SIGHTS AROUND TOWN : A Brush With Art : Ventura street closes for the unveiling of a downtown mural painted by patients from the Turning Point Foundation.

Rarely does the art world occasion the officially sanctioned interruption of civic life. It happened last Friday night. They closed off North Palm Street. City honchos showed up and shared a few bon mots, along with kind words from corporate sponsors and artist-organizers.

The subject of the brouhaha was the unveiling of an 1800-square-foot mural entitled “The Arts Are in Reach of All,” on the outer wall of the Livery Arts Center in Ventura. Apart from the unshakable fact of its position off the main artery of downtown Ventura, this is a highly public project.

And it’s one that now clearly marks the property as the domain of the arts, if anyone had any lingering doubts about this reformed horse habitue. The mural serves as a kind of signature entryway, festooning the edifice with a vivid fanfare of color and liberally strewn references to Ventura history and to the arts.

A long and loud pastiche, the mural offers in energy what it lacks in finesse. Few stones or topical topics are left unturned. We find quasi-Cubist designs, symbols of the various arts, Chumash handcrafts, touches of Chinese culture, a faceless friar, a tourist-friendly banner reading “Greetings from Ventura” and map details.

More important than the artistic graces of the end result is the process by which the project came to pass.

Culling its muralist team from patients of the Turning Point Foundation, a “social rehabilitation mental health agency,” artists M.B. Hanrahan and Michele Chapin served as coordinators for the three-month-long project. Funding came from the City’s Community Outreach Program and the A. Levy Foundation, while the paint supplies came from Sinclair Paint Company.

Because it interfaces directly with the public sphere, public art inherently carries with it an element of risk. A mural is both more permanent and more visible than an art exhibit. While not exactly subtle, the new Livery mural is civically correct, and broadly stroked with good intentions.

Alive at the Livery

Generally, the Livery Arts Center is increasing its pitch and public profile. A noble idea whose time seems to be already in process, the Livery currently is home to visual arts, dance and theater, with other incidental media slipping onto the property.

On the night of the unveiling, expansive-thinking bassist Jim Connolly gave one of his periodic concerts at the Performance Studio.

Also, visitors drifted into the V2 Gallery to check out the latest fare in the soulful, and still young little gallery. There, they found an aquatic motif run rampant.

Prolific Dada crackpot Doug Lipton’s sea creatures hang overhead, Charles Fulmer’s fish sculptures swim at eye level, and the kelplike banana-leafed palm contributes to the sea-life allusions in the space.

But Rob Beckett’s skewed visions of secret undersea life are the centerpieces of the show, called “The Fish from Both Worlds.” Beckett has long specialized in fancifully, fastidiously rendered oceanic imagery--both real and surreal. Wacky humor rears its head, as seen in such titles as “Cosmic Aquarium with Beautiful Dumb Fish.”

Dances with Wolves

Meanwhile, at the Momentum Gallery, an altogether quieter aesthetic is presently roosting.

Elisse Pogofsky-Harris is an Ojai-based artist whose latest series of paintings is, fittingly, entitled “Mystery Dances.” Central to the mystery is the metaphorical balancing act played out in her multiple variations.

An omniscient wolf signifies “the guide and the go-between of the spiritual and temporal worlds.” Kimonos are intended to trigger a Jungian resonance. Together, the wise wolf and the furling garments interact in various ways against black backdrops. In effect, they dance in the dark.

Kimonos are, at once, ceremonial, exotic, functional and sensuously tactile. They offer visual potential for an artist whose past work--in Ojai and in Italy--has included painting still lifes and studies of draperies with an eye on the Italian Renaissance.

With her new series, the artist is wrestling with historicism and a fresh conceptual approach, a personal statement. The results are mixed.

An added layer of drama comes from the title in “Flayed Angel.” A kimono, with sleeves akimbo, suddenly takes on a quality of celestial visitation--recalling the reference to “crucified shirts” in author James Joyce’s “Ulysses.”

The best images of the lot are the most minimal. “Dancing I-VI” is a series of reddish, sparsely rendered kimonos in varying positions, reminiscent of the dancing/dying figures in Robert Longo’s work but sans the figures.

In the end, Pogofsky-Harris has worked up extensive variations on a theme.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“Mystery Dances: New Works by Elisse Pogofsky-Harris” through October 24 at the Momentum Gallery, 34 N. Palm St. in Ventura. Info: 652-2820.

“The Fish from Both Worlds,” art by Rob Beckett, Charles Fulmer, and Doug Lipton, through October 10 at the V2 Gallery, 34 N. Palm St. in Ventura. Information 641-9405.