Crusading Artist Takes His Paintings Far Afield : Culture: The canvases were planted in a hay patch near the Ventura Freeway. He removes them at the landowner’s request.

Dubbing himself the “Phantom of the Arts,” a private Ventura land planner crusading to improve the local cultural scene took credit Wednesday for six paintings that mysteriously popped up this month in a hayfield alongside the Ventura Freeway near Seacliff.

The canvases, one as large as six feet square, had been displayed for almost two weeks. Bernard Tamborello took the art down Wednesday at the request of the Coast Ranch Family Partnership, which owns the property.

One of the brightly colored paintings was of a television test pattern. Another had an image of the Statue of Liberty.

Tamborello, of Tamborello & Associates in Ventura, said he put up the artwork to cheer passersby and to make himself a little happier in the process.

“I did it because I was tired of all the news in the paper,” he said. “The doom and gloom, the recession, depression, violence, the rain the last couple of weeks.”

Tamborello said it all began March 12 at 10 p.m. He grabbed the paintings, which he had created five years ago, took along a friend whom he declined to identify and headed for a hilly area near the freeway.

“We were wearing black. It was a covert operation,” he said.

“Originally, the idea was to have the paintings coming out of the side of the hill,” he added. “But we went up there and the brush was up to our neck.”

The two men decided to put the work in the adjacent field, which is bordered by barbed wire. The artist said he was unable to track down the owners of the land before planting the works in the field, so he just stuck them up.

Initially, said Tamborello, he and his partner put one of the paintings on the freeway side of the barbed wire, but were told by a passing California Highway Patrol officer to take it down.

“It was kind of funny,” Tamborello said. “My friend was hiding behind the Statue of Liberty while I was talking to the Highway Patrol.”

According to Caltrans spokesman Russ Snyder, the CHP contacted the local Caltrans maintenance office to report that the paintings were in a Caltrans right of way. Caltrans removed the paintings the next day, but Tamborello found them and put them back up, this time on the other side of the fence.

Katherine Haley, a member of the Coast Ranch Family Partnership, called the art idea, “the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard.” She said she spoke with Tamborello on Wednesday and told him, “You don’t go on to private property and put up artwork or anything on your own.”

Haley said that even if Tamborello had requested permission to display the art, the partnership would not have granted it.

“Why would you have somebody’s artwork on a man’s field and tromp around on his hay crop?” she said.

For the past two years, Tamborello has tried to bring attention to his plans to enhance Ventura culturally.

They include outdoor cafes on Figueroa Street, an amphitheater near Grant Park and scattered murals. He said his painting of the television test pattern alluded to his idea that everyone in Ventura should go one day a week without television.

Tamborello compared his hay field exhibit to Christo’s yellow umbrellas.

“I know he did something similar,” he said. “But his took thousands of man-hours and dollars. Mine cost $25 for nuts, bolts and wood.”

Though the artwork is now tucked away in Tamborello’s home, it may have a second showing. He spoke Wednesday with Laura Zucker, director of the Ventura Arts Council, about having an outdoor display at the Livery Building in downtown Ventura.

“They’re very large pieces. There may be a problem in the interior of the courtyard because we don’t have a lot of wall space,” Zucker said. “But we like to see a lot of things happening.”