Take me away to a land of "Make Believe"

On behalf of the Commission of the Wicker Park Bucktown SSA (WPB), we would like to thank Our Urban Times (OUT) for a very thorough review of the Make Believe project. It is important that local media sources continue to exist and to cover local stories, and we applaud OUT for so doing. In the interest of full disclosure, WPB is a sponsor of OUT. We are glad to see that the journalistic integrity of OUT remains intact, and that the author of this article was not discouraged from writing or posting this article. There are a few misleading statements in this article that we would like to address. While we’re not sure what exactly is meant by the term “art specialist”, we are sure that all three jury members that volunteered their time and talents to assist in selecting the winning installations were more than qualified to do so. Even a brief listing of the jurists combined accomplishments includes gallery owner, art magazine editor, gallery director, art show producer and visual manager. We thought it was extremely important to assemble a jury of professionals that were qualified to review the submissions, but that also did not have any inherent conflicts of interest in doing so. We are proud of our jury, and wish to thank them for volunteering their skill in evaluating and choosing works that are engaging and diverse. The theme of the project, to envision commerce in the future, was determined by the committee that was leading the project early on. Members of the committee included Executive Directors of local arts organizations, a local architect, and an art insurance broker, among others. A central theme was developed so that the artists would have some parameters for their submittals, and so the jury could pick finalists that best exemplified those parameters. It is certainly part of the dynamic nature of the project that viewers form their own opinion of the theme, the artists’ interpretation and execution of the theme, as well as the quality of each installation and the project as a whole. To our knowledge, none of the selected artists nor the others that submitted proposals felt restricted by the theme, nor did they claim it was “narrow and unimaginative”, as OUT describes. In fact, we think the winning submissions are exciting and original, which is why the project has received such positive reaction from other media sources and passersby alike. We don’t think it gets much more original than interactive storefront theatre, or illuminating everyday objects, or using discarded, disposable objects to create sculpture. We are flattered that OUT thinks that a project like Make Believe could put Wicker Park on “the art map internationally”. We would love nothing more than to see coverage of the project in the New York Times, The Guardian or Le Monde. Perhaps that’s something we can come to expect in subsequent years of the program, but certainly not a realistic goal for the inaugural year. Our goal for year one was to have a successful program with local coverage, and to establish that an art-in-vacant-storefronts project like Make Believe is viable in Wicker Park, worth the time and effort that was put in by staff, vendors and artists. We believe the program is worth it, and we hope to have a sequel to Make Believe in 2011. We do take exception to the question posed by the article’s author: “I question why the organizers didn't come up with a more creative initiative to promote Wicker Park?” We think this project is indeed a creative initiative, promoting not only Wicker Park as an interesting neighborhood, but also as a way for each of the 10 finalists to promote themselves and their work, and as a way to highlight some of the vacant spaces along Milwaukee Avenue that could be rented by a local business looking to expand or a new business scoping out availability. We are further supported in our opinion that this project is creative when we look around at other neighborhoods, and see that only one or two others are doing the same thing. This is a unique project with multiple audiences and goals, which we think fits the definition of creative beautifully. As most non-profits and even for-profit corporations do, we often find ourselves in a position of having to choose between managing projects in-house or hiring out projects to vendors. In some instances, it comes down to time management: can our small but mighty staff take on a project and give it the attention it needs and deserves, given all of the other responsibilities they are required to fulfill? We are incredibly proud of our accomplishments as an organization, and we are very sensitive about stretching ourselves too thin, especially if it means our projects suffer in quality. Sometimes the decision is made based on whether we have the expertise in-house. For example, we do not have any engineers on staff, and therefore when we have specific questions about traffic flow at a certain intersection, we hire someone else to find the answer. It would be irresponsible for us to do otherwise. When we distributed the RFQ to hire the team to manage Make Believe (which was, of course, unnamed at the time) we knew we neither had the time nor the expertise in-house to complete the project in an efficient, professional and responsible way. This project deserved lots of special attention in order for it to be executed at the high standards we hold ourselves to, and we would not have been able to do so without the help of outsiders. We think the team we hired is dynamite, and we have thoroughly enjoyed working with them. As a point of clarification, we have only one contract with the lead consultant. It is true that another firm is working under that contract, but they were a part of the consultant team from the very beginning, and were not hired as a duplication of efforts. As for the remainder of the article, we won’t comment on OUT’s opinion of the individual installations, except to say that we are extremely proud of each and every one of them. We are honored to display such talented artists and artist teams in our neighborhood, and we hope that their exhibition in such a visible area brings them a new audience and more opportunity. One final note: We regret that the zoetrope was never fully executed. The artist who designed and built the zoetrope faced complication after complication with the motor to spin the zoetrope, and after much frustration and cost, he decided to pull the project. We hope OUT will take the time to revisit “Take Me With You”, which is now populated by many photographs that were submitted by people who located the hidden disposable cameras.

According to the SSA #33 April 13 Meeting Minutes, $25,000 was used for the "first portion of Phase II of the WPB Art in Vacant Storefronts project." If this is Phase II, my question is, 1) How much of taxpayer dollars will be allocated to future phases? 2) Is there any measurable return anticipated on this investment? 3) Does the SSA#33 plan to repeat this project again, and if so, will they involve established arts groups like the CAC, Flat Iron, NNWAC, and many others? 4) The choice of the two outside consultants was interesting, given that one of the consultants was also the consultant chosen for the large scale 'promote WPB' campaign' which cost upwards of 60K and primarily involved ad placements in Time Out Chicago 5) Could the curating, and selection of spaces, and RFP process been developed by a full-time SSA #33 staffer, to keep costs at bay, and perhaps allocate more money to the participating artists rather than to consultant fees? See WPB April 13 Minutes at: http://tinyurl.com/2bus78w