Art Center Plan Promises Refreshing Variety, Adventure : Renovation: The Huntington Beach project hopes to include cutting-edge art, workshops and foreign exchange programs as well as capture the mood of the community. : ANALYSIS

If all goes according to plan, the Huntington Beach Art Center--scheduled to open in spring 1991--is likely to become Orange County’s most adventurous community art center. It has savvy leadership, wide-ranging and innovative program plans, and support from both the redevelopment-minded city and the recently formed nonprofit Huntington Beach Art Center Foundation.

The center will occupy an 11,000-square-foot former Southern California Edison building purchased by the city for $758,000 in 1988. The site is centrally located (at 538 Main St., five blocks from the ocean) and architecturally friendly to the range of sizes and media that characterize contemporary art.

The $750,000 renovation scheme by Thirtieth Street Architects of Huntington Beach approved by the City Council earlier this month will turn 4,500 square feet in the heart of the building into three galleries. They’ll have 16-foot exposed wood ceilings, concrete floors and moveable walls to be reconfigured with each show.

In contrast, the Irvine Fine Arts Center was conceived primarily as a place for community members to take studio art classes, and no galleries were included in the original plan. Galleries at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton were awkwardly carved out of rooms in a former home.

Two of the Huntington Beach center’s galleries will show six exhibitions annually of work by artists with national and regional reputations. All kinds of art will be included in these shows: painting, sculpture, crafts, interdisciplinary work, book art, site-specific installations--you name it.

Most of the exhibits will be organized by director Naida Osline and her staff in cooperation with independent curators or other cultural institutions. Some exhibits may be rented from such well-regarded organizations as the American Federation of the Arts and Independent Curators Inc.

Shows at the center will “aim to place artwork into a cultural and art-historical context,” Osline says, by means of free handouts, wall labels, videos and other informational aids. “We’re not just packaging work that’s already been done,” she adds. “We’re interested in developing new work.”

The third gallery will annually showcase about eight to 10 one-person exhibits by local and regional artists as well as broad-based community shows (for example, an exhibit based on querying local residents about the objects they consider beautiful).

Other forms of art--independent films, classic movies and art videos--will be shown in the 1,000-square-foot multipurpose room. Its raised platform also will accommodate lectures and panel discussions (by artists, curators, art historians and critics), performance art, readings by regional poets and storytelling sessions.

The building will be the site of training programs--for elementary and high school teachers interested in introducing art to their students--and intern programs for college art students.

Ideas include involvement in an “international exchange” that would bring teen-agers or senior citizens from different countries together and send art supplies or basic necessities to needy artists in other countries. Osline also talks about encouraging discussion and action by local artists regarding such political issues as freedom of expression and tax laws that affect the production of art and contributions to art institutions.

The center’s 650 square feet of studio space will be used for classes, workshops and demonstrations in both “conceptual and technical art-making skills,” Osline says. The rest of the building will house a bookstore, administrative space, a kitchen (to serve receptions and parties) and areas for art preparation, shipping and receiving.

Of course, the center’s big wish list needs money to fuel it. That’s where the foundation--formed as a fund-raising body--comes in. It is raising money for the renovation as well as for a $3-million endowment expected to furnish an annual operating budget of $200,000 to $300,000.

Headed by Robert B. Goodrich, the 10-member foundation board received its first contribution of $75,000 from FHP Health Care last week. GTE also recently agreed to underwrite an annual fund-raising equestrian event at the Huntington Beach Equestrian Center. Meanwhile, at the community level, the foundation is selling bricks for $100 apiece that will be engraved with the donor’s name and displayed on a wall inside the entryway. The money will be used specifically for programming.

The city will cover all operating costs for the first two years, before the endowment is expected to accrue enough funds. Subsequently, the city will continue to supply utilities and pay the salaries of the center’s employees--manager Michael Mudd, Osline and support staff--who are part of the cultural affairs division of the Community Services Department. Other income will come from user fees: an admission or suggested donation (still undetermined) and fees for lectures and classes.

Two aspects of the center’s plans stand out as particularly laudable. One is its well-thought-out balance of programming--both for the community at large and sophisticated art viewers who may travel from outside Orange County to see intriguing, cutting-edge work. The other is the way the center fits into the redevelopment scheme for the rundown downtown area while retaining--in its freewheeling spirit and encouragement of noncommercial, non-mainstream art--aspects of the scrappy, scruffy “edge” that characterized the city in simpler times.

The center will be part of Celebration Plaza, a $560,000 city project designed by Cardoza-DiLallo-Harrington. It is supposed to transform the area bounded by Main Street, 6th Street and Pecan Avenue with new landscaping and “hardscaping” that will provide an outdoor venue for public art, performances and celebrations of one sort or another, for which Main Street can be closed to traffic.

In developer-speak, Celebration Plaza is considered the “inland anchor” of the 336-acre Main-Pier area, the largest redevelopment area in the city. This summer, more more than 1,000 new condo units and townhouses are due to be completed, as well as several hotels, restaurants, a health center and a shopping mall. And in 1992, the city plans to reopen the old pier, damaged in a 1988 storm, after a much-ballyhooed $10-million reconstruction.

Even without all this activity, about 12 million bodies already descend on the beaches every summer. So the center is about as far on the beaten path as it can be.

But rather than seeking to cater specifically to the tastes of the surfers or tourists looking for McDonald’s or yuppies scouting upscale boutiques, Osline simply views the center as “an alternative space in Orange County.” The point is to be inclusive rather than specialized or snooty, she says. She talks about planning exhibits dealing with social issues like the recent oil spill, AIDS or the homeless.

Involvement with the real world and the challenging side of the art world make all the difference between a timid, provincial art center and one that seeks to broaden a community’s horizons and bring it closer to the heart of the unpredictable, often scruffy and perverse heart of the “art experience.” Time will tell whether this will happen in Surf City, U.S.A., but the signs look very promising. See you July 1 at the ground-breaking.