Ventura Says ‘Let There Be Art’

The city’s public art program is gaining momentum with a new director, an ambitious set of projects underway and two internationally known artists chosen to design high-profile works.

The Ventura Public Art Commission has selected Ventura-based artist Sally Weber--a former commission member--to collaborate in the renovation of the E.P. Foster Library. And New Yorker Dennis Oppenheim will create public art for a new transit center at the expanded Buenaventura Mall--a choice one commission member called a risk that could pay off in Picasso-like proportions. The renowned sculptor has promised a “radical” work for the city.

Now heading the city’s public art program--and its 1998-99 budget of more than $500,000--is Jessica Cusick, a nationally known expert on public art who has led similar programs in Houston and Los Angeles.

“The city is really building a lot and is, I think, interested in transforming its image from the point of view of people passing by or as they pass through,” Cusick said. Ventura’s 2-year-old public art program aims to incorporate murals, sculpture and other artworks into high-profile places used by residents and visitors. The program is funded annually by a portion of the city’s capital improvements budget. Its most prominent accomplishment thus far is “Traveller,” the Chumash canoe and oars on the new Santa Clara Street parking structure.

In the spring, construction is expected to begin on the library and mall projects, as well as on art at Grant Park reservoir and the California Street freeway exit.

“Things are really going to start happening,” said Alice Atkinson, who was overseeing the public art program before Cusick’s arrival last week.

In an arrangement common among cities, Ventura allocates 2% of the city’s capital improvement budget to public art. The city has set aside $10,000 for design of the library art and another $70,000 for the art itself. The mall transit center project includes $12,000 for design and $88,000 for the art.

The two artists selected for the projects are expected to sign contracts within a few weeks, Atkinson said. Weber and Oppenheim will then begin working with the architects and engineers for their projects.

“The idea really is going to be a collaboration between the artist and the rest of the design team,” Atkinson said.

Because architectural and engineering plans for the library renovation and the transit center are still in flux, the artists were chosen based on their past work, rather than specific proposals.

“You don’t want to presuppose what they’re going to do,” Cusick said, pointing out that architects and other designers often are chosen in the same manner.

“We’ve really got the opportunity for work that either is fully integrated in or totally responsive to what we’re building and doing,” she added.

Weber creates works of glass and light, incorporating lasers and holograms in some. She hopes those elements will combine well with planned renovations to the library’s windows.

Though Weber’s studio is in Ventura, the library project represents her first piece here. Applying for the commission resulted from a combination of “a number of different issues that felt right,” she said.

“I’m very interested in the library being a focal point in the community, and I think the library and access to the library and its expanding use are just great,” she said.

Weber has exhibited in Canada, Germany and Japan. She created public artwork for the Phoenix Police and Public Safety building. In 1994, along with Ventura artist and art commission Vice Chairwoman Viqui McCaslin, Weber designed a piece for the MTA’s Green Line in Los Angeles.

The installation, based on a Chumash legend on the passage of seasons, was supervised by Cusick, who founded and directed the MTA’s public art program before moving to Houston. Weber’s portion of the work includes a metal sculpture that functions as a sundial and special skylights that shoot rainbows of colored light onto the train platform.

But it was neither Weber’s collaboration with McCaslin nor her past service on the art commission that led to her selection for the library project, McCaslin said.

“This commission was not given to her. She earned it,” she said.

Artist May Produce ‘A More Radical’ Work

“What we were trying to do with all the train stations was to integrate the artwork into the architecture and at the same time create a sense of place,” Cusick said of the MTA projects.

“It’s a different thing to take an environment that is essentially in the middle of a six-lane freeway on both sides and make it into a place [where] you want to pause, and I think that’s what public art can do successfully.”

To design Ventura’s mall transit center, the public art commission has chosen Oppenheim, a New York artist whose work has appeared primarily in Europe.

Oppenheim has not yet visited Ventura, but said he hopes the commission will let him create “a more radical” work than is typical of public art. He wants “to up the ante a bit so that some of these things that are in the public enjoy some of the characteristics that art has that the public has not seen, because they are not privy to galleries and museums and such.”

Oppenheim’s lengthy career has produced many works that critics have dubbed “whimsical,” “eccentric” or “quirky.”

A May exhibit in New York City featured a U.S. Capitol made of metal cookware with working burners and pots of boiling water. A 1997 exhibit in Portugal showcased Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls having sex. And a reviewer described the show’s “Hot Vomit Machine” as “a complicated apparatus cooking a pot of unpleasant-looking stew.”

Commission member McCaslin acknowledged that Oppenheim could produce a controversial work for Ventura. Even the straightforward canoe artwork on the downtown parking garage resulted in some complaints.

“It’s a risk. We know that,” McCaslin said. “But you have to take a risk” to get art that draws attention to itself--and to the city.

Comparing Oppenheim to Picasso and Andy Warhol, McCaslin said making him work with other designers will be more likely to produce a project with mass appeal.

“That’s his testing ground at this point, whether he can work with the architectural team,” she said.

Cusick said artists generally set different limits for themselves when their work is meant for the masses.

“It’s been my experience that even artists who do very controversial work do very different work in their studio and in their gallery work than in their public works,” she said.

A third art project will get rolling after the commission selects an artist for the Grant Park reservoir renovation project--which, like the library and transit center, attracted 50 artist applications.

Budgeted for $150,000, the Grant project will most likely involve some manipulation of the land into art, Atkinson said.

Also coming up is a decision on art for the California Street freeway exit. A plan to place a $250,000 mural of whales by famed marine artist Robert Wyland was harpooned after residents complained about the expense and questioned whether the mural would endure in the sea air and traffic.

City Is Seeking More Artists

Now the art commission is again looking for an artist--not necessarily a muralist--to create artwork for the exit that feeds into Ventura’s downtown and beach district.

“We’re kind of opening it up to a lot of different ideas,” Atkinson said, adding that the retaining wall alongside the offramp, the railroad trestle and the Ventura Freeway overpass are all possible sites.

Atkinson said 60 artists responded in June to the request for qualifications, and the selection panel will probably choose one by the end of this month.

Slated for construction soon is the Ventura River Trail, which will connect the beach-side trail in Ventura to Ojai. Meanwhile, the seven local artists who are creating works for the trail will likely install their pieces at the trail’s completion around Memorial Day.

A request for qualifications will probably go out this winter for the Casa de Anza Library on Ventura Avenue, Atkinson said. The selection panel will most likely consider only local artists.

“We definitely want to promote local artists, and that’s very, very important for us,” McCaslin said. “But we’re also trying to promote our town in terms of tourism. We want [it] to be put on the map that Ventura is an art town.”

From her 20 years in public art, Cusick has learned that these projects can take awhile to complete--a process she has heard called “the longest pregnancy in creation.” Because the art is so often tied to construction, the projects tend to be on the building’s slower timeline.

“It’s definitely not instant gratification,” Cusick said.