New Panel Created for Arts Plaza

Looking to give painters and sculptors a greater presence at the Civic Arts Plaza, the City Council has created a committee to oversee visual art displays at the performing arts center and City Hall.

Council members voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to create a committee to take the place of the Civic Arts Plaza Visual Arts Committee, or CAPVAV, the previous panel handling the selection and display of art displays at the center.

The new committee, titled the CAPVAC Collaborative, will be made up of council members, two members of the city’s Arts Commission and two members of the Civic Arts Plaza Board of Governors, which oversees cultural programming at the center.

Councilwoman Elois Zeanah voted against the new committee, saying visual art issues should be left entirely to the Arts Commission.

“The City Council seems to be getting more and more control,” Zeanah said.

Other council members, however, argued it was too much work for a volunteer group, and that CAPVAC members themselves had been looking for more city involvement.

Members of CAPVAC, founded in 1993, had increasingly been expressing frustration with what they saw as a lack of direction from the City Council, resulting in part from the fact that Thousand Oaks did not give the panel any money.

The new committee will have a $25,300 budget for the first year, most of it going toward art-hanging costs and the salary for a part-time intern.

In a moment of levity just after the council voted to accept the donation of a sculpture by artist J. Palmer, Councilman Andy Fox jokingly sought to clear his name.

“I just want to say, I love all artwork,” quipped Fox, who had been criticized last week for refusing to approve a piece he found offensive because of its use of materials from the Green Meadow fire.