Jonathon Robertson, Hal Heiner and Chris Thieneman (pictured, from left) fielded questions about the Metro Government budget, library funding, ethics and other topics.

(Photo by Steve Haag, Louisville Forum)

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Last month, Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson released a plan for public art [pdf] in the city. It came after nearly 17 months of preparation and $50,000 spent for a consultant who worked with the community to develop it. The plan now goes before the Metro Council for approval, so the community is now looking at how it will work and its prospects.

Here, on Bashford Manor Lane in front of sprawling Wal-Mart parking lot, is some existing public art. Among four benches is a relief sculpture by artist Bob Lockhart. It shows three Kentucky Derby winners from the Bashford Manor Farms, which were torn down in the early 1970s. Some people living nearby say they’ve never seen anyone sit there. One is Anthony Johnson.

“I don’t know why these are out here,” Johnson tells me. “I guess if somebody’s walking or whatever they need to stop or something.”

Under the city’s land code, commercial developers with a project exceeding 100,000 square feet must set aside a percentage of their construction budget for public amenities — like benches and sculptures or even fountains and more. This spot is a result of that requirement.

But a new idea concerning that code came up during meetings between city officials, a public art consultant and developers. And the developers are happy with this idea: to have the option to use the money they are required to spend for such amenities and, instead, contribute it to a public art fund.

That agreement signified a potential benefit for developers and became a linchpin in Louisville’s efforts to formulate a public art plan with funding to preserve the city’s existing public art and help create and care for new art.

But the mayor’s office didn’t want to just satisfy developers. Officials also consulted with many other groups. Mary Lou Northern, the mayor’s senior advisor for cultural affairs, oversaw that process.

“There was an educators group. There was a group of historians. There was a group of artists,” she says.

So far, the result is a 70-page plan [pdf], with three pages dedicated to funding. The rest proposes the public and non-profit bodies that would underpin new public art. Metro Government would hire a public art administrator to work with a new commission. And that group would set up an independent non-profit organization to raise funds, commission art, and consider proposals from other -profits, like arts and neighborhood groups.

The proposed policies have elated local artists including Chris Radtke, who is co-chair of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Public Art and worked on the plan. She says it would give artists a new avenue for their creative ideas — and pay them.

“The artists will come up with things you haven’t even thought of in terms of sites,” Radtke says. “And they’ll come up with projects not even on your radar. And so this allows that to happen. Artists from anywhere can look at Louisville, see a site and think of a project that is really out of their own mind, out of their own creative mind.”

And what would be the use of this public art? Reasons include civic pride, tourism and more. Joyce Ogden is an art professor at Spalding University. She’s worked on public art projects at city parks and the county jail.

“I think it helps us look at our history specifically in Louisville and the various communities and neighborhoods that we have here,” Ogden says.

But what about controversy, which sometimes accompanies public art? Barbara Goldstein has worked as the public art director in Seattle and San José and edited Public Art by the Book.

“If the plan reflects Louisville and it’s something that is reflective of the city’s goals, how the city sees itself and how the community sees itself, and if it’s administered by a group of people responsive to what they plan articulates, then there shouldn’t be a whole heck of a lot of controversy,” Goldstein says.

Still, disagreements about public art are inevitable. Even the histories of the Washington Monument and the Vietnam Memorial include controversy. But Ogden sees that as an advantage.

“It really gives us an opportunity to use art to create dialogue and conversation and address issues,” she says.

And by next year, the city’s plans to start conversations on public art with a series of events where artists present their ideas about public art on the Louisville landscape.

University students, concerned about the possibility of additional budget cuts to higher education, rallied Tuesday in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol.

It was a small rally compared to previous years, with less than 100 students in attendance. But organizers say snow spoiled the original date and midterms were a factor this week. In his keynote address, Gov. Beshear wasted no time blasting proposed education cuts in the budget outline unveiled last week by House leaders. Beshear says rolling back two instructional days in local districts “is not a good idea.”

“Another idea floating around out here right now is to cut higher education two percent in each of the next two fiscal years,” said Beshear. “Another idea floating around out here is to have no capital construction on any college campus over the next two years.”

Beshear reminded students the cuts were not part of his budget plan, and urged them to send lawmakers a message.

You must step up, my friends,” said Beshear. “You and your friends on the college campuses throughout this state – you, the students, the faculty, the staff, the administration of our higher education institutions -must make your voices known.”

Next up was Finance Secretary Jonathan Miller, who tried to liven things up a bit with some cheerleading.

“I am Kentucky’s future!” coaxed Miller. “Let me hear you say it!”

“I am Kentucky’s future!” shouted the students.

Recalling huge rallies of previous years, when students were packed in tight – their cheers reverberating off the marble walls for all to hear – Miller warned budget cuts can mean higher tuition.

“And if the cut is really bad, potentially we might go back to the days of double-digit tuition,” said Miller. “That’s unacceptable to Gov. Beshear. That’s unacceptable to me, and I know it’s unacceptable to you as well. So, we need to have your voices heard! We need you to get to all your legislators and tell them, please spare higher education from the dramatic cuts.”

UK grad student Chris Crumrine’s listening. The student representative on the Council on Postsecondary Education says double-digit tuition increases in the middle of a recession would be unconscionable.

“I realize that institutions are all strapped,” said Crumrine. “But families are strapped, too. Students are strapped, too. And that size of a tuition increase in this current climate, I think, is asking a whole lot.”

Until lawmakers approve a budget, tuition rates remain a question mark. But Colton Jessie of Western Kentucky University hopes lawmakers are listening, because he says the state cannot cut its way to prosperity.

“There are many things at stake if higher education suffers another cut,” said Jessie. “And we need to see that a Kentucky education is a priority now and for our future. An educated Kentucky will work to create a better economy. An educated Kentucky will commit less crime, bettering our communities and lessening the burden on our expensive prison system.”

Chelsea Atwater got the final word. The Eastern Kentucky University pre-med student says several generations of her family have benefited from college educations, and she wants the same for all Kentuckians.

“As the student leaders of our respective institutions,” said Atwater, “I challenge each of you today to return to your campuses and hometowns and find creative ways to promote and demonstrate the value of a Kentucky education – creating a more fiscally sound, civically engaged, literate and healthy commonwealth for years to come.”

As the students filtered out of the rotunda and headed home, behind-the-scenes work on the state budget continued. But House leaders now say it may be the second week of March before they can move a new state spending plan to the Senate.

(Click on Listen to the story to hear the comments from members of all of the full-length productions in this year’s festival.)

This year’s festival has seven full-length plays and includes playwrights from throughout the country. At the kickoff, many of them spoke about how rare it is in American theatre to have an event like this that focuses on fulfilling a playwright’s vision.

That included Deborah Zoe Laufer, who wrote the first play to open in the festival, called “Sirens.”

“The minute it hit the paper that I had a new play that was showing here, that week I got 20 requests for the play,” Laufer says. “I mean, people respond. This is the place. There aren’t that many places that only do new work.”

Laufer compared the festival to the Kentucky Derby for playwrights.

This Thursday, the theater has planned a festival opening party for the community.

In 1976, Actors Theatre launched the festival that received funding from the Humana Foundation two years later.

Artistic Director Marc Masterson says nearly 90 million people worldwide have seen a play that began at the festival. And he credits that success with the festival’s focus on playwriting.

“What separates Actors Theatre and the Humana Festival from all other theaters in America is the commitment to process in putting the playwright’s imagination at the center for our work,” Masterson says. “The playwright has great power here. We believe in the playwright’s imagination.”

Some past attendees are playwrights with work in the festival that starts this week.

One is Kirk Lynn, of the Austin-based ensemble company Rude Mecs. He talked about how for many years he and his colleagues used to pile into a van to travel to see new plays in Louisville.

“It was a way in which we were able to measure ourselves, sort of feeling geographically isolated,” Lynn says. “We could either read in a newspaper about plays that were being done across the United States or we could travel here and see at one stop six or seven plays. And it helped us, as a company, set benchmarks for ourselves and grow.”

Over the years, the Humana Foundation has invested nearly $20 million into the festival.

The theatre will have a party for the community Thursday to celebrate the festival.

The plan was developed through the mayor’s office with diverse groups of artists, educators, government officials and property developers. One main achievement was pinpointing a funding stream that does not create new taxes or fees.

The plan modifies a current law that that requires developers who have projects exceeding 100,000 square feet to contribute to use a percentage of their construction budget for public amenities.

Abramson says, under the plan, developers would have an alternative.

“Under the new plan, however, developers would have the option to instead contribute those dollars to a new public space art fund,” Abramson says.

The public art plan’s authors consulted with developers to create this option.

Chuck Kavanaugh is president of the Home Builders Association of Louisville.

“It was very easy to put this together and get back to our commercial council,” Kavanaugh says. “The commercial council at our association is really the largest retail office in industrial developers in town. These people embraced it. They’re very interested in it. They liked the option.”

The plan also includes policies for creating new public art and outlines how artists can participate.

Chris Radtke is co-chair of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Public Art and worked on the plan.

“One of the innovate aspects of the plan is it moves the core of creative thinking for public projects off of the committee table and into the artist’s studio,” she says. “Artists not only from Louisville but anywhere in the world will be the ones that create ideas for proposals.”

Artists would work with community and non-profit groups to obtain funding.

Metro Council must approve the plan to establish a Commission on Public Art and set up the funding mechanism for projects. The city spent $50,000 to create the plan with New York-based Creative Time, which has worked on public art projects nationwide.

RELATED STORIES

Audio of Mayor’s Announcement

Mayor Abramson Announces Effort to Create Public Art Plan (Sept. 2008)

Feature: Louisville Invests $50,000 for Public Art Master Plan (Sept. 2008)

Feature: An Inventory of Louisville’s Art and the Care It Needs (July 2009)

City Plans to Apply for New Federal Art-Related Grant (Jan. 2010)

When Republican Hal Heiner filed as a candidate for Louisville mayor, it meant he would have to give up his 19th District Metro Council seat at the end of the year. Now, four candidates are seeking to replace Heiner on the council.

The 19th District starts just east of Hurstbourne Parkway and stretches past the Gene Snyder to the northeastern border of Jefferson County. It’s a location that Heiner says is poised for development, and he hopes his successor on the council understands that.

“The 19th District is one of the top two districts in the county in terms of growth,” he says. “So growth is important, having a familiarity or willingness to jump into the planning and zoning process and understand that process.”

One of the three Republican contenders for Heiner’s seat is Daniel Osborne, who was vice-chair of the local Young Republicans last year. The father of five says he has a keen interest in family-related issues, but it was the district’s growth potential that brought him into the race.

“We have development going on without a lot of planning,” says Osborne. The build first, plan later mentality that we’ve gone through in the last few years needs to be addressed. Along with water pressure issues, there’s traffic flow issues in my area.”

The 19th district also contains a lot of land protected from development. And Heiner says the district’s eventual representative should understand how that property fits into the big picture.

“You know, a background relating to parks and open spaces is important. District 19th will be the trailhead for another 20 miles of the Louisville Loop, that will run down the 21st Century Park,” he says.

“I have until last August served on the board of the Kentucky State Parks Association, that I founded when I was commissioner of Kentucky State Parks,” says Republican candidate Jerry T. Miller.

Miller was parks commissioner during Governor Ernie Fletcher’s administration. He also just wrapped up a four month stint as chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. He says voters should look to his experience when they choose a new councilman.

Rounding out the Republican primary ballot is Kaven Rumpel, a businessman and retired police detective who moved to the district last April. He touts support from various business and labor leaders…and like Osborne and Miller, lists job creation and government transparency among his top issues. He says he’ll take Heiner’s program to post city checks online and expand the concept.

“They’re alleging downtown, by showing the check it’s transparency,” says Rumpel. “I’ve done bank fraud and worked a lot of banks, looking at their books, and it’s not transparency. You have to have the books, you have to have the bank statements and the checks. That’s transparency.”

The winner of the Republican primary will face a political newcomer in November. 21-year-old Democrat Justin Chelf doesn’t have a primary challenger, so he’s focused on the general election. Chelf says it may be easy for his opponents to dismiss him because of his age, but he plans to use it to his advantage.

“The younger people are the ones who are creative,” says Chelf. “Younger people are the ones who have all the ideas. Young people are the ones who have all the ideas and want to get somewhere.”

Chelf runs a small web design and internet marketing business and says he’s more knowledgeable about 21st century jobs than any of the Republican candidates. He’s also running as a Democrat in a district that has traditionally favored GOP candidates.

Heiner says he won’t endorse anyone in the race, and he declined to comment on any individual candidate. But he does say the key to victory is not campaign rhetoric or even a lot of money, but shoe leather, knocking on the doors of 19th District.

“Back when I first ran in 2002 and walked the district door-to-door twice,” he says. “That’s really what’s required for any candidate to be successful.”

And while there are different strategies for campaign events, fundraisers and getting the message out, each candidate says he plans to follow Heiner’s advice and walk the district, asking for votes, one-by-one.

In the documentary, the students from the University of Louisville and Poland’s Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music located in Katowice  don’t sing their own language. They sing Italian in Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” The film shows some of the logistics of mounting the production, from creating sets and costumes in Louisville, through rehearsals and two performances in Louisville and two more in Katowice. And it has plenty of music.

But there’s more to “Figaro! Living in the Moment of a Character” by filmmaker Dan Schaefer. It hits on the theme of the growing importance of acting in opera. And that’s expressed early in the film by Michael Ramach, co-director of U of L’s opera theater program.

“I find it ironic that all these years,” ramach says,  “we’ve done these productions theatrically that have been quite boring, music wonderful, but theatrically boring, because the original composers would be horrified. They wanted singing actors.”

And the film shows Ramach working closely with these budding singing actors, who were cast for two different productions of the opera to intensify the students’ experience in playing different roles. Ramach puts them through their paces to truly understand the words they sing and their characters’ feelings. In one scene backstage at a Poland opera house, he coaches Nathan Wilson, the U of L student who plays Figaro.

“Do me a favor, your first aria, how does the Italian go?” Ramach asks Wilson, before Wilson says the words in Italian.

“What does it mean?” Ramach asks, wanting him to speak the English meaning.

“It means, ‘If you wish to dance…’” says Wilson. And he continues to recite in English.

Later, a Polish student talks about what he’s gained.

“Working with other people from another country we can exchange our experience. We can improve also our English.

While the Polish students, in general, aren’t quoted much, the film shows Ramach working with them to infuse their performance with a sense of realistic drama. Ramach’s approach is something that has taken hold at many American opera houses to draw larger audiences that include young people. It’s seen at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, which now focuses on dramatic elements in simulcasts of its operas showing in movie houses nationwide. But much of Europe — including Poland, where opera is especially popular — has been slower to create dramatic operas by improving the acting in them.

But the film shows the approach did make an impression on many students from both countries. After one of the four performances, Ramach reads a letter he’s received to the U of L director of opera studies, Kimcherie Lloyd.

“I have learned so much preparing this opera. I now know how to prepare and live in the moment of a character,” he says.

Lloyd exclaims, “Ta-da.”

“As you see,” says Ramach.

Filmmaker Dan Schaeffer says he definitely wanted to show the music, but he also wanted to spotlight the personalities that shaped this production.

“That’s the one thing I wanted was to allow people to really talk about what it is they do,” Schaeffer says.

Schaeffer also has a subtext. It shows the place of opera in two different cultures. Here, the filmmaker mostly focuses on getting the production onstage. In Poland, he includes scenes showing the crowds that come to see sold-out performances.

Today, Michel Ramach is pleased to have this document of the project.

“It has become not only a scrapbook of our trip,” Ramach says, “but it’s also become a document about how we train our singers.”

Ramach says the film can help recruit students to U of L and build further cross-cultural programs. Meanwhile, Schaeffer says he plans to enter the documentary in film festivals.

The documentary “Figaro! Living in the Moment of a Character” premieres Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at U of L’s Comstock Hall.

Ear X-Tacy founder John Timmons released a statement this week saying he was concerned for the store’s survival. Since that announcement, there’s been an outpouring of support online. Timmons says he would like to see the same support in the store.

“If every one of the 19,000 people on our Save Ear X-Tacy Facebook page came in here and spent a dollar a day for a month, this store could live for a few more years,” he says. “It’s that simple.”

At a press conference Friday morning, Timmons elaborated, saying his lease is up in March and the store needs to make more money to stay open.

In this regard, he says he’s not alone.

“This applies to so many locally-owned independent businesses here in Louisville,” he says. “I just decided to put a face on what’s going on in the Louisville community. We all take things for granted.”

Timmons says he will also have to change his business to adapt to changes in the economy and the music industry. He’s not sure what the new direction is, but he says he’s open to suggestions.

You can hear the whole announcement here (mp3)

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