Call for artists to create Harvey Milk sculpture

By Erica Holt, Bay City News Service

June 22, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - The San Francisco Arts Commission has announced a call for artists to apply for a position to design and create a bronze sculpture at City Hall in honor of former San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk.

The Arts Commission has been working to commission the sculpture with The Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, a nonprofit organization formed in 2004 specifically to fundraise for the project.

According to Susan Pontious of the Arts Commission, the Bob Ross Foundation will provide most of the funding for the project, which will cost about $57,500.

Artists from the United States are invited to submit an application to the Arts Commission by Aug. 1. Finalists should be selected by September and will be paid $2,500 to develop proposals for an original bronze sculpture representing Milk.

Pontious said she expects a proposal will be chosen by January 2007 and the sculpture to be built by January 2008. Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was shot and killed along with Mayor George Moscone on Nov. 27, 1978.

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