HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/21/2020 Item 15, Papp
Tonikian, Victoria
From:James Papp <jamesralphpapp@hotmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, January
To:E-mail Council Website
Cc:CityClerk
Subject:Letter on proposed public art amendment from 20 artists, arts administrators,
architects, historians, business owners, and other Obispans
The SLO City Council has proposed this change to our public art policy: “The City shall
accept a ‘Work of Art’ that commemorates ideas, ideals and concepts – not
individual and actual people.”
We reject this attempt by the council to restrict how our community may remember and
interpret our past. A community is made of its “actual people.” Its suffering, its heroism,
and its progress are the suffering, heroism, and progress of actual people—be they 9/11’s
first responders, the victims of Japanese relocation, or Rosario Cooper, who rescued the
Northern Chumash language. This attempt to erase human beings from our past will
censor our artists and police our thoughts and emotions. No government has ever
attempted to purge people from the sphere of public space and public memory. To make
San Luis Obispo the prototype of this dehumanizing policy brings international
embarrassment to our community.
Cynthia Meyer, Artist
Lynn Hessler, Artist
Gini Griffin, Artist
Robin Mize, Artist
Donna Hoff, Artist
Bobbye West-Thompson, Artist
Richard Ayres, Photographer
Shane VerPlanck, Photographer
Basil Jenkins, former Director, Fowler Museum, UCLA
Robert Inchausti, Professor of Literature, Cal Poly
John Ashbaugh, History Instructor, Hancock College, and former Council Member, City of
SLO
David Brodie, Emeritus Professor of Architecture and City Planning, Cal Poly
Allan Cooper, Emeritus Professor of Architecture, Cal Poly
David Hannings, Emeritus Professor of Horticulture, Cal Poly
James Papp, Architectural Historian and Member, Cultural Heritage Committee, City of
SLO
Thomas Wheeler, Archaeologist
Patrick Michelsen, Construction Worker/Linnaea’s Barista
Gordon Bosserman, Of Counsel, Andre, Morris, & Buttery
Alex Gough, Adobe Realty, Sauer-Adams Adobe
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Anne Gough, Business Owner, Yarns at the Adobe, Sauer-Adams Adobe
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