Artist Hopes Benches Will Ride Wave of Support
By next summer in Manhattan Beach, you might just be able to hang ten while sitting down.
The Manhattan Beach City Council will consider a proposal in August to install 10 benches, made in the likeness of surfboards, around the oceanside community. With armrests shaped like volleyballs, the pastel-colored benches will be made from synthetic concrete and shaped as either standard longboards or the shorter body boards.
“I know if I saw a surfboard that was cast out of something on the street, I’d want to just park my rear end there just to see how it feels,” said Rod Baer, the 40-year-old Los Angeles artist and ex-surfer who dreamed up the designs for the benches. “I’m sure there will be some hams who will want to surf on them as well.”
The Surf n’ Sets, as Baer is calling the benches, would be installed at no cost to the city, mostly on Highland and Manhattan avenues between 9th and 12th streets. If the boards rode a wave of public popularity, more benches would be installed on The Strand and around the city, organizers of the project said.
“This is a fabulous idea,” said Howard Spector, the city’s public arts administrator who plans to help raise private funds to support the idea. “I think it’s one that will have resonance in the community.”
If the council approves the project, Spector will follow through on raising the $50,000 to bring the boards to Manhattan Beach. Spector will seek financial backing from arts foundations and businesses.
Spector hopes the distinctive bench designs, which will feature bronze fins, will not only help alleviate a shortage of benches, but also will add a splash of color and humor to the beach city.
“We’re trying to avoid the old adage of what we call ‘flop art’--putting an abstract sculpture in a corporate lobby or a corporate plaza, which doesn’t necessarily have any relationship to its environment,” said Spector, an advocate of integrating the arts into the South Bay city’s infrastructure.
Initially, Baer played with the idea of planting the surfboards vertically along Manhattan Beach’s running path. The boards might have been placed to serve as mileage markers for runners. But Baer changed his mind after spotting a magazine photograph of a 17th-Century African woodcarving that sent his imagination in a different direction.
“It just immediately made me think of the surfboard. And one second after thinking that, I said, ‘Well, if I’m going to make a surfboard bench, I’ll give it volleyball armrests.’ I don’t know where that came from,” Baer said.
Maneuvering away from a “too dispersed” look, Baer discarded a notion of attaching additional recreation symbols such as skateboards or swim fins to the benches.
“If I started doing skateboarding, then pretty soon you’ve got some people saying, ‘Why aren’t you doing basketball?’ ” Baer said. “Pretty soon, I’ve got a sports industry situation on my hands.”
Spector plans to outline the concept for the surfboard benches to downtown merchants later this month. If the idea gets a smooth ride with them and the council, the first benches will probably hit the streets in about a year, Spector predicted.
