the policy that will generate the revenue is already in place,” Ramirez said. “It will take maybe a couple of years to generate enough revenue to commission a work of art; it will probably require a little bit of runway, but the system to generate the revenue is in place.”
The master plan will serve as the guiding document for city-commissioned artwork, providing artists with a clear sense of community identity and values.
“When the city has a couple hundred thousand dollars, and we’re going to go out and ask an artist to create something, the Public Art Master Plan is supposed to guide that artist, and give the artist a sense of who we are and what are the things that we value,” Ramirez said.
To encourage broader community participation, the city will station a 7-foot-tall community chalkboard at strategic locations where residents can draw examples of the public art they’d like to see. The chalkboard will be positioned at the Centennial Recreation Center, 171 West Edmundson Ave., throughout the month starting June 6; then it will be moved to the Morgan Hill Community Library, 660 West Main Ave., through the month of July.
The second master plan workshop, scheduled for 6pm July 1, will focus on concrete objectives and strategies while identifying specific locations for future public art installations.
Residents can continue participating in the online survey throughout the master plan development process. The survey and additional information about upcoming meetings are available on the city’s website, morganhill.ca.gov/980/Public-Art.
“Public art is such an important element of this community’s wellbeing, and we want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to provide feedback, so that it is reflective of the community and what they want to see,” Ramirez said.
Calvin Nuttall is a Morgan Hill-based freelance reporter.
