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Mayor's mural proposal maddens local muralists

“Public art is a conduit for free speech.”
-Joe Cotter, Portland muralist

A proposal by Mayor Vera Katz for regulating new public murals drew little support from artists attending a Sept. 8 meeting of the mayor’s work group on public murals. In recognition that current policy - regulating murals like signs - was actually reducing the number of public murals rather than fostering their growth, the new plan exempts new murals from regulation by making them the property of the city. But some of the city’s best known artists don’t believe its that simple. They see a proposal that severs the artist-community ties so necessary for a vibrant public murals culture, a beauracracy that will scare off property owners, and a process that could result in censorship of murals conveying ideas outside the mainstream.

“It is a sensitive situation,” states Portland-based muralist Isaka Shamsud-Din, an honorary chair of Portland State University’s Art Department. “The Regional Arts and Culture Council has been given power to rule whether you work or not.”

Local muralist Joe Cotter shares Shamsud-Din’s concerns. In addition, he is worried that the process will scare off owners of potential mural sites.

“When I look at this proposal, I worry very much about the easement process,” states Cotter. “That it will be a disincentive to public art.”

That concern is the heart of the new proposal: an easement that transfers ownership of the mural - literally the layers of paint adhering to the building owner’s wall - to the city. The easement is granted for five or more years and during that time city managers are responsible for the property. Provisions do exist for early termination of the easement, such as the sale, renovation or reconstruction of the building. But Cotter and other muralists present at the work session felt this would bureaucratize the traditional relationship between the artist and the owner of the space to contain a mural. They also believe building owners will be hesitant to enter into this more complicated legal relationship in order to have a mural. Unfortunately that relationship, according to Tracy Reeve of the City Attorney’s office, was why the proposal should clear the constitutional challenges which earlier policies failed.

During the late 1980s, the city exempted murals - defined as “painted wall decorations” - from the sign regulations. In 1991 the city attempted to better define the difference between regulated wall signs and unregulated murals. That definition rested on the existence of “text, numbers, registered trademarks or registered logos” in the image in question. If the answer was “yes,” then it was a commercial sign. If “no,” it was a mural.

In 1998, AK Media, soon to become a Clear Channel affiliate, and owner of the majority of the city’s billboard, sued the city over the use of those defining features. Later that year, AK Media won a summary judgement in the Multnomah County Circuit Court, declaring the mural exemption unconstitutional under the Oregon Constitution. The exemption was subsequently found unconstitutional under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The court found the definition of what constituted a mural, and therefore qualifed for exemption, represented government regulation based on content. AK Media was having its right to free speech abridged because its images contained

“text, numbers, registered trademarks or registered logos.”

The city removed the exemption immediately following the ruling. Since then, murals have been treated as signs. As with commercial signs, there’s a $1,400 fee. There’s also size restrictions that run contrary to scale of most murals. In most cases, city regulations prohibit murals larger than 200 square feet. Artists and building owners willing to pay the fee and work within the space constrictions can still apply for a permit this way under the mayor’s new proposal.

There’s a larger problem, however, than too much bureaucracy. Local artists, while not yet ruling out the city’s plan, are concerned about how the city will administer the public arts program, a strategy they believe leaves no room for real community involvement or protection from censorship.

“I hope it works,” states Larry Kangas, co-chair of Metro Murals, a non-profit dedicated to helping develop a healthy mural culture in Portland. “There will be a lot of potential building owners who may not want to stick their neck out, hwoever, I think the people hurt the most will be like the owners of the Mirador. They rent their facility., but the owner only gives their lease one year at a time.”

The mayor’s plan makes new public murals city property but it hands over the process for acquiring that property to the Regional Arts and Culture Council. The council is a non-profit organization that already administers most of the city’s public art as well as oversees its acquisition. As such, it isn’t constrained by the same constitutional restrictions as the city in handling public art.

That is why, under the mayor’s plan, the Council will oversee, approve and fund all mural applications. A Public Art Advisory Committee will meet with applicants and review the proposal to determine whether it meets the program’s criteria, such as artistic quality, context, diversity, originality and community support. If the proposal passes muster with the committee, the project will be eligible for funding from the Council, if available. To keep out of legal gray areas, the Council will not be permitted to accept donations for specific projects. All donations go to the general fund and are applied to projects as the Council sees best.

Many local artists do not see the Council’s involvement in this issue as a positive thing, but are hesitant, due to the Council’s influence, to be too openly critical. They perceive the Council as serving one narrow aspect of the city’s art community and too closely tied to upscale gallery culture. Murals are traditionally the voice of communities, of working people, of those vast numbers of the population that are rarely recorded in public art, and if so, usually only as background. There is concern that many of the city’s subcultures that are the source of new, vital art, aren’t even on the Council’s radar screen.
“I don‘t apply for any of the Oregon Art Councils anymore,” states Kangas. “I’ve seen the works and I don’t get to second base. Most of the artsy crowd don’t like realism.”

There is also serious concern that the Council will use the process outlined in the mayor’s plan to censor projects that might offend local donors or sensitive city commissioners. Or they may use the process to continue promoting the same artists they currently favor, providing the city with innocuous murals that mirror the council’s other corporate-style public art. It seems unlikely the Council will grow bold and support murals honoring Anarchists or the WTO protests, or recording the social ills capitalism brings down on working class communities. In any event, there isn’t much confidence among muralists that the mayor’s plan will make things better.

So what would make things better for the city’s public mural culture? City attorneyTracy Reeve is advising the city that the proposal or the exemption of signs and murals from regulation are the only answers. Some public art advocates and artists have made their peace with the mayor’s plan and are willing to support it. But there continues to be dissenters within the artist community, who believe a much more democratized process is needed. Shamsud-Din believes that is essential.

“I would like to see practicing artists have strong representation on the Public Art Advisory Committee” [the body that would review new mural applicatons], states the muralist. Such a committee should be half artists.”

Joe Cotter thinks far less process is necessary. He thinks anything that gets in the way of the connection between the artist and the community members willing to let their walls become murals will be to the detriment of the city’s mural culture. He is continuing to pursue a legal solution that would remove the current bind over commercial and non-commercial speech. Such a court victory would disarm Clear Channel - who purchased AK Media - and dispel the fear the city has of being sued again by the media giant. But it could take years to get the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime, Cotter and other members of the recently organized Portland Mural Defense to advocate a longer, more community-based discussion about what our mural culture should look like and how to achieve it. As this issue of the Alliance goes to press, the city’s planning commission will be reviewing the mayor’s plan and making recommendations before it is considered by the city council on Nov. 10. Between now and then, advocates for an alternative are hoping to convince the council that murals - what Philadelphia mural advocate Jane Golden calls the “autobiographies of communities” — demand more and deeper consideration if we are to turn the state of murals in Portland today.

The mayor’s plan is available on the mayor’s website at portlandonline.com/ mayor/. For more information about efforts to make Portland more mural friendly, contact Portland Mural Defense at 503-630-5176.

Dave Mazza is editor of The Portland Alliance.