Panel Shelves Plans to Change Plaza’s Copper Curtain

Based more on economic realities than aesthetic ideals, the copper curtain--the oft-derided public artwork fastened to the side of the Civic Arts Plaza--may eventually get the artistic equivalent of an Earl Scheib paint job.

But the Thousand Oaks Arts Commission on Thursday night was not comfortable choosing one of four plans by Port Hueneme artist Paul Morris to turn the curtain’s dull brown metallic strips into a colorful contemporary painting.

It voted unanimously to table the issue until March while more information and options could be gathered--including talking to the artwork’s creator and trying to make the copper curtain look more like he intended all along. The City Council must approve whatever recommendation the commission makes.

As Morris is first to admit, the commission subcommittee that recommended his works to the full commission reviewed better ideas for improving the curtain-- including a proposal to take it down and start from scratch. But none had the mixture of art and affordability that Morris offered--and no one else promised to raise most of the money to do the job, as Morris has done.

Thousand Oaks only has $10,000 to spend on altering the $150,000 copper curtain, which graces the otherwise unadorned Ventura Freeway side of the Civic Arts Plaza. It was the brainchild of Antoine Predock, the renowned New Mexico architect who designed the $64-million City Hall and theater.

The $10,000 available, according to Morris, will not even cover the cost of the scaffolding needed to reach the top of the curtain. He planned to obtain an additional $30,000 in corporate sponsorship. No paint would actually be used, according to Morris, who would treat the copper strips with heat and chemicals to alter their color.

“I don’t like the building, but that has nothing to do with what I’m doing,” said Morris, who makes a living designing sets and amusement parks for the entertainment industry. “I’m not correcting Antoine’s mistake. I’m correcting the city’s mistake.”

For example, Morris, who often works with metals in his artwork, said that the Southern California climate--and the exhaust from passing cars--would never have given the strips of copper a weathered turquoise patina, as Predock expected.

But even with that oversight, Morris argues that Predock’s idea would have been fine had it not been hamstrung by city leaders. When city officials decided to securely fasten the 2,000 copper strips instead of allowing them to flutter in the wind, as Predock had intended, they turned the architect’s dynamic artwork into little more than a “brown stamp,” Morris said.

City officials decided to pin down the copper strips for fear they would affect the acoustics inside the plaza’s auditorium, and break off during heavy winds, endangering unsuspecting freeway motorists.