Art or Eyesore? : Carlsbad Residents Divided Over Sculptor’s ‘Split Pavilion’

Dawn breaks on the horizon with its wide pink and yellow yawn, and soon the morning’s walkers and gawkers are dreamily shuffling along the coast of Carlsbad. Then they encounter it. The thing. The creation.

And suddenly, the people out for their mellow strolls turn into an angry jury, jeering and taunting the very $338,000 art object the city has just built on its coastal boulevard to make it a place of grace and magnificence.

“The whole thing’s hideous,” says Marge Vitucci, a Carlsbad resident late of Chicago. “I’d like to see some grass, flowers, maybe palm trees, something that represents California.”

Then Kevin Agner saunters up, slurping a soda from the local 7-Eleven, and he scans the city’s new work of art and sneers, “It’s a ‘90s version of Stonehenge. And nobody knows what Stonehenge is about, either.”

This morning’s parade of pedestrians continues shuffling along, and Jeani Martin of Carlsbad pauses and opines: “I think it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. It’s looks like an unfinished something.”

And then comes the ultimate California castigation from Barbie Baron, co-owner of the close-by surf shop. “It’s a total bummer,” she said.

What could evoke such public wrath?

It’s a 7,500-square-foot triangular sculpture with trellises, reflecting ponds that smoothly lead the eye to the ocean beyond, and a long 8-foot-high galvanized steel fence.

The artist of “Split Pavilion” is internationally known Andrea Blum of New York, who is stunned and disappointed by the visceral reaction to the work that she thought, if anything, charming in its subtlety.

“I know Southern California has a history of, shall we say, problems with public art,” Blum said. “The inclination is always to dislike.”

For the artist, this project has been a five-year labor to create a special setting for the citizenry to see its environment in a new, imaginative way, a place to watch the shifting light and change their perceptions.

“I’m interested in the psychology of spaces,” Blum said.

Yet while she has both a reputation and local fans, this project is caught in a clamor that has divided the normally peaceful town of 64,000. Nearly 4,000 people have signed petitions urging that the tall steel fence be uprooted like weeds in the dichondra.

There’s such a fuss that the city’s Arts Commission will hold what promises to be a loud hearing Thursday. Even the local radio station has announced that “Carlsbad’s bluff-top art thing” (so much for objectivity) will be the topic of a live call-in talk show.

Before all the folderol was a rather orderly process of choosing an artist and a design to dress up the city’s downtown “village” of shops and restaurants located within sight of the tan beach and the rad waves.

Being cautious--and hoping to avoid precisely what is now happening--officials trotted both artist and art before merchants and other community groups. A model of “Split Pavilion” was shown around. Every household got a city mailer telling about the sculpture.

City Hall thought folks liked the art work, which Blum crafted to the community’s specifications, namely that it include water, places to sit, shade, lighting and a “visual statement.”

“People got what they asked for,” said city Arts Manager Connie Beardsley. “Obviously, a lot of people didn’t pay any attention.”

Maybe so, but a lot of people began paying all sorts of attention when construction began last summer. Some merchants were immediately miffed that the project caused disruption and took longer than expected to build.

But it’s when the fence finally went up along the east side of the project that art concept became physical reality. And that’s when people flipped out.

“How do you like our sea-view jail?” asked 15-year city resident Evelyn Winkelpleck. “It’s all surrounded by bars. It looks like a jail or a zoo.”

Baron, the surf shop owner, is selling T-shirts defiantly emblazoned with the words, “Endless Bummer/Remove the Bars.” She was kind of wishing the city would put restrooms and showers near her shop instead of the sculpture. Now, she’ll gladly settle for the fence being shorter.

Anti-fence petitioner Jim Watson said the piece just isn’t California. “It reflects Pittsburgh because Pittsburgh is the steel city. In California you get a feeling of beaches, open space, Mediterranean-style architecture and palm trees.”

The pavilion’s ponds are also a safety threat to children, Watson argued.

All day, people walk past Blum’s piece and stare. Motorists drive along Carlsbad Boulevard and shout insults about the sculpture to anyone close enough to hear or care. Of 25 passersby who were polled during one 90-minute period, 23 scorned “Split Pavilion.”

Even little 3 1/2-year-old Jimmy Stubbs, wandering by with his family, squinted up at the art object and dolefully inquired, “When are they going to finish the monkey bars?” Talk about everybody being a critic.

The project has its admirers and defenders, although their voices seem to be drowned lately.

“It’s just a pleasing place to be, pleasing to look at when you drive down the street,” said Patra Straub, a member of the Arts Commission.

She talks of studying the pavilion, walking past it and being open to its magic.

“Suddenly the sidewalk opened up and it was just a wonderful ‘aha!’ feeling as I found myself being swept into this wonderful place,” Straub said.

Beardsley said the art project “is something people may not have mentally expected at such a place. That doesn’t mean it’s not an excellent art work that creates wonderful space for people to relax and enjoy the ocean.”

There’s some sentiment that the design isn’t the problem at all, but that its viewers are spewing anger they can’t direct toward the real source of what’s bothering them.

“I just think people are upset with the economy,” said City Councilwoman Ann Kulchin. “People are out of work and this is a way they can vent their frustration.”

Meanwhile, the artist willingly explains what her design is about, and she’s philosophical about the frigid reception to the piece she thought would please.

The much-maligned fence, Blum said, is hardly an obstacle blocking the ocean view, but rather a light-catching medium that acts as a filtering screen leading to the sea. And the ponds, she said, give the illusion that they float on the ocean.

“This piece is very classic, in part because it had to have that overhead structure” for shade, Blum said.

She has accepted that much public art is controversial at first, but believes if given a chance, people will warm to it. “The bottom line is, people are always inclined to be negative,” especially at first.

So art has now become politics in Carlsbad, where the Arts Commission will decide what, if anything, to do about the protest.

Mayor Bud Lewis, who has been through a few weightier issues in his 20 years on the City Council, is busily doing what mayors are supposed to do: He’s wearily appealing for people to be calm.

“If there’s a great public outcry after its been there a while, we’ll make some adjustments. I doubt we’ll tear it out, though,” Lewis said. “After a while, maybe it’ll grow on them.”