2 Semifinalists in City Sculpture Contest Win Temporary Approval

The Laguna Beach Arts Commission has voted to temporarily approve both semifinalists in a City Hall sculpture competition. Spokane, Wash., artist Tom Askman and Los Angeles artist Pat Warner, whose proposals were chosen last month by a five-person selection committee, will be asked to submit models of their proposed designs by Jan. 11, 1991; the arts commission will make a final recommendation to the City Council shortly thereafter. Each artist will receive $500 for model fabrication.

Warner, 50, proposes a three-tier concrete oval sculpture called “Tenaja” after the Spanish name for basins used to collect water in early Southern California. The 12-foot-long piece, which would incorporate a shallow pool and a trough-shaped fountain element, is meant to symbolize the way public wells were used--as water sources and as meeting places where news and gossip were exchanged.

This would be Warner’s first public sculpture commission. Askman, on the other hand, has made pieces for several places in a the West, among them a fire station in Spokane and a community center in Fremont, Calif. He has also done a piece for a Maryland county government office in Washington.

Askman proposes a fountain sculpture that would be lit at night and that would spurt numerous “lively” arcs of water, giving passersby an interactive experience. The materials and size of the fountain are to be determined--Askman has not yet seen the City Hall site at Loma Terrace (he unsuccessfully petitioned the city for a travel allowance). He usually works in rock, concrete and bronze.

Selection committee members were artist and UCI professor Tony DeLap; Charles Desmarais, director of the Laguna Art Museum; Tom Rhodes, director of the Santa Monica Museum; Maudette Ball, administrator of the Foothill Ranch Urban Arts Program in Saddleback Valley, and Laguna Beach Councilman Neil G. Fitzpatrick.