ART : Can Laguna Beach Commission a Worthy Sculpture for $27,000? : Public artwork: The city’s 1%-for-the-arts project has good intentions, but in the real world such a paltry sum will, at best, buy a minor piece by an unknown. So how much does it cost to get yourself a decent work?

The city of Laguna Beach is holding a national competition for a sculpture to be sited at the intersection of Forest Avenue and 3rd Street--next to City Hall, which is being remodeled. That sounds like good news--so long as the powers that be don’t succumb to a winsome dolphin or a designer cube. But the city is expecting to pay only $27,200 for the artist’s fee, fabrication and installation. That’s depressing.

There’s no mystery about where the figure came from. It represents 1% of the remodeling cost, which--according to Municipal Code, Chapter 1.09--is required to be reserved for a work of art. The mystery is what the city’s Arts Commission expects to get for such a paltry sum.

All the submissions, due on Sept. 14, are to be reviewed by a preliminary selection committee of (to quote the prospectus) “leading participants in all levels of the art community.” This jury is to choose five semifinalists, the Arts Commission is to winnow the projects down to two, and the City Council is to make the final decision.

The 10-member selection committee, which hasn’t been completely assembled yet, includes Charles Desmarais, director of the Laguna Art Museum; Maudette Ball, administrator of the Foothill Ranch Urban Arts Program in Saddleback Valley; Melinda Wortz, director of the UC Irvine Fine Arts Gallery; City Councilman Neil G. Fitzpatrick; Laguna Beach art collector Arnie Kline; and Joe Souvella, an instructor in the community education program of the Art Institute of Southern California in Laguna Beach.

When I was invited to be on the committee, I agreed. Foolishly, I didn’t inquire about the budget. When I found out what it was, I was flabbergasted. I called Philip Hofmann, the staff liaison to the Arts Commission, to ask where the rest of the money would be coming from. He said the city had no plans to raise more money, unless, perhaps, “on a contingency basis.” That didn’t sound encouraging, and I decided to back out.

So how much does it cost to get yourself a decent public sculpture? Well, of course, that depends on such factors as the scope of the project, the materials with which the piece is constructed and whether the artist is young and inexperienced, in “mid-career” or an established figure. But I was surprised to see a figure so far under $100,000.

This particular sculpture is supposed to occupy a 188-square-foot site, incorporate a water element and be no taller than 20 feet. Media “may include but (are) not limited to metal, stone, ceramic, concrete, fiberglass and mixed media,” according to the prospectus; any material must withstand exposure to sun and salt air as well as “the possibility of defacement, flood or automobile accidents.”

Although the city’s public art program was begun in 1987, this is the first time a municipal building is involved and the first open competition for a work of art. A work of art sitting right downtown in front of City Hall will, ipso facto , help define the city’s image, so it behooves the city to plan accordingly.

Does Laguna Beach want to continue to be seen as the home of earnestly behind-the-times artsy-craftsy productivity and vapid designer chic? If so, a three-dimensional doodad by any fledgling artist panting to get a commission will do just fine. But if the city is willing to entertain the idea of a major work--which may very well incorporate a lighthearted point of view but in a sophisticated, innovative way--then it needs major league bucks and a major league vision.

In general, national competitions are difficult to pull off without a sizable kitty for attention-grabbing mailings and extensive advertising. (Hofmann’s entire public relations budget is only $4,000, so he has settled for putting an ad in one issue of Artweek magazine and sending press releases to newspapers across the country.) It’s often difficult for artists living at a distance to visit the site and get a feel for the locale, which can’t be communicated in a dry diagram of specifications.

Even if an artist with a striking idea chose to take no fee at all for coming up with the concept, heavy-duty materials and the manpower involved in installation are big-ticket items. To get some perspective on the cost factor, I spoke with several administrators who work with public art and got a range of responses.

I mentioned to Mary Beebe the dollar figure of the Laguna Beach project and the requirement that it incorporate water. Beebe is director of the prestigious Stuart Collection, a public art program that has placed work by such prominent artists as Bruce Nauman, Robert Irwin and Terry Allen on the UC San Diego campus.

“You can’t build much more than a drinking fountain for ($27,000),” Beebe said. “If it’s supposed to command the whole plaza, it’s ridiculous. . . . An artist could lose his shirt on a good idea. Maybe it could be done, but it seems unlikely.”

Claudia Chaplin, program manager for the Art in Public Buildings program of the California Arts Council, said her agency’s entire annual project budget is only $150,000, so grants for outdoor work tend to be in the $25,000 to $30,000 range.

“For $27,000 you could have an emerging artist,” she said. “I know a lot of talented (emerging) artists who could accept a commission like that. . . . If you’re talking bronze, you don’t have enough money. If you’re talking stone, maybe you do.”

She suggested that a piece might be as simple as a “10-foot spire with water dripping down” or “three rocks from a quarry polished on one side with one or three recirculating bubblers (fountains).”

Frankly, such pieces sound awfully bland and unimaginative. Wouldn’t it be better to hang onto the money and organize a private fund-raising campaign to top off the budget to a more magnanimous size? Another source the city might tap is its “in lieu” fund, a pool of 1% contributions by developers who elect not to acquire a work of art for their property. This fund now totals $78,571.

Diane Shamash, public art program manager for the city of Seattle--whose percent-for-art program is one of the most celebrated in the nation--points out that “it’s the planning that’s critical.” It’s possible, she said, “if you have a really good proposal,” to raise more money later. “But you need somehow to define the budget. You need to say $27,200 is the budget or that it is only for the first phase.

“If we had $20,000 for a really major project, we’d use it for planning and design. We’d fund the first phase and then . . . get the sponsoring (city) department to fabricate the work out of construction funds” representing the other 99% of the building project.

Shamash said Seattle has done some projects on a shoestring. “I don’t think you need $100,000 to do a great project,” she added. “It depends a lot on the design. If it’s an interesting enough project”--such as one in which teams of artists get to collaborate with design professionals--good artists will be interested in competing.

So far, however, there is nothing particularly sexy about the Laguna Beach project. Even the requirement that the piece contain a water element--a redundant component for a piece just a few blocks from the ocean, anyway--sounds like more of a limitation than a challenge. It sounds, frankly, as though the city was envisioning a demure pool or fountain that would simply reinforce the kitsch status of a tourist town’s art.

The city of Brea--dotted with poorly sited, bland and hackneyed works of art that are ludicrously out of scale with the environment and crafted by artistic nonentities--has already shown Orange County how not to conduct a percent-for-art program. Is it too much to hope that Laguna Beach might try for something really first-class, environmentally appropriate and delightfully unconventional?