BREA : City’s Public Art Bus Trip Is a Big Hit

Cultural Arts Commissioner Joe Falco stood in the front of a yellow school bus one recent Saturday morning and asked those crammed into the vinyl seats, “How many of you are from Brea?”

Only a few hands went up.

It was testament, Falco said, to the spreading popularity of the city’s Art in Public Places bus tour, which takes riders past the large collection of outdoor sculptures that have begun dressing up the outside of many Brea buildings since the city began requiring developers 15 years ago to acquire a piece of public art for all developments valued at more than $500,000.

By the end of the two-hour Saturday tours, without ever leaving their seats or the city, passengers see and hear about 45 pieces of outdoor art, half of the collection the city program has created.

On a recent tour, representatives from Newport Beach’s Cultural Arts Commission snapped several pictures of Brea’s sculptures through the open school bus windows.

“In Washington, D.C., the cabdrivers have to take tests to see if they know where the art monuments are,” Falco said from the front of the bus.

Many regulations govern what kind of outdoor statues can be built in Brea, he said. Most of the sculptures were built with safety in mind, Falco said. For example, the artists try to keep in mind that small children might attempt to climb on their work.

Along the tour, Falco explained how mistakes made in earlier sculptures helped to refine the regulations for Brea’s Art in Public Places program.

Pointing out a sculpture surrounded by trees during the tour, Falco said city officials no longer allow developers to plant foliage that could overshadow or hide a public art piece.

Other regulations that have evolved over the years include a requirement that no public art sculpture have moving parts powered by electricity or water, Falco said, because they are subject to breakdowns.

However, one sculpture does move. The “Brea Wind Sculpture,” a large stainless steel piece at the corner of Imperial Highway and Valencia Street, turns when there is a strong breeze, Falco said.

The recent tour swung by a sculpture of a businessman sitting on a bench on Birch Street near Kraemer Boulevard and Valencia.

“This is an example of the super-realist style of art,” Falco told the passengers as they peered out their windows.

He pointed to a pack of cigarettes, an aspect of the sculpture that is “so real people come by and take a smoke.”

At the intersection of Birch Street and Flower Hill Street, Falco pointed to another work entitled “Abstract Dreams,” a series of shiny shapes.

“The paint used on this work was similar to that of automobiles,” he said as the bus slowed for passengers to see the sculpture.

“When did it fall off the roof?” one passenger at the back of the bus asked.

Some developers have tried to tie their public art in with the nature of their business. Eagle Development Co., for example, has a sculpture of an eagle with a 16-foot wingspan on its property, at Birch and Flower Hill.

“The rules forbid having a plaque (on the sculpture) that would lead to commercialism,” Falco said, “but if they want an eagle to represent their company, then that’s fine.”

Falco and Cultural Arts Chairman Harold Ivy, who helped narrate the tour, pointed out other sights not on the official tour, such as some shrubbery that was “sculpted” into a limousine and children.

“How many of you have driven by and never noticed this before?” Falco asked.

The city will offer another drive-by bus tour of its outdoor artwork Saturday. The bus leaves from the Civic and Cultural Center on Birch Street at 10:30 a.m. The cost is $3, with a $1 discount for senior citizens.

A “self-guided tour” of Brea’s public art is also available through booklets published by the Brea Redevelopment Agency. The books display black-and-white photos of the sculptures, give their locations and identify the developers and artists.

For more information, call (714) 671-4403.