SCULPTURE HAS ITS DAY AT THE INN

Jack Bernsmeier, the Irvine Holiday Inn’s general manager, isn’t sure the mammoth neon sculpture hanging in the hotel’s atrium quite fits the scene, but he is sure of one thing--it has the guests talking.

“To be honest, it seems a little out of place to me and I think it might look better in a different environment,” Bernsmeier said of “Mountain to the Sea,” Memphis artist Ron Pekar’s 15-foot-tall creation. “But I also have to say that I like it because it creates a lot of conversation. People are always talking about it; it generates a lot of interest (because) it sticks out. They just can’t make it out.”

Pekar is gratified by the response to his sculpture, which was installed in early August. The 44-year-old artist, who specializes in public art--the type you find outdoors and in other unlikely places--said people don’t necessarily have to enjoy his work, but they should be moved in some way for him to feel he’s succeeded.

“I’m knocked out by the fact that people are reacting,” Pekar said by phone from his Memphis studio. “If it provokes some curiosity and some candid remarks, even if they aren’t always complimentary, then I know it’s working. Of course, I always want people to love my art, but to go unnoticed would be the worst thing.”

There’s little chance of that at the hotel. Bernsmeier said you can’t miss the sculpture, which hangs from the ceiling about 12 feet off the ground. Weighing about 1,000 pounds and glowing with brilliant blue neon, it’s the lobby’s bold centerpiece.

“Most people think it’s a chandelier; a very unusual chandelier, but still a chandelier,” Bernsmeier observed.

Pekar, a professor at the Memphis College of Art who has made public art for more than 20 years, said he was commissioned by the Holiday Inn chain in January to create the piece. The chain, he explained, is in the midst of a project to place more art in its hotels and corporate offices.

Pekar has created sculpture and paintings for several public and private groups across the country, especially in the South and California. A series of heroic, mural-style paintings hang in the Memphis Convention Center and the Public Utilities Co. of Pennsylvania’s headquarters in Reading. His abstract sculptures can be found at the Third National Financial Center in Nashville and the Radison Hotel in Durham, N.C., among other places.

Pekar said he receives $10,000 to $25,000 for a commission. He was attracted by Holiday Inn’s aesthetic commitment and its vow to give him creative freedom at the Irvine hotel. “After they saw my initial concept, they said to do it the way I wanted,” Pekar recalled. “That made my job easy and enjoyable.”

The challenge was to create a monumental piece that could grab attention without disturbing visitors, an eye-grabber, not an eye-jarrer. Pekar wanted an expressionistic form that, even if it wasn’t liked, people could relate to. He decided on an abstract working of a familiar natural scene: a waterfall trailing from a mountain range to a pool below.

A frequent vacationer in California, Pekar said that the inspiration came from his visits to the San Gabriel Mountains, particularly Mt. Baldy. The memory of a cascading waterfall seen on a trip to Yosemite National Park was also instrumental.

“You have to remember that where I live it’s as flat as a fritter, so the mountains really impressed me. I wanted to capture that serene beauty and that symbol of nature’s power, which is something people can identify with. But I also had to make sure my piece wasn’t cliched.”

To make the image fresh, he opted for ribbons of neon plummeting from a stainless steel canopy representing a mountain peak. The neon strips drop to a tangle at the sculpture’s base, signifying a pool.

“I didn’t want to turn it into something of a giant fountain with real water, which has been done with this idea so many times before. The glowing, very modern quality (of the neon) gives it a newness, I think.”

The final product is unusual, but does it complement the hotel’s lobby? Like Bernsmeier, Pekar has to admit that he isn’t so sure. “I honestly like it there, and it fits for me, but I guess the jury is really still out,” he conceded. “What (hotel) guests have to say will tell in the future.”

Guests, it turns out, have mixed reactions to the piece. Some think it’s provocative, elegant; others find it confusing, even disturbing.

Jeff Rivers, a 38-year-old Arizona businessman, noted the sculpture’s “colorful quality and nice symmetry.” He said it is “a welcome look in the lobby; I notice it and like it when I walk by.”

Katie Whitshaw, 28, a Costa Mesa saleswoman visiting a friend staying at the Holiday Inn, said with a laugh: “I think it looks stupid. It might look all right in a museum, but here it just looks stupid. I don’t think the neon really goes with the design.”

Pekar has worked with neon for several years and has focused on public art for more than 20.

“There’s something very nice about people stumbling across art in their everyday lives,” he said. “It allows them to drift from the routine forms of observation. Public art, in that sense, demands some attention from the viewer who happens to come across it.”

Southern California, he noted, has a strong commitment to this type of expression. The outdoor sculptures that can be found in Los Angeles--the downtown MacArthur Park project where several pieces are being installed is a notable example--indicate that public art is flourishing.

“I hope it continues to thrive because it really is something for the masses,” Pekar said.