FREEWAY MURAL: A LADY IS WAITING

The fate of the “Old Woman of the Freeway” mural is still in limbo.

Besieged by irate phone callers, the ad company that painted over the popular mural late last November, wants to help restore it, and artist Kent Twitchell recently discovered that with the proper tools, restoration is possible. But, the mural can’t be fully restored without permission from Koichi Kurokawa, an owner of the building on which it appeared--when it did appear in full.

Kurokawa, who leased the mural wall space to Blue Wallscapes ad company, is reportedly out of town until Jan. 30, and has not returned calls from The Times for more than a month. He has also not called Twitchell, who says successful restoration of the mural is less likely as time goes on and the block-out paint hardens, and that he is now seriously thinking of repainting the mural elsewhere.

“If I could find another place, somewhere else on an L.A. freeway where she’d be more appreciated, I’d rather put her there than force her down the throat of someone who hates her,” says the artist. Twitchell’s “Freeway Lady” watched over the Hollywood Freeway near the downtown interchange for 12 years. (Only northbound motorists could see it.)

Twitchell, who says he was never warned about the painting over of his mural, is apparently without legal recourse. His predicament is not unique.

Today, he and other local artists and arts supporters have scheduled a 9 a.m. press conference at the Los Angeles Press Club to discuss other ways to protect murals and rally support for their cause. Moreover, the vulnerability of public art plagues artists throughout the nation.

“Very few cities have a comprehensive maintenance plan for conservation or preservation of public artworks, including murals,” says Richard Andrews, director of visual arts for the National Endowment for the Arts.

“In fact, most cities haven’t even inventoried their public art. Unfortunately, a lot of cities find they have a problem only when something is so far gone there’s not sufficient time to recover money for restoration. The Statue of Liberty,” he says, “is a conspicuous example of a large-scale rescue effort, but thousands of artworks across the country from the same era have not been restored.”

In Twitchell’s case, though a state art-preservation law protects public artworks, the “Freeway Lady” fell into a loophole: The law does not protect artworks that cannot be removed without damage to themselves or to the buildings on which they appear.

Twitchell also never had a contract to prevent Kurokawa or subsequent building owners from doing whatever they wished with the mural wall. Evidently, there are no other laws, local or national, that would have protected Twitchell’s mural. (Only Massachusetts has an art-preservation law protecting artworks attached to buildings.)

The lack of comprehensive protection, Andrews and others have said, is sometimes caused by the conflicting interests of artists and property owners. If permitting a mural to be painted on a building means the building owner might be restricted in remodeling, selling or even demolishing his property, the owner may be reluctant to allow the mural’s creation in the first place. Preservation of public artworks “is a very murky area, legally and artistically,” Andrews notes.

This month, however, the NEA began a three-month series of seminars in Miami, Philadelphia and Washington to explore such issues as the commissioning, preservation, maintenance, conservation and relocation or removal of public artworks. Results of the exploration will be published in late 1987, Andrews says.

Also on the national scene, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) has introduced an art-preservation bill in the Senate, which both incorporates California’s law and adds to it. Kennedy’s bill, aimed at improving artists’ copyright protection, includes an amendment that will allow artists to continue to collect royalties after their works have been sold.

“Many other countries guarantee artists’ rights,” says Kennedy. “This bill fills the vacuum in the legal rights of artists and gives needed recognition to the priceless value of our national artistic heritage.”

However, like the California law, Kennedy’s proposed legislation does not protect artworks attached to buildings, unless artists request this protection in their contracts.

Locally, the problem may be greater than anywhere else in the nation. Experts agree that Los Angeles County, with more than 1,000 murals, is the mural capital of the country. Almost all are as vulnerable to deterioration or destruction as Twitchell’s “Freeway Lady.”

Caltrans, which has ultimate authority over the city’s 10 freeway murals painted for the 1984 Olympics, has the option to remove any mural should its site be needed to alter a freeway.

Bob Godell, who helped pick the Olympic freeway mural sites as head of the Caltrans highway art program, says he chose spots that he and other Caltrans officials felt would remain untouched for at least 15-20 years. But, in a worse-case scenario, he says, any one of the murals could be destroyed immediately to widen or rebuild a freeway. (Artist Alonzo Davis, Olympic freeway program coordinator, says the murals’ life-expectancy is 30 years.)

“We have no immediate plans to touch the murals,” Godell says. “We really plan for repair or reconstruction more in advance than that; we’re thinking now what we might be doing in 10 or 15 years. But it is in writing, that if we have to use the property, we have the right to destroy the piece.”

Also, Davis says, both Caltrans and the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, which commissioned the murals, are not obligated to pay for mural maintenance. This means artists or arts supporters must pay for maintenance or restoration of the works, Davis says. He adds that three murals have been vandalized, one of them defaced at least 14 times by vandals throwing jars of paint against it. (Two of those murals have been cleaned up and protected with a polyurethane shield by Textured Coatings of America.)

“Every single Olympic mural is covered with black, tarry soot from car exhaust,” says Los Angeles artist Judith Baca, who painted one of the freeway murals. “And the colors are just changing dramatically right now.”

Baca, who painted the half-mile-long Tujunga Wash “Great Wall of L.A.” mural, now in fact paints only portable murals, made on movable wooden panels. She says she made the change because of “issues of mural permanence in dealing with building owners and the whims of building owners.”

“If the Department of Parks and Recreation (which has authority over the “Great Wall”) decided to take that mural off, they could,” Baca adds. “It’s just as vulnerable as anything else. All we have is public outcry but that’s always after the fact.”

Baca’s first mural, made in 1969 in Hollenbeck Park, was painted over 12 years later by the city Department of Parks and Recreation. She says she is about to launch a mural restoration and maintenance business, based at the Social and Public Arts Resource Center she directs. Similarly, Davis says he plans to start an endowment fund this year for mural maintenance and restoration.

Twitchell, who has about 20 other murals throughout the city, says all but one is as vulnerable to potential destruction as the “Freeway Lady.” Verbal agreements based on trust, not written contracts, are all that protect them, he says.

Indeed, written permission only to paint, not to preserve, was obtained from Kurokawa when Twitchell created the “Freeway Lady.” It was made in 1974 as part of the Citywide Murals Program funded by the county and the NEA.

“The Citywide Murals Program was the first coordinated attempt to bring about a diversification in mural art, and bring it out of East L.A.,” says Lukman Glasglow, who administered the program. “It was tough enough to get people to agree to giving us the buildings. There was not a lot of track record emotionally or visually for people to have their buildings painted. So just getting that done, we feel, was an accomplishment. In retrospect, we blew it by not having safeguards built into that.”

Ironically, the mural Twitchell says he feels most secure about, is one of a “Mexican Jesus” he painted with members of the South Central Los Angeles Solos gang on the exterior wall of a liquor store.

“The piece is being protected by the Solos gang, whose leaders wanted a Jesus in the area where there had been so many murders,” Twitchell says. “It’s probably my most well-protected work. If anyone goes near it, someone is likely to appear from behind an alley and say, ‘What’s going on?’ ”

But, Twitchell admits, when he secures wall spaces from building owners for his murals, “I don’t even remotely think like a lawyer like I should. I’ve probably been too trusting.”

That kind of thinking is not atypical.

“Most artists are involved in making their art and have not thought too much about the effect of their work going out into the world,” says Claudia Chaplain, manager of the California Arts Council’s art in public places program. “They’s haven’t made plans; it’s been enough to be able to make the work.”

(One local artist is thinking legally. Tom Van Sant filed a $5.5-million suit last November against the owners of the downtown AT&T; Center, claiming that his removable, 120-foot-long mural there was destroyed during remodeling of the building.)

Tom Goetzl, an art law expert from the Bay Area, says he thinks providing for maintenance of public artworks is even more important than guarding against their destruction. “When public artworks are commissioned, provisions should be written into contracts between the public agencies that have commissioned the art and the artists that maintenance or restoration will be undertaken by the artist” who should be paid for this work.

Baca, who directed the Citywide Murals Program from 1974-77, agrees with Goetzl. She says she thinks that since the city partly paid for the program’s murals, it should pay for artists to maintain the works--to wash them periodically and to revitalize their colors with fresh paint. She also says she thinks Caltrans should pay for the Olympic murals’ maintenance.

“I’d like to see a strengthening of the state art-preservation law, too,” Baca says, “if there’s a loophole, let’s close it.”

Doug Ward, president of the Los Angeles chapter of Artists Equity Assn., a national organization formed to protect visual artists’ rights, suggests another possible solution for mural protection.

“There could be some kind of board, appointed by the mayor or the County Board of Supervisors, charged with giving landmark status to public artworks,” Ward says. Several others expressed similar sentiments.

Amarjit Marwah, president of the city Cultural Heritage Commission, points out that the commission gives historic status to city architecture and other sites, such as the Hollywood sign and even oak, cedar and olive trees.

“If a tree can be a historic monument, why can’t a mural?” says Marwah, who adds that those who tamper with designated monuments could be both sued and fined by the commission.

However, Ruthann Lehrerq, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving Los Angeles’ historic architecture, says that the idea is good theoretically--but not practically. The Heritage Commission, she cautions, allows repainting of historic landmarks, which could prove disastrous for murals.

“Someone could, for instance, paint the Bradbury Building (the early 1900s edifice at Third and Broadway) pink and (the Heritage Commission) would never know about it,” Lehrer says. The only solution, she asserts, is “to establish new city procedures.”

Lehrer also notes that Heritage Commission landmark protection lasts only a maximum of one year. That time period, Marwah says, may soon be extended by the City Council, but only to five years. Therefore, it seems the only hope for new mural protections are, as Lehrer says, new procedures.

The Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, which now runs the Citywide Murals Program, might be one avenue for change.

Glenna Avila, who ran the murals program from 1977-83, says that about 250 murals were produced as part of the program from 1974-83. However, Harriett Miller, the program’s current director, says it is now only a clearing house and advisory service for other institutions, such as schools, that want to produce murals.

Fred Croton, Cultural Affairs Department general manager, says, “We are not planning to enact new programs,” for mural production, preservation or maintenance.” Councilwoman Joy Picus said through an aide that the issue was too complex to comment on. However, Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman says he thinks it warrants action.

“I will speak to my staff about this and, hopefully, organize a committee to look into it,” Edelman says.

Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) says the state Legislature is not considering the issue at the moment. “But I’ll look and see what the possibilities are.”

Meanwhile, “The Old Woman of the Freeway”--only her clear blue eyes exposed--waits and watches, her future unknown.