Canoe Art Finds Prime Parking Spot

The new downtown parking garage was transformed into a work of art Friday with the mounting of a 3,600-pound steel canoe, linking transportation modes of today with those of the Chumash Indians.

Construction of the piece called Traveller began last year when the city’s Public Art Commission asked Blue McRight and Warren Wagner, a Los Angeles husband and wife team, to make their concept for the Santa Clara Street parking structure a reality.

“We’re thrilled,” McRight said as she watched a crane and a crew of four install her creation. “The culmination of a year’s work is all coming together today.”

McRight and Wagner were inspired by the Native Americans’ ability to use their crafting of tomols, the tribe’s canoes, to help their tribe develop. They believe the car serves a similar purpose in modern culture.

“The tomols was what allowed them to not just survive but grow. And Ventura was their largest community,” Wagner said. “The whole concept was how much respect we had for the Native Americans and, particularly, for the artists that were the Brotherhood of the Canoe.”

The commission liked their idea and selected the couple for the $80,000 project.

“You have to allow for the artists to execute their vision fully and make a contribution,” said Sonia Tower, the city’s cultural affairs manager.

Designed and built to maintain the integrity of Chumash canoes, there is little difference between an authentic tomol and the public art piece.

“We actually built it using the same methods the Chumash used, except with steel,” said Greg Abbott, an artistic fabricator in Los Angeles who was responsible for building the piece.

Abbott trained himself to make tomols by visiting a Santa Barbara museum that has a display showing how they are built. But using steel, rather than planks and boards, involves welding and hydraulic pressure. To give the steel a rusted look, Abbott put the pieces inside a tent and filled it with chemicals and fumes.

Three solar energy boards called photovoltaic panels will sit above the artwork to collect and store energy during the day and illuminate the piece at night.

Mayor Jim Friedman stopped by the parking structure Friday to congratulate the artists.

“It’s a beautiful building that now houses some important artwork going back to Chumash heritage,” Friedman said. “It’s a nice blending of cultural art and functionality.”

Richard Walsh was walking back to his Santa Clara Street chiropractic office Friday morning when he stopped to see why the street had been closed.

“I didn’t think I’d like it [the parking structure] when it first went up, but now I like it,” Walsh said.

The entire piece won’t be complete until next week when a stone slab on the sidewalk below is installed, with a quote from Fernando Librado, the builder of the last Chumash canoe.

It will read: “The canoe is the house of the sea.”

The community is invited to attend the official dedication on July 25 at 8 p.m. as part of ArtWalk & Java Jump.