“As
part of the general ed requirements for physical education, I took a modern
dance class. That bug bit me so I started taking more dance classes and
decided I had to get out of Oklahoma. I remember getting a copy of the San
Francisco Chronicle one weekend and I was reading about the symphony and
the ballet and everything that was going on.” So he, along with his cousin,
loaded up his 1960 Chevy Bel Air and hit the road for California. “It looked
just like the Joads in Grapes of Wrath – the back seats were full and we
had stuff tied to the top of the car.”
Somehow they ended up in Mountain View, California and that’s where
Glenn stayed – for the time being. He started framing pictures to earn
money to pay for dancing lessons at the local community college. “I took
some summer workshops with Bill Evans in Seattle and I started meeting people
in that workshop. Ririe Woodbury came to the DeAnza Community College in
Cupertino and taught a master class.” Glenn eventually moved to San Francisco
with the Paul Scardina Dance Company. Not long after, he decided it was
time to finish his degree. The University of Utah had a reputation for being
a great dance school, so Glenn came to Salt Lake and earned a BFA in modern
dance. But he wasn’t here to settle just yet. “I moved to New York and danced
for Clay Taliaferro who I met here in Utah. Then I got a job with Hanna
Kahn – a pretty reputable company. But every year her NEA grant would get
smaller. It got too hard to survive.”
Glenn’s struggles with budget cuts and surviving as a dancer has
helped him understand the plight of many artists who have to take up odd
jobs to pay the bills. “I heard about what I thought was a picture-framing
job – but turned out to be with an art consulting company called Viart. I
was hired as their framing consultant.” What he thought was going to be
a side job to supplement his income became a full-time job that opened up
different kinds of opportunities. “All of a sudden I was using my art history
training again and learning about contemporary art. I crossed over into
project management and oversaw shipping, installations, and database management
and ended up doing that for 13 years. And then, in 1992 I got cancer.”
Glenn endured chemotherapy, radiation and surgery to treat his cancer.
When he came out on the other side, he decided he needed to check his priorities.
Living in New York City was too hard and he wanted to enjoy life more.
He wanted to be able to relax, hike and camp. He wanted to travel for pleasure
rather than work. But it took him two and a half years to get out of New
York before he moved back to Utah. He continued doing freelance work for
Viart, but every time business slowed down he got nervous and worried about
insurance. So he decided to take a more practical route in the art field.
“I saw a notice for a position at the Utah Arts Council for the
assistant coordinator in the Arts Education office. I was lucky enough
to be hired by Jean Irwin. That was a good way for me to establish connections
in the arts community. Soon after, the Public Art Coordinator position
opened up and that was actually closer to what I had been doing for the
past 15 years; doing project management for corporate clients, commissioning
artists to do work, etc.”
Working
in state government has been a different challenge for Glenn, coming from
the private sector. He was used to working with CEOs and top executives.
“It was easier to go through a stack of artwork because you were working
with a small group of people. In the public funded projects it’s all done
by committee. I had to learn how to act instead as a moderator and help the
committee see what the artist is proposing. I have to make them understand
how important their decision is because they’re impacting a broad spectrum
of people with a broad spectrum of tastes. It’s a challenge selecting strong
and important work without compromising the impact so it pleases a larger
group of people. You don’t want it to be watered down.”
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Glenn
explains that not all visual artists can be public artists. “A lot of artists
thrive on the challenge of public art and really like that dialog and coming
back and forth with ideas and the challenge of trying to make a connection
with a very institutional building and the community it’s situated in.
But then there are other artists that really resent that intrusion into
their process. It’s different from solitary studio life. It’s a very civic
process.”
Because the artist is being commissioned to meet the needs of a community
and a committee, the artwork can sometimes trigger controversy. The best
way to avoid that is to include the artist early on in the process with
the architect and the committee members. Early collaboration also makes for
the most successful public art pieces – successful, meaning in tune with
the community and the facility. “We’re working with the AIA of Utah and other
state agencies to make artists more involved in the design team. That’s hard
to do when a lot of people consider the art as a mere decoration rather than
an integral part of the building.”
Most arts administrators share the challenge of acting as an intermediary
between artists and the public – especially those working in the public
realm. It can be difficult to communicate to artists that there are limitations
when it comes to bureaucracy and it can be difficult to communicate to
bureaucrats and civic committees the impact and necessity art has in a
community. But when you find someone like Jim Glenn who is well versed
in the arts and can also speak the legislative language, you are in good
hands.
“Once you’ve tasted that angst and joy of creating, it’s hard to let
go of it. Maybe that’s why people like me choose this career so we can stay
in the arts but still make a living. There are a lot of stereotypical things
said about artists, like they’re difficult and irresponsible, but that
can be said about any group of people. It’s just a different circumstance.
People that are creative aren’t necessarily worried about how many pieces
of paper come in the fax.”
Glenn’s assistant, Fletcher Booth, is actually a practicing artist
who splits his time between teaching art at Weber State and working for
the Public Art Program. When asked how it is to have an artist as his administrative
assistant, Glenn jokingly replies, “Now that’s a different story! No,
it’s really great having a practicing artist as part of the staff. He’s
more in tune with the community than I am, and also he has a good way of
looking at things that I may not have thought of. That creative nature
that he has applies to his work as well. I just have to double check the
fax pages.”
As far as the Public Art Program is concerned, Glenn has both hopes
and fears for what can happen. “Sometimes in this bureaucracy they say
‘what would you do if your budget were cut by 30 percent?’ – and that’s
a really hard thing to do. And then they ask ‘what if it was increased by
30 percent?’ Once, a couple years ago they asked ‘if money was no object
what would you do?’ It was almost too much to handle; it was scary. It was
so overwhelming because we’re not used to thinking that freely.”
In an ideal world, Glenn would love to fund public art happenings
where a group of artists come together regularly and talk about creating
a public art community that would last for a month or two. “I would make
it more of a vibe – a lively program rather than one where you had to find
materials to create something permanent.”
In the meantime, Jim Glenn continues to fight for public art in Utah.
He works with artists, administrators and legislators to make it happen.
To keep himself sane, he continues to take dance classes. “That’s the art
form that feeds my soul so I can keep myself happy. I hope my experience
in dance and performing arts along with my experience in the visual arts
can help me see art with a broader perspective. The performing arts gives
me a sensibility about time and space and texture and the same properties
in visual arts can help me see different things in dance. So hopefully
a wide variety in my background creates a broader view of the arts in general.”
The Utah Arts Council's Public
Art Program
is housed in the Rio Gallery facility at the Rio Grand Depot. The
Utah Public Art Program maintains slide images of artists' work in all visual
media that are interested in public art commissions. To be included in the
slide bank
download an online registration form
.
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Public Art Success
Some public art pieces are more successful than others. The Children’s
Clinic up at the University of Utah is fortunate to have three successful
pieces. It was a challenge because the committee wanted art that was friendly
and geared towards children, but the parents and guardians also spent a
lot of time in the building and so their needs were taken into consideration
as well. “The three artists they chose really addressed that whole gamut
of trying to soften and humanize a building that was mostly concrete and glass.”
Allen Bishop was commissioned to create paintings to be hung at the
entry foyer. His work consists of shaped paintings based on children’s
drawings of what it feels like to be sick and get well again. Allen’s
experience as an artist and his experience working with children brought
a sophistication and childlike quality to the work. The colors in the
building were very cold, so Bishop’s bright colors automatically changed
the feel of the building. The committee also chose a textile artist from
Oregon who designed some colorful and diaphanous fabric pieces that hang
from the ceiling of the rotunda. They not only add color, but they add kinetic
movement to the space as they move slightly with the air currents of the
building. “I imagine some children that are bed bound or have to lay back
coming in the building and they get to see those right away rather than the
cement, glass and steel.” The third commissioned artist is a photographer
who does hand colored images of physically challenged children and their
families in every day situations. “Last time I was up there the receptionist
said those were the favorite of the adults because they could relate to the
pieces and see themselves in the situations, or just laugh at their children
playing.”
Another successful public art piece is a sculptural installation by
Robert Sindorf at the State Library and Division of Services for the Blind.
“The piece is visually sophisticated, beautiful in its material and technical
carving, but it also has strong visual content and shadow and light for
people who are partially sighted. It was designed mostly for people who
do not have sight to experience it through touch so the artist created smooth
surfaces, rough surfaces and areas that were deliberately left so water
would settle and ice would form.”
Models for many of the Public Art Projects can be viewed at the Utah Arts
Council's Rio Gallery facility. To view a map of Utah art projects
and images of many of the works,
click here
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