The city’s arts commission is busy creating opportunities for visual artists
By Ken Magri
The Chico Arts Commission, or CAC, is looking for artists, ideas and money for several projects intended to revitalize the city’s appearance in 2025. Paintings, graphic designs and proposals for an installation sculpture are being sought for three new public art projects. Concepts for design and funding streams are also being sought for a fourth memorial project.
“Art is good business,” said CAC Commissioner Monica McDaniel. “Art brings much needed funding into the community.”
Composed of seven appointed members with four-year terms, the CAC “makes recommendations to the Council regarding the public art program, the yearly allocation of grant funds to arts organizations and the marketing of Chico as an arts and culture destination,” according to the city’s charter.
Here are the four new opportunities for artists that are ongoing and upcoming.
Call for utility box designs
The CAC has sent out a call for artists until December 18th, to submit proposals for what’s called the “Utility Box Art Program.”
Cities across America have embraced the idea of utility box art. Using inkjet or sometimes silkscreen printing, artworks are transferred onto a 0.05 mm sheet of vinyl, cut into the proper shape and fitted onto the metal boxes. Similar to the promotional wraps one sees on vehicles, these are designed to last for ten years.
The first designs are scheduled to be placed within Chico’s historic downtown area, with the desire to extend the program throughout the city limits, according to the city’s October press release.
The proposed artwork should generally reflect the character of Chico and be appropriate for public display. Once the application process has concluded, the CAC will select the first entries for the utility box wraps.
This type of public art project is relatively inexpensive, gives artists new opportunities, helps beautify neighborhoods and makes the large metal boxes around Chico less of a target for graffiti taggers.
To cover the costs, the Utility Box Art Program is being sponsored by several donations.
For more information on how to apply as an artist, or how to sponsor a utility box, contact Deborah R. Presson, City Clerk’s Office at 530-896-7250.
Replacing the Silver Plow sculpture on Park Avenue
The Silver Plow sculpture is coming down, due to an alleged bad choice of materials, neglect and perhaps a lack of love.
This large public sculpture on the median strip at Park Avenue and Meyers Street was created by Seattle-based sculptor John T. Young. Using large basalt columns, the abstract shapes represent a farmer, his plow and a team of horses, pulled in different directions by steel tension bars.
Commissioned in 2001 for $130,000, the sculpture salutes Chico’s agricultural heritage and was intended to serve as a visual gateway into the city. But the placement of Silver Plow, parallel to Park Avenue instead of perpendicular, makes it hard to view when driving past.
As the plants in the median strip died off and the basalt began to crumble, the News & Review editors in 2009 voted Steel Plow one of the city’s public art “eyesores.”
Word of its replacement surprised the artist when the News & Review asked for a quote. “I have not been informed of the city’s decision by any representative of the City of Chico,” said Young. The sculptor said that when he visited the sculpture around ten years ago it already showed signs of deterioration and poor maintenance by the city. Young called it the “worst maintained” among two dozen other public sculptures he has created.
For its part, Commissioner McDaniel said the artist used a type of rebar steel which created decades-old rust issues that started to break the basalt apart. The CAC tried to contact Young for several years about maintenance, but he never responded, according to McDaniel.
Rather than refurbish it, the city aims to replace the sculpture with another approved design, funded by a California Department of Transportation art project grant of $150,000.
A California-based artist is preferred for the new sculpture, and maintenance estimates are among the specifications. The application requires both a “projected lifespan” estimate and a “proposed maintenance, access plan for maintenance to include if necessary, traffic control and maintenance schedule.”
The CAC is accepting proposals until 5pm on November 22, 2024. A link to the press release with proper application guidelines can be found here.
COBA returns to downtown
Between 2001 and 2007, Chico had a unique public art program called Chico Open Board Art, also known as COBA. This program placed works by local artists into metal outdoor frames that were affixed to a building in the downtown area.
Organizers of the project invited 20 artists each to paint a 4′ X 4′ board (provided by the organizers). Choice of theme and media was left up to the artists.
“Those 20 boards were displayed at different community events (i.e Thursday Night Market) all summer and the public voted for their four favorites,” said Mary Gardner, who chaired the CAC at the time. “The four top vote getters were permanently installed on a wall downtown.”
Gardner said that the sixteen remaining works “were auctioned at a gala event as a means of funding subsequent COBA projects.”
But the program lost its city funding in 2007, and local businesses hosting the framed artworks did not want to pay for their continued maintenance. Although popular with the public, the artworks went away.
“No longer will people be able to gather at the Thursday Night Market to vote for their favorite paintings or bid the auctions where the paintings eventually were sold,” wrote the Chico News & Review back in June, 2007.
Now the COBA frames are coming back.
“We are excited about collaboration with the Downtown Chico Business Association and others in order to see the COBA boxes return,” said Arts Commissioner Katie Posey. The project is still in progress and no firm dates have been set for a call to artists.
Until then local artists are encouraged to imagine their next artwork as a 4’ by 4’ design.
Ideas/funding needed for a Jackson Pollock memorial
The CAC is also accepting ideas for a fitting memorial to Jackson Pollock, the famous abstract expressionist painter who lived in Chico as a child in the 1910s.
At its September 17th meeting, the city council unanimously approved the idea, right before tossing a damp towel onto it by requesting that no city funds be used for the project. CAC Commissioner Katie Posey reassured them, “We’re not going to take money from the pothole funding stream for the Jackson Pollock funding stream.”
While the CAC held its initial meeting on a Pollock memorial, nothing has been decided about how best to pursue it. The commission wants to hear ideas from Chico residents, including possible grants or other funding streams that are outside the city budget. For more information call Ms. Presson in the City Clerk’s Office at (530) 896-7251.
“I’m thrilled at how these projects the commission approved are helping to fulfill Objective 3 of the master arts plan,” said Posie, “which is to expand the city’s role in providing works of art in public places.”
“The COBA boards, the gateway art pieces, collaborations with the DCBA to revive Artoberfest, these are all just drops in the bucket, of what Chico could be, what Chico should be doing much more of in 2025 and beyond,” said McDaniel.
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