Sculptor Gets His Show on the Road

Motorists zooming along the Hollywood Freeway near the Sherman Way exit Thursday did double takes at the sudden appearance of three 12-foot-tall, brightly colored, angular-round-spiky-swirly-shaped metal figures on the side of the freeway.

No, the structures were not the remains of an accident, nor a set of high-tech traffic monitoring devices.

They were the abstract sculptures of La Crescenta artist Lars Hawkes, who won Caltrans approval, under a program that offers roadside space to artists to erect the first permanent freeway art in the San Fernando Valley.

For the past two years, Hawkes, a native of Oslo, Norway, welded and painted the sculptures in his spare time at the machine shop where he works part time in Pacoima. On Wednesday, he finally got to display what he calls his “drive-by art.”

But the early reviews were tentative.

“I’m still developing an opinion,” Caltrans supervisor Jim Fowler said as he watched Hawkes and Caltrans workers install the one-ton sculptures on cement foundations at the exit in North Hollywood.

“They certainly look smaller against this big setting,” said Peter Hawkes, the artist’s younger brother. “But they look good.”

At a news conference later in the day, Caltrans official Jim McCarthy described the sculptures as “unique,” “colorful” and “fanciful.” But he said he had not actually driven to the freeway site to see them in place.

Hawkes himself said he was relieved to have the installation of his work take place without a hitch. “I just hope they will be an asset to the Hollywood Freeway,” the 51-year-old artist said.

The three sculptures are the latest additions to a Caltrans art program that began in 1977 and includes 40 murals and three other sculpture projects along freeways in Los Angeles County.

Hawkes estimates that he spent between $1,000 and $1,500 on materials for each piece, plus $2,000 to rent the truck and crane to install the pieces Wednesday morning on the right shoulder of the freeway’s northbound lanes.

In addition to funding the entire project, Hawkes had to meet several other criteria before he could use a plot of state land.

Under Caltrans’ Transportation Art Program, the art cannot create a safety hazard, be controversial or advertise any product or service. The artist must also get community support for the project, which Hawkes did through a letter of support from Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area where the sculptures were placed. Finally, a Caltrans district executive committee has to approve the art. The committee oversees state transportation projects in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Hawkes also has the responsibility of maintaining the sculptures. Although the industrial buildings and freeway bridges surrounding them have been marked with graffiti, Hawkes said he is not worried because he has coated the sculptures with a special paint that allows him to easily wipe away graffiti.

Nonetheless, as Hawkes was installing the sculptures, Caltrans workers and newspaper photographers were already taking bets on how soon graffiti vandals would put their own version of art on the sculptures.

This is Hawkes’ second installment of drive-by art. Between 1983 and 1987, he created and installed seven large cement sculptures on private property in the Sierra foothills of Fresno County next to a road leading into Sequoia National Park, he said.

He has also created three other sculptures in the same style as those installed Thursday, and has filed an application to have them placed along the Hollywood Freeway south of Vermont Avenue near Silver Lake.