Arts Board Approves AI Guidelines, Request for Park Stage Mural Entries

MOSCOW – A request for artist proposals for a mural on the East City Park stage will go out in early October, pending City Council approval, after a unanimous vote by the Moscow Arts Commission at its regular Tuesday meeting. 

The commission also unanimously agreed to update the city’s public art guidelines, most notably to add language addressing the use of AI (artificial intelligence) tools and disclosure of that use by artists. This also will go before the City Council for final approval.

In other business, the arts commission:

* Was told that work on the City Shop wall mural at Polk Street and Public Avenue will begin Monday. The artist will work a couple of days, then return the following week to finish, said Megan Cherry, Moscow arts manager and the city staff liaison to the commission.

* Heard from Cherry that the annual Palouse Plein Air continues to draw record numbers, with 79 artists accepted and painting now for the event. It will open with a reception and sale 5-7 p.m., Sept. 17, in the Third Street Gallery, 206 E. Third Street.  

* Was reminded that the call for artists to register for the “Color of the Year” show at the Third Street Gallery is open until Sept. 25. Learn more at https://www.ci.moscow.id.us/CivicSend/ViewMessage/message/298186

* Voted unanimously to reduce its number of commissioners from 12 to nine. At 12 members, it is the largest commission and rarely is full; there are currently three vacancies. 

The budget for the park stage mural is $35,000, based on a survey by Cherry of 12 similar murals across the U.S., including two in Moscow. The money is in the city’s 2027 budget and comes from its 1%-for-the-Arts fund established in city code in 2004. 

The design is intended to wrap from the sides around to the front of the structure, and won’t interfere with production backdrops and sets in the center. 

After the call for artist proposals closes in November, the Moscow Arts Commission will recommend finalists to the City Council. Four finalists will create site-specific designs, which the public will comment on in January. The commission and council will choose the finalist in February, and the mural will be installed by the end of May. 

Unique to this project is participation by the Moscow Poet Laureate and more than 30 Moscow residents who submitted stories and memories about East City Park. Poet Miriam Akervall’s poem – “A Wind Leaving,” inspired by the local stories – will serve as a creative prompt for artists submitting proposals. 

In her first-year report at Tuesday’s meeting, Akervall said the park collaboration/poem was her favorite project of the year. Find her poem at the end of this article.

Language requiring disclosure of which AI tools and prompts are used in artist submissions, how they are used and what/how much human creativity goes into a project will be added to Moscow’s public art guidelines, pending City Council approval. 

The additions will apply to selection criteria for both the permanent art collection (up to a 30-year lifespan) and temporary art collection (generally 1-8 years on display). Although selection criteria vary by project, the proposed guidelines state that use of AI may impact whether an artist will be selected.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Moscow Arts Commission will be Oct. 13. 

Poet Laureate Miriam Akervall’s prompt for the East City Park stage mural:

A Wind Leaving
For Jedediah Williams

In this town, I am also a wind
that doesn’t return,

reading my book in East City Park
while the man on the next bench

with his green bicycle splayed
in the grass greets his friends

with his head thrown back, mouth
open, his laugh

a wind leaving.
It reminds me of the notes,

years earlier, of a trumpet solo
played on the park’s only stage—

built with salvaged wood
from the Potlatch Lumber Company

after it finally closed in ’83—
by a man whose mind was

leaching with age, memories
slipping out like spare change

into different pockets
of his body: his daughter’s name,

what he liked to eat, but never
the notes—pressing trumpet keys

like buttons on a time machine
that only travels one way.

I didn’t hear him play, only heard
about him from someone who was there,

but felt it when I walked down
one afternoon to read in the grass

and found the choir in that same spot
singing “The Parting Glass,”

which never fails to make me think
about Layla, who I worked with on trails,

and who hid her seizure condition
from the crew lead so she could stay

in the mountains, but then had an episode
at the top of a pass during a windstorm,

and as I sat on my knees holding her head
Cian sang a Scottish folk song to calm her

limbs which were all simultaneously
kicking and punching.

And aren’t we always either throwing blows
or holding someone who is?

And somehow it all seems to come
together here, in the park

where I first walked with the woman
I love, her months-old puppy

distracted by hollyhocks and lilacs
on the wind, the dog winding the leash

around her legs, then spinning her out
and out in wild pirouettes, a yo-yo

in a black dress walking
the dog, a laugh

like wind chimes in her throat,
not leaving exactly,

but dancing on the air
and moving out into the dusk

like time, a swing with no fixed position,
both toward and away from me.