Costa Mesa : Work on Sculpture Gets Under Way at College

To motorists zipping by on Fairview Road, it’s just a bulldozer at yet another construction site.

But to environmental artist Lita Albuquerque, the growing hole in the ground is the beginning of a master work of art.

After more than two years in the planning stage, construction has begun on a major outdoor “installation” on a one-acre grassy site between the Administration Building and Peterson Gymnasium on the Orange Coast College campus. The $30,000 sculpture is funded partly by an Art in Public Places grant that the school was awarded in 1983 by the National Endowment for the Arts, according to Jim Carnett, director of community relations for Orange Coast College.

When finished in late August, visitors to the “contemplative” work will enter through a pair of blue columns, walk through a circle of trees and then into a 10-foot-deep bowl. A public celebration is scheduled for fall, when the work will officially be presented to the City of Costa Mesa, according to Edward Baker, dean of OCC’s Fine Arts Division.

“The art world is genuinely enthused about this project . . . . The piece will draw great attention to OCC and to our community,” Baker said.

Construction work on the bowl has caused a lot of comment among the students and staff at the school.

“It is causing a bit of a stir,” Carnett said. “People think they’re building a swimming pool.”