CONCORD, Calif. (July 21, 2024) — Arts and history may never make the top 10 city budget line items, but 200 or 1,000 years from now, that’s what people will remember us for.
A painting in a Roman chapel, the Last Supper in Milan, or a statue from the Qin Dynasty will tell future generations who we are and what we were.
Concord recently created a series of murals in the downtown area. From there, artists expanded to paint utility boxes across the city. One can imagine that in the distant future, the box covers will be on display in a museum, where people can admire the artwork and wonder what the wires inside are for.
One of the most interesting pieces of art in Concord is quite old: a guest Danish and a free cup of coffee will be offered to the first person who can identify the location of the cement wall relief depicting an outdoor scene shown in the attached photo.
As Mayor, I have established a Mayor’s Art Gallery outside the Mayor’s Office. This gallery will display general artwork from adult citizens as well as artwork from students in each grade level of elementary, middle and high school. There will be two periods, the first period will end on April 30th, and the second period will start in September and likely end on October 30th.
History and art can also be combined, as in the case of the statue of Don Salvio Pacheco, which bears a plaque about the city’s founder: you can imagine someone from another planet trying to figure out what it says in 1,000 years’ time.
I also piloted a “Historic Minute” at City Council meetings to remind people of what has come before and help connect us to the people who laid the foundations of our community. I advocated for the installation of 10 historical markers that tell the stories of different neighborhoods and people: who was Black Bart, where the electric railroad station was, where the airfield in our city center was that inspired a city ordinance in the 1930s banning planes from backyards.
Even if arts and history aren’t in our top ten expenditures, we should always support them in some way so that we remain more than a collection of houses and roads with mysterious names.
Think of art and history as notes to the future about who and what we are.
Please collect your prize at EdiBirsan@gmail.com.
