07/10/2003

By PAT McREYNOLDS / KING 5 News

ABERDEEN, Wash. – Since the early 1970s, Washington state has provided public funds for art projects at state facilities, but hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art is in places you can't or wouldn't want to see.

Taxpayers would not see the art they paid for unless they had a friend or relative locked up at the Stafford Correctional Facility.

The piece, entitled “Migration,” cost more than $200,000 and flies in the visiting room of the prison.

It's all part of the Arts in Public Places law of 1974 that deemed one-half of 1 percent of all money spent on state facilities would go to the arts.

The fund is not just for prisons. Some state-bought art resides just a few miles away and is for all to see in the middle of the Hoquiam River.

KING "Migration"

Most think it’s inappropriate.

Since the law began, $766,000 has been spent on art in prison facilities, a good chunk of which came with an installation at Stafford Creek just a few months ago.

But the Washington State Arts Commission defends each purchase in its collection.

“It's actually meeting the goals that it was set up for, so I do think there's value to having art in institutions as part of the state collection,” said Michelle Zahrly. “I would say that there's a belief in kind of the collective value of public art and that can always be debated."

The Department of Corrections does have the option to spend its money on art in the surrounding community, but spending it on something other than art, like schools or other state programs, would take a change in the law.

Since 1974, the state has spent $17.1 million on art statewide and has a collection of more than 4,600 pieces.