Democracy is great, unless its your ox being gored: As someone who has worked in Public Art for the last 30 years or so, I understand the motivation for your idea, but I sure hope it doesnt happen.

In a case like the Cannon Beach show, it means the artist must make the sculpture entirely on speculation, paying for everything in advance. Some artists do indeed work this way- usually those with trust funds. But most artists can not afford to front 10, or 20, or 50 thousand dollars on materials, overhead, services and labor, for two, or three, or five sculptures a year.

So the vast majority of major pieces that are commissioned by cities and states are done from a drawing or proposal, not selecting from already built work. Which, of course, makes it much harder for the average viewer to imagine what it will look like when its done.

How would you journalists like a system where you wrote the article, then people voted on whether or not the newspaper should pay you for it?
Sounds great, eh?

As a pro, I dont even enter competitions like the one in Cannon Beach- my plate is full with projects where they actually want my art, and are willing to commit, with cash, to a project in advance.
Now I may be greedy and haughty, but I am afraid that most of the best artists, leaving me out of that category, are similar- they are not interested in putting a lot of time and money into preparing even a proposal for a piece that is not a sure thing, and even worse will be voted on by the public.
And believe me, we are talking a lot of time, and a lot of money. A decent sculpture studio to make large work can easily have a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment, and full time employees. Many of the best public artists working today have monthly overheads that would make you swoon. We dont, as Steve Miller said in his song, "make our music on a ten cent comb". Its a profession, requireing experience, investment, and involving significang financial risk. In other words, you gotta be crazy to do it in the first place.

This is the same public that votes with their viewing time to give such success to things like American Idol, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and Three's Company.

I know, its elitist, but I do think there is a place for a professional, in this case a professional arts administrator, who manages the art selection process.
I have presented before many many community meetings, and often one guy, who is concerned about some arcane point, can dominate the community- most people are apathetic, and dont show up, or vote. So the special interest, the guy who thinks the only good art is bronze sculptures of guide dogs, or murals of community leaders, can control the conversation.

Certainly, public input is good. Communities should not have unpopular artworks foisted on them, with no meetings, no press, and no contact with the artist.
However, in the last 35 years or so, there has evolved a mechanisim to commission public pieces, which works pretty well. And voting on crowd favorites would result in a lot less adventurous, ambitious art, which will hold up less well in the long run, and it would completely cut off any interest from many of the best artists out there today.

RE: Democracy is great, unless its your ox being gored: Great post. Pretty interesting perspective. I'd never thought much about "speculative" art vs "commissioned" art. In some ways, they're just two different business models for art, with the speculative form requiring a lot of capitalization. In other ways it reminds me of the way we do transportation projects. We have the normal "commissioned" roads, and then we have the "speculative" transportation systems that are hit or miss, require extensive capitalization, and are outside the boundaries of the normal professional transportation artist.

Your comments on public process are oh, so true. Often times one voice seems to scream, drowning out both expert and democratic forms of decision making.

I had always presumed that the Arts communitywas ecstatic about the "1% for the Arts" spending requirement on capital projects in KC. However, you point out how this sort of program doesn't necessarily lead to helping the majority of artists, but only the well-capitalized speculative few.

I've heard third hand about a lawsuit by an out-of-state artist arising out of creation of a unique piece of art for a piece of KC infrastructure. I'd say you nailed this situation on the head when you said "So the vast majority of major pieces that are commissioned by cities and states are done from a drawing or proposal, not selecting from already built work. Which, of course, makes it much harder for the average viewer to imagine what it will look like when its done." In this case apparently it was hard for both the artist and government to imagine what the thing would look like, how it would be built, and how it would be installed.