Issue: The Whale Mural
Wyland’s wall of whales drew protests and praise even before the Hawaii-based artist began to put up scaffolding around the Long Beach Arena last month. Now that the painting is completed, what do you think of the world’s
largest mural?
Robin Lee Makowski, American Cetacean Society , illustrator
It’s not done accurately. The animals are too short. They’re too squatty. It could never be used as a tool to show that these are what the animals are supposed to look like. The animals do not hold their calves under their pectoral fin. It’s very maternal and it looks cute, but it’s not accurate. The calf would not be able to come up for air if it were under the mother’s fin. The cow is definitely capable of holding her breath longer than the calf. The calf has to be free. It usually swims closer to the mother’s head. It is exactly like all the rest of his walls. He has no idea about the use of color. He knows gray, black, blue and white. I would have incorporated some dramatic lighting. It could have been so beautiful. It looks like someone took a rubber stamp and went boink, boink, boink. It was painted as a billboard to sell his stuff. He exploited that wall.
Liz Miramontes-Kennard, Long Beach Children’s Museum , co-founder and executive director
It’s spectacular. Breathtaking. Thrilling. Soothing. It’s wonderful. This raises the level of consciousness about our environment. This will constantly remind kids to put that in the forefront of their brains. And it will remind the adults that they will constantly have to be concerned about the environment. When you’ve been working hard all day long and you look up and see this majestic piece, it takes your breath away. I think it’s one of the best public murals the city has endorsed, and I’m very proud of my city for doing that. In the midst of all the modern buildings that go up, this work really takes us back to what Long Beach is all about. We’re a coastal city. This really adds a lot to it. It’s just a very calming kind of work. I get the same feeling looking at it as I do an aquarium. It’s a mind-blower.
Faure Rilliet, Jordan High School, Long Beach , retired art department director
I think this painting is an absolute disgrace to this community. I just think it’s absolutely ghastly. It is so bad. He doesn’t know anything about design, obviously. He just stuck the whales on there. It doesn’t have any relationship to the shape of the building. Any artist who’s doing a job for somebody like that would give them a sketch. He absolutely would not give them anything. My feeling is maybe he just got up on the scaffold and painted. As a result there’s no sense of relating to the shape of the building. There’s no sense of composition. I hope the paint doesn’t last. Blue is the most fugitive color you can use. Red will fade into maybe a nice pink or something. Blues just kind of fade. It sticks out like a sore thumb. I feel the politicians are using the children. They’re not learning that architecture is an art form in and of itself.
Jeffrey A. Kellogg, Long Beach vice mayor , and project initiator
I had very high expectations when this project began and I feel very good about it. It was never intended to solve social ills in our society. It was intended to teach people more about art and the environment. What I like, in particular, is that it’s something that people are going to walk around. Somebody made a comment that it’s nice to have something like the Rainbow Pier back in Long Beach, something people can go look at and walk around for free. The artist Wyland plans on doing 100 of these throughout the world. I wanted Long Beach to be the centerpiece of all the walls that he does. Doing the largest mural here means that we’ll always be front and center. No matter where he goes in the world they’ll all mention the largest one. It’s stating something positive about our city. The first whales that he did were special to me. Since my wife, Pam, is pregnant, he said the first mother and the calf, that’s for Pam and the child. I thought that was nice of him.