GARDEN GROVE : New City Sculpture to Be Unveiled Jan. 20

The Southland artist who sculpted Laguna Beach’s well-known wooden “greeter” has now created a larger-than-life bronze sculpture of a man and a woman for display at the Civic Center here.

The sculpture will be unveiled at a civic ceremony scheduled for Jan. 20.

Artist Guy Angelo Wilson said the work, titled “Union Passage,” celebrates the richness of diversity and the establishment of connections among people.

The bronze sculpture, with granite pedestals, stands 11 1/2 feet tall, and the entire installation is 33 feet long and 12 feet wide.

The installation has two granite monoliths at each end that visitors can use as benches to view the work after passing through an archway formed by the couple’s clasped arms. Each monolith is inscribed with a passage that Wilson has written to describe his work:

When the day ends, another begins, struggle turns to dance

Somewhere beneath the union of our difference

Lies a passage to transcend ourselves. The verses are also etched in Braille, and the archway is accessible to wheelchairs.

Wilson, 35, a Los Angeles-based artist who lives in Diamond Bar, said his work is a metaphor that is open to various interpretations. Some may see the figures as representing winter and spring, and the union of prayer with answer, he said.

Viewed from one end of the installation, the male figure in the sculpture appears to be supporting the female, he said, but from the other end, the female appears to be offering her strength.

“With public sculpture, the work may not be in agreement with everyone, but I hope that it will be meaningful to the community,” Wilson said.

He has also sculpted a work that stands in Brea and created the wooden “Laguna Greeter” that welcomes visitors to downtown Laguna Beach, Wilson said.

The “Union Passage” sculpture in Garden Grove, located between two pine trees at a corner of Civic Center Drive near Euclid Street and Acacia Parkway, cost about $68,000 and was financed by developer fees.

It is the second sculpture to be displayed in the city’s Arts in Public Places program. The city’s first outdoor art object, “We the People,” commemorates the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. It stands near Garden Grove and Harbor boulevards.

Cal Rietzel, manager of the city’s community services department, who has worked as a liaison on the project with Wilson for nearly three years, said the sculpture is “very pretty and very striking. It’s something you can find in the better museums in Europe.”

The Arts in Public Places program was started by the City Council in an effort to enhance the quality of life and cultural experience in the city, Rietzel said.

Dedication and unveiling of the work is scheduled Jan. 20 at noon. A limited number of posters that depict the sculpture will be handed out to people in attendance.