Yearning to Paint Freely, Artist Battles the City

Give me liberty or give me six months in the county slammer.

That’s not patriot Patrick Henry talking. That’s pop artist Mike McNeilly, who is delivering that ultimatum through a half-finished high-rise mural in Westwood.

McNeilly was dangling on the side of the Westwood Medical Building and painting a 120-foot-tall rendering of the Statue of Liberty 15 months ago when Los Angeles police arrested him for working without a city permit.

The 46-year-old Hollywood Hills artist said he didn’t apply for one because he knew the city wouldn’t issue him one. And anyway, he told officers and city inspectors gathered at the base of the mural, he figured he didn’t need one.

“It’s a violation of free speech,” McNeilly said, complaining that the city’s permit procedure is arbitrary as well as unconstitutional.

Today McNeilly takes his argument to court. He has been promised a jury trial at the Superior Court’s Airport Branch over the five misdemeanor city ordinance violations.

Further rubbing the mural in city officials’ faces, McNeilly has prepared for the trial by sneaking back to the high-rise at Wilshire Boulevard and Gayley Avenue in the middle of the night and pasting a 75-foot banner reading “CENSORED” across Lady Liberty’s face.

McNeilly, a veteran mega-muralist whose work includes super-graphic ads for movie studios and other businesses from the Sunset Strip to New York’s Park Avenue, says he conceived the Westwood artwork as a tribute to veterans buried in the nearby National Cemetery within sight of the mural. He says he envisioned Lady Liberty gazing over fallen soldiers’ graves during last year’s Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays.

“I was going to take it down after the Fourth of July,” McNeilly said. “It wasn’t going to be up in the year 2000.”

McNeilly’s ire is directed toward Councilman Mike Feuer, who the artist says wields veto power over mural permit applications on the Westside.

That translates into political control over free speech, according to McNeilly.

“That’s prior restraint,” he said. “That’s unconstitutional.”

McNeilly said he didn’t approach Feuer for a letter of support, as the city Cultural Affairs Department suggested that muralists do, because he believed that the councilman wouldn’t write one.

Feuer has been a staunch foe of what he considers visual blight caused by building-size advertising murals in the Westwood area.

In September 1997, McNeilly requested a city permit to paint a commercial mural of a mermaid for Disney Co. on the same site. But it was rejected on the grounds that it would “detract from the scenic aspects of the Wilshire corridor,” which the city has designated a major scenic highway.

McNeilly said he and several assistants had worked about eight hours on the blue-tinted mural on Feb. 21, 1999, when police and city inspectors summoned by Feuer halted them.

“They go out and protect Nazis in the street or a guy putting up a portrait of Ho Chi Minh and then they bring out the troops to arrest an artist,” McNeilly complained.

When police allowed him to return to the side of the building to retrieve his equipment, he furtively painted a faint tear rolling down Lady Liberty’s cheek.

“What you see is an incomplete painting that’s still in a rough state. As an artist, that’s part of my frustration,” he said of the partially finished mural.

Citing the pending trial, Feuer has refused to discuss the case.

But the councilman filed an objection about Lady Liberty with the Cultural Affairs Commission last year when McNeilly filed retroactively for a permit after the arrest. “Our office continues to get numerous complaints about this illegally installed sign,” an aide to Feuer told commissioners.

McNeilly said he and a crew of four sneaked back to the mural site at 4 a.m. April 9 to attach the “CENSORED” banner after a meeting between the artist and Feuer failed to put an end to the dispute.

Building co-owner John Muller, who gave McNeilly permission to paint the mural and add the banner, also faces misdemeanor charges for permit violations. Their cases will be tried together, attorneys say.

In court, city officials may suggest that the Statue of Liberty mural was painted by McNeilly in hopes of opening up the Wilshire corridor to off-site commercial advertising. They will also argue that the city has legal procedures that artists can follow to seek permits for both commercial and noncommercial murals but that McNeilly didn’t apply for either in advance.

They will try to show that Cultural Affairs officials routinely solicited input in the past from City Council members and community representatives to gauge local attitudes about other mural permit requests.

Gary Mobley, McNeilly’s lawyer, said he will attempt to have charges dismissed today on constitutional grounds.

If that fails, Mobley predicted that the court fight over free speech is “going to be a real donnybrook.”

McNeilly, who said he did not charge anyone or get paid for painting Lady Liberty, expects to win and to avoid the six months in jail or possible fines that could result. He says he wants to get back to work on the mural as soon as possible.

“All I need is five more days to finish it,” he said.