MOSES LAKE - The Moses Lake City Council asked staff to devise a policy on art donations after unanimously accepting a painting created by a student artist.

Mariah Vasquez, a 2012 Moses Lake High School graduate, offered the city "My Quest," a painting she completed as her senior project. She asked the council to accept it last Tuesday as a gift for display at the Moses Lake Civic Center.

"This is one of the biggest art pieces I've ever done and I wanted to donate it to the community and get my artwork out there," she said.

Following acceptance of the piece, Councilman Jon Lane asked Parks and Recreation Director Spencer Grigg what sort of policy is in place concerning such donations.

"Over the years we've talked about adopting some sort of formal policy, although that has not occurred up to this point," Grigg replied. "It's certainly something we could discuss and move toward. This new building needs things on the walls."

City Manager Joe Gavinski said the city has been approached by several community artists wanting to know how the city plans to fill vacant wall space at the new Civic Center.

"I told them we'd fill it up, but not all at once," he said. "Being able to place pictures and artwork that is donated to the city, if in fact it is acceptable to the city council, would be a nice way to do it because there's no expense there."

Councilman Dick Deane, who acted as deputy mayor in the absence of Mayor Bill Ecret last Tuesday, said he agreed the city needs clear guidelines in the event an art piece is unacceptable.

"I did not know what I would be voting on tonight until I showed up here and saw that beautiful piece of work," he said, pointing to Vasquez's painting. "Between Mr. Lane and myself, we'd probably end up with a couple of stick figures looking like they were wrestling. I don't know if that would be very artistic, but if it was made available to the city and we had an open door policy that we accept everything, then we would be placing ourselves at a disadvantage."

Deane suggested city staff should come up with a public art policy for future selections of artistic work.