Decision on Airport Arts Program Is Delayed

The John Wayne Airport Commission has delayed until Oct. 3 a decision on whether to hire for the rest of the fiscal year the San Francisco-based firm that curated the airport’s first art exhibition. Meanwhile, one local art consultant has complained that the Orange County arts community has been overlooked for the lucrative contract.

The Airport Arts Commission, which oversees airport exhibits, had recommended that Community Arts Inc. be retained for $98,500 to curate and organize three or four exhibits through June 30.

But the Airport Commission on Tuesday evening delayed a vote on the recommendation because it wanted more information on the art program, said Courtney Wiercioch, airport chief of special projects.

Although last year a task force supplied county officials with a detailed analysis of other cities’ airport art programs, the commission “wanted a breakdown of costs for the first exhibit . . . and to know how other airports do this and (whether) what they are doing is in line with what others do,” Wiercioch said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Miriam Smith, head of a Newport Beach firm that unsuccessfully bid to curate the inaugural exhibit, told airport commissioners at the meeting Tuesday that Orange County appeared to have been left out of the loop when the arts commission made its recommendation.

“My feeling is that it would have been a slap in the face to the Orange County arts community to select a company from Los Angeles, much less select a company from San Francisco,” Smith, president of Art Resource Group, said Wednesday. Her firm has organized office building lobby exhibits for the Koll Co. and others.

“It’s administering a program from arms’ length, and I think there are people in this community who would be responsive and very capable of the job. It’s a great opportunity for people in Orange County.”

Smith said a local group or individual should at least be hired to curate one or more of the remaining exhibits, sharing the contract with Community Arts Inc.

Wiercioch said that arrangement would be possible but stressed that the Airport Arts Commission “was very impressed with the work of Community Arts Inc.” and thus recommended the firm to work through June.

Art-program commissioner Emily Sabin, cultural arts manager for the city of Brea, denied Wednesday that the local arts community had been ignored.

In fact, professionals from the community were hired as consultants to work with Community Arts Inc. to organize the airport’s debut art display and would be retained in the future, Sabin said. This time they included Dextra Frankel, director of the university art gallery at Cal State Fullerton, and Richard Turner, an artist living in Orange who also does free-lance art installation work, she said.

Smith’s firm was one of several that made a bid to curate the initial exhibit, but commissioners felt that the San Francisco company, which has been coordinating that city’s airport exhibit program for 10 years, was best qualified.

The firm has “vast experience in dealing with a lot of important considerations for airport arts programs, such as fire codes, building codes and (presentation of art in) indoor and outdoor public spaces,” Sabin said.