Express yourself

Via Cut Collective, they got a written response to their petition from Auckland Council, noting that the Council's call for Expressions of Interest in repainting the mural has been dropped by Council. They have decided not to proceed with any of the proposals submitted. Something is on the way tho...

Read the letter here.

ADDED August 23, 2011: The Auckland Council has agreed to let Askew handle the reinstatement of the mural. From Askew's blog, posted earlier today:

"A couple of weeks ago I met with Rob Garret who is Auckland Council’s public arts facilitator and we came to a very amicable agreement – one that is going to enable a positive outcome that will benefit everyone involved and hopefully also benefit many others.

The Council agreed to withdraw their call for submissions for the new mural and have instead agreed to make a settlement with me on behalf of the artists. I was asked to price out a fair figure on par with what we would charge for a similar sized mural work in a commercial situation. I came up with the figure of $10,440.00 which breaks down like this:

Materials: $3,460.00
Access Equipment: $1,100.00
Artist fees: $5,700.00

This morning we found that the amount of $10,440.00 + GST had been deposited into our account and as promised we put it to some charitable causes – after we paid the GST direct to the Government of course! This is where the money went:

$4,394.00 - Red Cross Christchurch Earthquake Appeal
$4,394.00 – Canterbury SPCA Earthquake Appeal

And in light of the passing of NYC graffiti Legend Case2 last week – we donated the remaining $1,316.00 USD needed to reach their goal of $5,400.00 for his funeral costs.

So that’s the first aspect of this all sorted – what about the art work?

At this stage – we can’t paint the replacement mural at Poynten Tce but in the next couple of weeks I will seek to talk directly with the landlords there and see if we can just return things back to the way it was. We will paint and maintain that site again if possible.

In the mean time, The K’ Road Business Association have come to us with an alternative location, which is the side of 420/Rising Sun etc, the side facing the motorway. In an ideal world we will paint both locations or at the very least just the 420 spot but I have pulled together a fantastic team of local artists to get involved and will make more announcements about the project as it develops. At this stage it will likely be towards the end of the year as everyone involved are over-committed with their own projects for at least the next 2 months..."