Ginnie Lupi said art is a part of everyday life.
Each day, prosecutors and defense attorneys trickle into the Hillsborough County courthouse under hanging blue and green Plexiglass sculptures built to represent justice and the Constitution.
As employees from the Department of Health and Human Services gather around a long wooden table in Conference Room 155 to discuss the newest child custody case, they can’t help but catch a glimpse of the pastel drawing of a blooming garden on the wall.
And in between classes at NHTI, students pour over their notes minutes before exams in chairs by the colorful tile mural of a brain in the second-floor study lounge.
In fact, almost all state-funded buildings display works of art – paintings and sculptures and photographs – throughout their facilities. It’s all part of New Hampshire’s Percent for Art Program.
The program was enacted by the state Legislature in 1979, following the lead of nine states with similar laws. When a state building is constructed or receives significant renovations, 0.5 percent of the Capital Budget appropriation is set aside to commission or acquire artwork for the facility.
The goal of the program, according to the website for the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, is two-fold: to enhance the effectiveness of state services, while also making art more available to the general public.
“I think it perfectly aligns with the mission of the program to have works in all kinds of public buildings so that all kinds of people can access art and enjoy art and be inspired by art,” said Lupi, director of the Arts Council.
Lupi said the Percent for Art Program is, unfortunately, one of the state’s better kept secrets.
Art can be a lot like furniture. You don’t notice it until it’s gone.
“If we went through and took artwork away, I bet you people would notice,” said Carey Johnson, curatorial specialist for the Arts Council. “There would be an uproar.”
Since its inception, the program has placed more than 300 pieces of artwork in locations across the state. Its budget varies greatly from year to year, depending upon the cost and caliber of construction.
In 2011, for instance, the state allocated $81,513 to Percent for Art to commission acrylic panels for the walls of the Merrimack County courthouse, the Hillsborough County court’s Plexiglass mobile, a porcelain mosaic hanging in the Laconia courthouse’s waiting area and a number of smaller pieces for the three buildings under construction.
In years since, however, the program has only handled three projects – the Bureau of Graphic Services, the Anna Philbrook Center in Concord and the Lakes Region Community College renovations – for a combined cost of $40,270.
But even a little art can make a big difference, said Johnson, one of the state employees in charge of managing and maintaining the program.
“It’s the building they’re going to be in every day,” she said. “With zero artwork, every wall is the same white color. They’d go crazy.”
The Percent for Art Program doesn’t accept just any painting.
The users of the building help pick out the artwork, said Cassandra Mason, chief grants officer for the Arts Council. A lot of it is site specific.
Like the mosaics by the bathhouses at Hampton Beach State Park, which feature plants, birds and fish native to the area.
Or the painted mural that covers the lobby to the Department of Revenue Administration, depicting all the different services tax dollars provide.
The selection process begins once the Arts Council and state Bureau of General Services identify a project on the biennial Capital Budget that qualifies for Percent for Art.
There are exceptions to the law. State contracts for repairs, the University System of New Hampshire, self-liquidating projects and those paid for by the highway fund, Fish and Game fund or federal funds are excluded from the program. And the historic portraits hanging in the State House, for example, were commissioned long before the creation of Percent for Art.
Once it becomes clear that a state-funded building fits the program requirements, the Arts Council oversees the formation of a Site Selection Committee – often composed of employees from the state agencies housed in the building, the project architect, a public works project manager, an artist and a state legislator. The group, usually consisting of eight to 10 members, represents the diverse mix of people that will interact with the art.
“If we’re hanging something in the area of the receptionist at the front desk, we want her to enjoy it,” Mason said.
Members of the Arts Council help facilitate the decision. But the Site Selection Committee has the final say on the artist, location and style of the piece.
“It’s a very thoughtful process,” Mason said. “We ask them to think about the possibilities – what they envision having in the building.”
After a couple meetings, the committee writes a proposal identifying desired themes and media to be incorporated into the artwork. Artists submit applications detailing their plans for the building or showcasing their existing pieces.
The pool of applicants is fairly competitive, Mason said, and New Hampshire artists are given priority. The whole process usually takes a year or more.
Teresa Taylor, the owner of Salty Dog Pottery in Barnstead, has been on both sides of the system.
She created the ceramic tile murals that hang in the Hillsbourough County courthouse and the Department of Revenue Administration, as well as pieces hanging in the Laconia courthouse and NHTI’s dental lab. She also sat on the Site Selection Committee for the Manchester Community College project.
Both parties – the artists and the state agencies – benefit from the program, Taylor said.
“For a lot of New Hampshire artists, it gets their work into the building,” she said. “They earn the income and the honor of having a piece that is now state-owned and in a state building for many people to see.”
There’s also value that comes from having art around, Taylor added.
“Art gives pleasure. Art tells a story about our culture,” she said. “I think it is essential to the well-being of humankind.”
The state of New Hampshire has a long history of supporting the arts, said Julianne Gadoury, grants coordinator for the Arts Council.
“I think it’s coming from long, long ago – not here, but even before – when the Greeks and Romans built public sculptures,” Gadoury said. “It’s the idea that art should be for all the people, not just the few that can afford to go to museums.”
For years, cities and towns in New Hampshire took pride in their architecture and artwork, Gadoury added. The Granite State boasts a large number of poets, writers, actors and dancers. It’s home to the oldest professional theater in the United States, the Barnstormers.
“We know the people here value creative enterprises,” she said. “They really value culture.”
But not everyone thinks Percent for Art is the best way to fund the state’s desire for art. State Rep. Dan McGuire sponsored a bill in 2012 that would have cut the program altogether.
“It’s an automatic formula – one of these things that’s put there for the convenience of politicians,” he said.
The renovation of the New Hampshire State Prison in the 1980s was more expensive than most projects due to the security it required, McGuire said. Does that mean it should get more art?
“It struck me as kind of ridiculous because different buildings have different needs,” he said.
McGuire said he didn’t want to do away with public art; he just wanted to allocate money for it on a case-by-case basis.
“And some of this art on the walls right now is absolutely hideous, in my opinion,” he added.
McGuire’s bill didn’t pass that year, and he said he doesn’t know of any current plans to reintroduce it.
State Rep. David Danielson said he thinks that’s a good thing – because New Hampshire has gained both art and revenue from the program over the years.
“One could say, indirectly, that the state has benefited a great deal from the arts and culture business, the creative industry,” he said.
Danielson also said he thinks the Percent for Art Program provides a way to facilitate this industry in an effective and efficient way. He sits on a commission studying the impact of art and culture on state revenue, which is set to release a report this fall with recommendations to enhance business.
“I believe the arts help people in a quality of life way,” he said. “It appeals to something much deeper than you see right in front of you.”
Because the Tobey building, which houses the New Hampshire Employment Security offices, was funded by non-general dollars, it did not qualify for Percent for Art, deputy commissioner Richard Lavers said.
At first, he admitted the agency was a little happy.
“It lowered overall project costs,” Lavers said. “We are as frugal as any other agency when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.”
After moving into the building, however, Lavers said the space felt a little drab and institutional.
So Lavers contacted Johnson, who helped him find a piece for the Tobey building from the Arts Bank – a separate pool of state-owned art to be loaned out to buildings that aren’t new or recently renovated.
The Arts Bank pieces aren’t personalized like the Percent for Art ones. But it livened up the room with some much-needed color, Lavers said.
“A lot of people come in not in great places in their lives, having been recently unemployed,” he said. “Little things help – like having a nice bright piece of art on the wall. Maybe that can put them in a good frame of mind before working with our folks to get back to work.”
New Hampshire Hospital could use even more art, said Robert MacLeod, chief executive officer.
“It goes a long way to countering that image that many people have of dungeon-like institutions,” he said.
The second-floor hallway, right outside the entrance to the geriatric pyschiatry wing, is called “Memory Lane,” after a Percent for Art project created and installed by Gordon Carlisle, a Portsmouth-based artist, in 1999. The 10-piece series of paintings resemble old fashioned snapshots of happy times – friends skiing in the mountains or hiking through the woods.
The art does more than brighten the room; it provides a therapeutic benefit to patients, said Gary Moak, chief of geriatric psychiatry.
“It helps them feel that they’re still connected. And it helps them feel more normal,” he said. “They’re less mental patients or sick people. They’re just people.”
The style of the art can remind older patients of positive memories, Moak said.
“They may have seen things like that when they were younger – people in the same kind of attire, the same kind of old cross-country ski bindings,” he said. “It helps engage them, improving both their quality of life and response to their treatment.”
For now, there’s only one Percent for Art project lined up for the future: the new women’s prison in Concord.
The Site Selection Committee for the project hasn’t met yet, but there’s already talk of hiring an artist in residence to work with inmates to create art for the facility, said Tim Smith, a project manager for the division of public works.
Smith was also a member of the committee for the Anna Philbrook Center in 2014. He enjoyed it so much, he signed up to help again.
“It’s always fun to see what comes out of it because you’re never quite sure what it will be,” he said.
The Arts Council regularly checks up on the Percent for Art pieces across the state. It pays to repair any damage using the small amount of money it receives from Moose Plate sales – which help conserve art, as well as the outdoors.
They also labeled all the pieces – so people will know where the art came from and who it belongs to.
“It’s almost like a scavenger hunt,” Johnson said.
And it’s adding sparks of color to New Hampshire and the lives of its inhabitants.
“There are so many beautiful things that would not exist without Percent for Art,” Johnson said. “If you stop and look, there’s so much to see.”