Council vs. council over The Feathered Watchamacallit Column By Ray Barrington It seems like once a year, the Green Bay City Council manages to get itself wrapped up in an issue that any normal governmental body could handle in three seconds. Last year, it was the saga of hot dog carts downtown. This year, it's a sculpture Ald. Chris Wery has tagged for all time with the name "The Feathered Watchamacallit." The sculpture, an abstract piece by artist Richard Taylor, was the result of a commission by the Northeast Wisconsin Arts Council for a piece of public art along the Fox River walkway downtown between Walnut and Main streets. For a variety of reasons, the City Council is balking. This seems silly. But the Arts Council hasn't handled the situation well itself. So, as so often happens, we have two groups talking right past each other, and nothing is being done. Let's start at the beginning. In the past, the city and Arts Council have worked together nicely, with the city voting to give the Arts Council federal block grants, used for neighborhood improvements, and the artsy folks picking art and putting it where suggested. And that was to be the plan this time. The only problem was that an election got in the way. The Arts Council met with the city's Park Committee before the April election and got approval to find an artist and commission a sculpture using criteria the city helped design. Among them: the sculpture had to be able to be moved if needed if the land where it would be placed was needed for riverfront development. The City Council added other rules: The work had to be durable (it would be outdoors, so cardboard wouldn't work) and done by an artist with experience in such things. Yes, for a new artist, that's sort of like the old line about "how can you get experience if you can't get a job," but that's the rule. So the Arts Council sent out notices and got several submissions. Only one met the criteria - Richard Taylor's pyramid of geometric shapes, topped by a feather, inspired, he said, by seeing what was around the site. It was when the Arts Council brought it back to the Park Committee that things got interesting. The committee had changed, with Guy Zima and Earl Van Den Heuvel on board. Zima has been the City Council's house curmudgeon for many a year, and if Van Den Heuvel were offered a free pass to the circus, he'd ask if there were any hidden costs. Neither liked the sculpture, and voted against a quick OK for the downtown site, asking to see other options. Problem is, there were none. Only the Arts Council did a lousy job of explaining it, and City Council members who might have voted their way were offended. Maybe it's unfair, but they were. The site was granted, barely, but Van Den Heuvel, apparently thinking he could have things both ways, decided to reconsider on the grounds that he thought he was voting on spending city money. If so, he was the only one. Most people understood all the vote was for was to allow the art to be put on city property. But it got brought back. And the Arts Council almost blew it again. It prepared brochures showing the other finalists, explaining the process and emphasizing Taylor's art was the only one that qualified under the standards set. But they forgot to ask for a chance to speak, and after complaining, started speaking - without handing out the brochures that would have done a great job of explaining their side. It all reminded me of a comment by former astronaut Michael Collins, in his book "Carrying the Fire." He admitted that astronauts weren't the most talkative of people, and that an Apollo crew of "a priest, poet and philosopher" might have done a better job of transmitting the experience to folks back home. "However," Collins added, "they would probably emote all the way into the atmosphere and forget to push the circuit breaker that allowed the parachutes to open, allowing them to land." In short, beauty is fine, but you've got to have some other skills as well. Barrington is news editor for The News-Chronicle. His column appears here Fridays. Contact him via e-mail at [email protected] or call 432-2941.