The City sent out a request for qualifications last year for artistic enhancements to the new police station and municipal court facility. As this is our first public art project, we used the Wisconsin Arts Board’s distribution list to solicit qualifications from regional artists (Wisconsin and adjacent states) and distributed the RFQ to 800 artists, primarily from Wisconsin. Of the 30 artists who responded, 50% were Wisconsin artists. The Arts Committee selected 3 artists to create a site-specific design for the building.
1) Actual Size Artwork, Stoughton, WI
2) Josephine Geiger, St. Paul, MN
The three selected artists met with the Arts Committee and Zimmerman Architectural Studios, Inc., the architect for the new police and municipal court facility.
The artists then submitted their site-specific designs for the building.
Finally, the three proposals were displayed at the Middleton Public Library and the Middleton Police Department for public comment for a combined period of over two weeks.
On Tuesday, March 17, the Middleton Common Council considered the Arts Committee's recommendation to incorporate two art installations in the building: 1. Josephine Geiger's stained glass proposal and 2. Actual Size Artworks' hanging bird sculpture in the atrium. The Council funded the first project ($50,000) and committed seed funds ($5,000) for a future art installation in the building.