Life on the Beach

There’s a big, round thing on the beach just below the Santa Monica Pier. I discovered recently it’s art. It kind of sits there like so much flotsam and every once in a while is dragged along the shore to leave its imprint in the sand.

I don’t know what I thought it was before I learned it was art; probably a hunk of rock formed by a combination of waves, sewage and bacteria that was too dangerous to blow up and too big to dump back into the ocean.

Then one day a composer by the name of Peter Davidson informed me that it was called “Walk on L.A.” and that the city had actually paid someone to create it. It weighs 12 tons and is inscribed with a relief pattern of homes, streets and buildings intended to replicate Los Angeles.

When it’s hooked up to a tractor and pulled along the beach, the rolling cityscape is imprinted on the sand, what ho. Not exactly Rodin but then this isn’t a classical age.

Davidson, who was born near the beach and has lived here his entire 50 years, was telling me all this in a tone of derision, not pride. He is among those in Santa Monica who believe that the beach and the ocean and the sky are beauty enough. The shoreline, he declares, does not have to be cluttered with things.

Which brings us to another Santa Monica beach thing: the “Solar Web.”

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Depending on who is speaking at the moment, the proposed beach art known simply as the “Web” is either a mystical design of rare beauty or a piece of you-know-what. Bruria Finkel, Santa Monica’s godmother of public art, subscribes to the former point of view and Davidson to the latter.

I’m not sure why I agreed to get involved in the debate. My idea of art is a tiger painted on black velvet that you pick up at Kmart or in the furniture department at Sears. Davidson called me, I think, out of a sense of desperation. He was a drowning man reaching for a twig or in this case a newspaper columnist to save him from beach-cluttering art lovers. Better he should’ve stuck with the twig.

He’s afraid that later this month the Santa Monica City Council will grant final approval to create “Solar Web” and a lot of other pieces of trinkety art along that section of beach they’re calling Natural Elements Sculpture Park. The park will ultimately consist of 10 sculptures, including that concrete wheel.

The “Web” will be 16 feet high and 72 feet long and cost about $270,000 for artist Nancy Holt to create and the city to put in place. In drawings, it looks very much like a jungle gym or a giant spider and is considered “interactive art.”

That means you can crawl all over its black steel piping, fall and break your head or your behind if you should somehow miss the cushioning that is being placed on the ground under its highest point.

But that’s not the main objection of those who object. Holt has explained that the “Web,” or the spider as Davidson calls it, is designed to align with the sun and the planets in such a way that it will mark the summer and winter solstices.

“We’re told it will give us a better awareness of the sun and the sky and the ocean,” Davidson says sourly. “Well, I’m already aware of them without that damned thing.”

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Bruria Finkel waves off Davidson like a fly on a sugar cube. His attitude, she says, is selfish and, in addition, he wouldn’t know a good piece of sculpture if he was hit on the head with a Bernini saint. I’m paraphrasing, but I think that’s what she meant.

“Public art,” she explains, “is intended to beautify public space and to deal with the aesthetics of space. Only 2% of the people go to the museums. This is for the rest of them.”

According to Davidson, Finkel sees the beach as a place to decorate. “I see it as open space that needs to be protected,” Davidson said over coffee on the Santa Monica Pier. “Solar Web,” he adds derisively, “will end up as a tent for the homeless.”

Davidson is not without credentials. He is a founding member of the Santa Monica-Malibu School District Advisory Committee on Fine Arts, has a master’s degree in music and composes scores for movies and television.

Finkel is an artist and has been involved with art all of her life. She has walked the beach for 40 years and in 1980 decided to become involved with the politics of art. The “Solar Web” is her baby.

Me? I’m hanging around because I love squabbles over esoterica. They’re usually on a high level, extraordinarily huffy and rarely involve anyone getting punched in the mouth. One seldom, for instance, finds arguments over art in cowboy bars.

I don’t really think anyone has to rearrange nature to enhance its beauty. All you have to do is sit there on the sand when the sunset’s on fire and the ocean’s turned to a gleaming platinum. The glory of art is right in front of your eyes. And it’s free.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com