Memorial to Fishermen Is Taking Shape

Ventura County’s commercial fishermen are trying to create a tribute to their colleagues who have died on the water. They hope the sculpture won’t also be a memorial to their industry.

Planned to stand nearly 10 feet tall, the bas-relief would form an archway at Ventura Harbor Village, the mall of shops and restaurants that rings the commercial docks.

Ceramist Michel Petersen intends to cast the sculpture’s figures from working fishermen and hopes to have the work completed by spring.

Ventura County’s commercial fishermen say these are uncertain times for them. As they are enjoying a year of record catches, the state is preparing to ban fishing in some of their honey holes around the Channel Islands. Regulators set up the marine reserves to give a wide variety of ocean species a chance to recover from over-fishing. But the fishermen say the restrictions would devastate their businesses and harm the area’s economy.

The Ventura County Commercial Fishermen’s Assn. has sued to block the new regulations and is raising money for its legal fund. At the same time the association is collecting for the memorial. About $6,000 has been raised so far -- a little under half the sculpture’s projected cost.

Such monuments are common features at harbors and ports along California’s coast. Fisherman Kip Whited said Ventura Harbor needed its own to remind diners at its restaurants about the “unseen industry” that delivers seafood to their plates, often in perilous conditions.

“People don’t really think about us unless they want to beat up on us,” Whited said. “They don’t really say a prayer for us fishermen every night.”

Petersen, who works under the name “Michellino,” has installed her large ceramic sculptures of turtles, dolphins and other marine life around the harbor village as its resident artist for four years. The memorial is planned for a walkway between two restaurants.

“I intuitively felt that an archway would be appropriate -- a doorway, a passage way from one side to the other,” Petersen said. “We’re remembering those who passed over.”

The project’s organizers have identified about 15 fishermen who have died on the water in the harbor’s 50 years. But in order not to exclude anyone, the memorial will not give particular prominence to their names.

For $200, anyone can add a name to the tiled seating at the sculpture’s base.

Petersen expects her design to incorporate fishermen in slickers and boots, tugging fishnets and crab pots. She has asked four fishermen to submit to being cast in plaster.

“I wanted nets and I wanted men working,” Petersen said. “I didn’t want it to be a heroic pose. I wanted it to show working people.”

Her boyfriend, Mike Moberg, is one of the models, as is Whited.

“It’s a tribute to a way of life,” Moberg said. “It at least represents something that goes on in the harbor rather than the yachting.”

A squid fisherman during the winter months, Moberg said he has weathered some hairy days hauling 45-ton catches across the windy channel from Santa Cruz Island to the dock.

Fishermen have drowned when shifting loads capsized their boats.

“Anything can happen,” he said.

In 1997, three Vietnamese fishermen drowned when their rickety boat sank off San Nicolas Island. In 1993, a shrimp trawler, the Vil Vana, never returned to its slip.

Although the Coast Guard investigated the mysterious disappearance, relatives of the seven crew members suggested scenarios that included government conspiracies and UFOs.

Petersen and others wonder whether the memorial might be more than a tribute to individuals. “It’s a record of the present and the past,” she said. “And hopefully it will celebrate the future, but I don’t know.”

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The Ventura County Commercial Fishermen’s Assn. welcomes contributions to its memorial. Checks to VCCFA, indicating the money is for the monument, can be sent to 3600 S. Harbor Blvd., Suite 240, Oxnard, CA, 93035.