Carlsbad Council Decides City Isn’t Ready for Abstract Art

Councilwoman Ann Kulchin gave it a shot. She really did. For two days, she lugged around the 15-pound model of a sculpture proposed as the debut piece in this city’s public art collection.

It sat in her car. She showed it to friends. She personally pondered its wave-shaped form and tried, oh how she tried, to decipher its message.

But when it came time to pass judgment on the piece and decide whether the city should spend $10,600 to have artist James Hubbell produce a life-size version, Kulchin mustered her courage and announced that, to her eye, the sculpture just didn’t cut it.

“It just didn’t feel right,” Kulchin concluded. “I think it would look marvelous in Detroit.”

On Tuesday evening, Kulchin cast the deciding vote as the council refused to fund the 6-foot-tall artwork, slated for installation at the new Carlsbad Safety and Service Center, which will open in about two months.

Kulchin’s vote broke a weeklong deadlock that had kept the fate of the sculpture--an abstract blend of bright red and rust-colored steel that is split and filled with chunks of crushed glass--in doubt. On Aug. 5 the council had deadlocked 2 to 2 on the matter and decided to wait a week for the return of Kulchin, who was on vacation in Tahiti with her husband.

The council’s decision left the city’s Arts Commission with something of a dilemma. The group met for nearly two hours Wednesday to formulate a new game plan, but there is little chance that a new sculpture can be selected in time for the opening of the Safety and Service Center, which will house the city’s police and fire departments.

“I was very disappointed,” said Patra Straub, a commission member. “My opinion is it was a marvelous work of art and Carlsbad would have been very fortunate to have had Jim Hubbell’s sculpture.”

Straub said it is not unusual for the public to have a negative initial reaction to a unique work, but that such early impressions generally yield to feelings of acceptance and, eventually, enjoyment.

Hubbell, an artist, sculptor and architect who lives in Santa Ysabel, was out of town Wednesday and could not be reached for comment. Known internationally for his sculpture, mosaics, stained glass and buildings fashioned from natural materials, Hubbell’s work can be found in more than 100 homes, churches and restaurants in the San Diego area.

In an interview Wednesday, Kulchin said she was not displeased with the sculpture, rather that she couldn’t envision such a controversial piece as the first work of art approved by the City Council.

“I’m a supporter of the arts,” Kulchin emphasized. “But what we need, perhaps, since this is the first time, is something that’s a little less controversial, a little more traditional.”

In the future, however, such avant-garde works will probably fare better in Carlsbad, Kulchin said.

“It’s like having fish when you’re a kid,” she said. “You care more in the beginning. The first time you find one dead, you cry. But, by the fifth or six one, you just flush them down the toilet.”

Councilman Claude (Buddy) Lewis also was troubled by Hubbell’s work of art. He, too, took the model home for a few days, showing it to a dozen Carlsbad families from various sections of the city. It struck out with all of them.

To Lewis, a high school baseball coach who admits to knowing little about art, that meant one thing--the city had a sculpture that had gone 0 for 12.

As for himself, Lewis acknowledged that he wasn’t fond of the thing, but added that he didn’t particularly dislike it either. Rather, he felt the sophisticated sculpture simply would not fit harmoniously with the law-and-order ambiance of the Safety and Service Center.

“If they want to put this piece of art out in some park, then fine,” Lewis said. “I think a person walking into the Safety and Service Center should get a symbolic feeling of protection of some sort. That sculpture certainly didn’t give that feeling.”