BREA : Civic Center Sculptor Is on the Job

When Hungarian sculptor Marton Varo drove through Southern California last year and began looking at the conglomeration of glass and concrete structures, he felt as if something was missing.

“I realized that if architecture has no art it (creates) a very technological civilization and has no human touch,” Varo said. “We cannot imagine, even in Hungary, a building with no artwork.” The human touch is what Varo hopes to show the residents of Brea as he begins a one-year stint as the city’s artist in residence. Beginning today, Varo will be stationed on the front lawn of the Brea Civic and Cultural Center, chipping away at a six-foot-tall piece of marble that will become the latest addition in a 15-year-old city project to place art in public places.

“The developers simply don’t feel the necessity and importance of art,” Varo said. Brea is unique in California in putting part of its budget into art, he said.

Brea’s program, adopted in 1975, was one of the first in the country. Since then, the city has added 96 pieces made of bronze, stone and steel, scattered throughout the city. Varo will add marble.

Bus tours of the 32,000-member community’s art are available, as are maps for bike tours.

Developers with new projects worth more than $500,000 are required to include a piece of art for public view. The cost of the piece, which is on a sliding scale, is usually less than 1% of the project’s cost.

When Newport Beach-based Turner Development Corp. wanted to build a set of three industrial buildings in Brea, for example, it placed a pair of 12-foot-tall red and black steel cylinders in front to decorate the project.

Although 98% of the developers hire their own artists, some contribute to a city fund that will be used to pay Varo $2,500 a month, or about $30,000 for his work this year.

Emily Sabin, the community services manager in charge of cultural arts in Brea, discovered Varo after an art lover told her he was a working on a slab of marble near a maintenance yard at UC Irvine. Sabin found him chipping away at an eight-foot-tall chunk, and was touched by his “genuine desire to make art.”

“He has a very human way of connecting with people,” Sabin said.

Sabin and other city officials were so impressed by the Transylvania-born artist’s ability to explain his work to others that they offered him the job. It didn’t matter to Varo, who works outside anyway, that he would be in the middle of one of the busiest places in town. He had gotten used to students, teachers and maintenance workers stopping by his cliff-top work area in Irvine. And he doesn’t mind answering questions.

“Even if I speak, I can concentrate on my work,” he said. “It’s a kind of psychology. I’m visualizing my work. I don’t use words to explain to myself what I’m doing.”

In addition to answering questions from passers-by, Varo will give demonstrations and teach some children about art, continuing work he once did before leaving an area that is now part of Romania for a life in Hungary.

“I really love children and they love me,” he said. “I encourage them to paint and to draw and to do wonderful things.”

At a little ceremony Thursday to mark the start of Sabin’s work, passers-by stopped to wonder.

Leigh R. Switzer of Anaheim, high school custodian, mused: “This city has really turned around as far as being an old oil town. This city is going to be put on the map because of this.”

Jimmy Spangenberg, textile engineer from Brea who was on way to the library when he saw all the commotion near the marble block, said, “I didn’t look much, but what I see is nice. It’s nice to put some (art) around.”

Varo, 46, was working in Hungary when he did a special exhibition at the U.S. Embassy there. He was encouraged to apply to study in the United States, and landed a fellowship with UC Irvine, where his brother, George Varo, is a biophysics researcher. His work in Brea will allow him to extend his fellowship another year.

Brea officials say placing the classical figure of a woman draped in cloth in front of the Civic and Cultural Center will undoubtedly cause drivers to stop and stare. After all, that’s the point.

“Most people are in their cars,” Sabin said. “But if you bring the art out to them and make it accessible, they’re going to feel the city has something to offer.”