Curtain Flap

If anything in this town is more maligned than the Civic Arts Plaza, it has to be the copper curtain, the dull-brown public artwork hanging from the south side of the boxy building.

The latest attempt to liven up the “refrigerator’s backside,” as the $150,000 sculpture has been dubbed, will go before the Thousand Oaks Arts Commission tonight, and it could well resolve two problems in one swoop.

Under the proposal from Thousand Oaks sign maker Scott Bailey, the copper curtain’s 2,000 metallic strips would become a giant mural advertising the Civic Arts Plaza, with a huge image of the Exuberant Muse, the performing arts center’s informal symbol.

That would help identify the City Hall-and-theater complex, which has no signage facing the Ventura Freeway, to the thousands of drivers that pass the building every day. And it would add a little color to the lifeless curtain, which was originally intended to flutter in the breeze but was later fastened down by city officials, who feared that runaway copper strips could strike motorists below.

“It would be cost-effective, and it would use the copper curtain as a backdrop for some form of signage and art,” said Bailey, owner of Signature Signs. “I think we have as good a chance as anyone. I think I understand the community’s concerns.

“The building is just not that attractive right now,” he added. “It looks like a GTE switchboard.”

But what about the work of the artists who created the copper curtain--and the Exuberant Muse? Not to mention Thousand Oaks’ strict sign ordinance.

City planners say the concerns about the 50- by 60-foot sign may be moot. There are no standards in the city’s municipal code for the Civic Arts Plaza, which already clashes with numerous city building codes. So it would be up to the City Council to decide what signs it considers appropriate for the building.

“In essence, the City Council sets the standards for signage at the Civic Arts Plaza,” said planner Paul Metrovitsch.

The artistic considerations are more troubling for the members of the Arts Commission.

Tonight’s commission meeting, at 7 p.m. in the arts plaza’s boardroom, is actually a continuation of a meeting in November at which commission members looked at other plans to alter the copper curtain.

Paul Morris, a Port Hueneme artist, proposed turning it into a colorful contemporary painting.

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But several commissioners were uneasy choosing any of Morris’ four renditions, characterizing them as cheap if honorable attempts at a solution that did not go far enough in altering the sculpture.

One commissioner said the copper curtain now looks like a radiator, and would simply look like a painted radiator if Morris had his way. Another said one of Morris’ designs looks extremely similar to the Saturn car logo and asked the painter, who said he would finance the work with help from corporate sponsors, to divulge his contributors.

Because Thousand Oaks has only dedicated $10,000 to altering the copper curtain, whatever is done has to be on the cheap. Bailey, who also designed the much-debated Thousand Oaks Auto Mall sign beside the freeway, believes his proposal takes care of the city’s needs--as well as the public’s worries.

Bailey said he would superimpose letters and the Exuberant Muse logo on the copper curtain by using inexpensive, artificial, lightweight materials that would have a copper patina when finished.

Bailey’s proposal may face some problems, the largest being his intention to use the Exuberant Muse. It is not the first time the idea has been proposed--and the muse’s creator told a city subcommittee studying ways to improve the curtain’s appearance that she did not consider her logo appropriate for the artwork.

Commission members have also said they are uncomfortable with the larger issue of altering the curtain at all.

The artwork was created by Antoine Predock, the noted architect who designed the Civic Arts Plaza. Predock has repeatedly stressed that he wants it left intact.

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Ironically, perhaps, the square curtain that was built was not what Predock had in mind. He envisioned a larger, more abstract curtain, flowing over the side of the Civic Arts Plaza and down its side. But city officials drastically scaled back his plan, resulting in the curtain Thousand Oaks residents have come to know but not love.

“My husband is a classical composer, and if someone worked on something from their soul and you’re going to do with it what you want, that’s not going to make that person very happy,” said Commissioner Anabelle Lee Darakjian. “I think that’s one of the considerations.

“But personally, driving on the freeway, I would not know what [the copper curtain] was,” Darakjian added. “The people really don’t like it. I think we have to consider that too.”

Commissioner Bonnie Roth, for one, believes she and her peers are essentially being hung out to dry on the copper curtain issue, a controversy not of their own making.

She said the City Council should handle the improvements itself.

“The directive here is: Here’s $10,000. Go fix it,” Roth said. “Why is the council turning this over to the Arts Commission to handle? This was a terrible mistake, and a slap in the face to the artist, along with artists everywhere. I believe it’s really unfair to make the commission do this.

“Let the city fix its own mess.”