NEWPORT BEACH : Public Asked to Help City Pick Artwork

An 18-foot-tall shell, a 6,000-pound brass propeller or huge fiberglass and bronze replicas of fishing weights and brain coral?

These are the sculptures three artists want to create for the Newport Pier area. And, the city is asking the public to help choose which work of art should be placed in historic McFadden Plaza.

A city committee of art professionals chose the three artists out of an original field of 110 applicants after reviewing slides of their proposed sculptures. Christine Oatman, Donald Lipski and Richard Turner were awarded $1,500 each to create models of their proposed artwork.

The models are now on display in the City Hall lobby for public viewing. A selection committee will consider public comments when it picks the official commissioned artist. The winner will receive $90,000 from the city to produce the work.

Oatman, of Encinitas, has proposed placing two giant spiral seashells cast in bronze in the plaza. One shell would be 18 feet tall while the other would be nine feet tall, outfitted with a sound system that would release computer-generated wave sounds.

Lipski, a New York artist, wants to install a solid brass ship propeller 12 feet in diameter on a railroad car frame that sits on actual railroad tracks. The art would symbolize the pier’s shipping and railroad history. The pier began as a wharf built in 1888 by the McFadden brothers, who extended a train line from Santa Ana out onto the wharf.

Turner, an Orange resident, also seeks to evoke memories of the pier’s railroad roots by using steel rails in his work, which focuses on the ocean and the area’s fishing background. Turner would use six large boulder-like objects patterned after fishing weights and brain coral.

So far, just two people have filled out comment cards. Both said they were dissatisfied with the offerings although one said he would vote for Turner’s project.

“We should try again with new designs,” wrote the other unnamed observer, who suggested that a flagpole be located in the plaza. “The people of the city of Newport Beach deserve something better.”