A Competition That Plumbs Pools of Talent

Visitors to the Richard J. Riordan Central Library in downtown Los Angeles march up the steps, occasionally casting a quizzical glance at the series of pools--lined in tile, studded with sculptures and fountains--that divide the center of the walk up to the entrance on Flower Street. The work, “Spine” by Jud Fine, is complex and full of references to the pursuit of knowledge and big ideas, all linked, underlined and made metaphoric by one of the artist’s primary materials: water.

Fine’s use of water made his work eligible for the 2001 competition Liquid Art, sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Of 120 entries, it was chosen, along with 19 other works, as the best examples of public water art in Southern California. Color photographs by Tom Bonner of the projects are on display at Self-Help Graphics in Los Angeles until next Sunday, and then will go on tour throughout the water district.

“Spine” was one of the most popular entries, according to one of the judges, Pat Gomez, manager of the city of Los Angeles’ art collection and murals program. The work addresses such ideas as evolution and language, with statues of a bird of prey, a lizard and an amphibian skeleton in three successive pools, and the risers are incised with phrases from many languages, from French to Chinese.

Although fountains in front of public buildings are common enough, Fine uses water in a symbolic sense, such as in the silver human head protruding from the end of the uppermost pool. Its lidded eyes point skyward, while water bubbles from its nostrils and mouth, and slips down behind the skull into the small semicircular pool below. The word on the wall beneath the head is “clear.”

“Each one of the three pools are named: ‘Clear,’ ‘Bright’ and ‘Lucid,’” Fine has said, “words often used to describe air, water and intelligence, three entities that define human existence.”

As complex and layered as Fine’s references are, his public artwork has also been claimed for a more familiar use. Pennies and an occasional nickel have been tossed into the two upper pools--the pools of the bird and the lizard--offerings in aid of wishes. But not a one can be found in the third, where the skeleton resides.

“We’ve been looking for ways to engage the public in the discussion of water,” says the MWD’s vice president for external affairs, Adan Ortega Jr., who began exploring the idea of a competition last spring. “We had a notion that there is in Southern California a common thread [in public art]” that could help in the effort. Shortly thereafter, the agency sent out a call for nominations for works related to water, and by September it had received entries from art commissions and institutions as well as individual artists and designers.

The water district oversees the distribution of water from Northern California and the Colorado River to parts of six counties--from Ventura down to San Diego and from the Pacific to San Bernardino--and nominations varied from the modest to the grandiose. A third were quickly eliminated for technical reasons, such as not being accessible to the public.

Then the judges (one from each of the MWD counties except Riverside; that judge had to drop out at the last minute) met. Besides Gomez, the judges were Kerry Adams, public art supervisor for the city of Ventura; John Lehrer, editor in chief of Westways magazine; Felicia Shaw, program manager for the San Diego County Commission for Arts and Culture; and Donald Wakefield, a San Bernardino public artist.

They met once, reviewing pictures and texts for each submission. They scored the entries on four criteria--creativity and innovation, impact, design, and accessibility. In the end, 20 made the cutoff. Gomez says that some were clear favorites among all the judges; others had to be debated.

“There were some pieces that were very fun and splashy--they made big statements,” she says, referring to such pieces as Don Merkt’s 28-foot-tall vase “Crossed Currents” in Culver City or Mark Lere’s outdoor fountain and installation, “The Five Senses,” at California Plaza in Ventura. “Then there were works that were quiet and contemplative. Both types of work hold up equally well--artistically--scale doesn’t necessarily relate to interest.”

Later, photographs of the winners were commissioned, and the result was organized as an exhibition and a book with a map to guide people to each work. After the exhibition closes at Self-Help Graphics, it goes to Comerica Bank and the Center for the Moving Arts, both in San Diego, with more venues to be scheduled.

Ten of the winning works are in L.A. County, and seven of those are downtown. Most, not surprisingly, are fountains, although they also integrate modern or postmodern art and ideas. These include the Music Center Fountain by WET Design; the Paseo Cesar Chavez Fountains, at the MTA Building on Alameda Street, by Elsa Flores, Peter Shire, and Robert Gil de Montes; and “Source Figure,” also at Riordan Central Library, by Robert Graham.

Choices from other counties also included public fountains, such as “The Five Senses” by Lere and Richard Turner’s “Wall-Gazing Gallery” at Cal State Fullerton. A few serve practical as well as artistic functions. In public art, said Tomas Benitez, director of Self-Help Graphics, one can find attempts to match beauty with utility. “This is where the best of that relationship is,” Benitez said, “where you have the architect or the designer compelled to problem solve, and the artist interacting.”

Faced with designing a work meant to hold water in a 210,000-square-foot spillage area below a ridge of homes in San Diego, Paul Hobson created a peanut-shaped pond, the bottom painted in squares of blue and turquoise tones. “Viewage,” built in 1997, is easily the largest winner in Liquid Art. “It’s an interesting juxtaposition,” Gomez says, “to be very quiet yet to be in such a grand scale.”

In contrast, the smallest, though no less useful, winner is “Exchanger Fountain” on tree-lined Lemon Street in Anaheim. The drinking fountain designed by Buster Simpson is placed beside a willow tree. Words are etched in a spiral inside the chrome-plated basin, “Santa Ana your water nurtures and your hot winds cool. The water kissing your lips is an offering.” As the thirsty stop to drink, the leftover water goes to the root of the tree.

“I trust people are conscious of the offering they make: cooling the next person’s drink and nurturing the willow,” Simpson says in the “Liquid Art” book. “Reflected in the fountain is the water ‘kissing your lips’ and the interdependence of us all.”

Several winning entries involved references to water, but not the actual substance. In San Diego, “Water Marks,” by Lynn Susholtz and Aida Mancillas, is a winding, 200-foot-long wall at the entrance to Mission Trails Regional Park. It’s covered with a mosaic of bronze plaques, ceramic tiles, stone and colored concrete that make up a map of the San Diego River. Merkt’s “Crossed Currents” is a towering stainless steel sculpture of a vase tipping into Ballona Creek in Culver City, a creek that has long been encased in concrete. A single giant drop of stainless steel “water” dangles from its rim. “My hope is that in time these creeks will be allowed to be the sort that used to flow through the city,” Merkt has said. “I hope the piece encourages people to pay attention to the creek, and to efforts to restore and enhance it.”

Lynn Aldrich’s “Blue Line Oasis” also refers to water without using it. In 1994, she was commissioned by the MTA to design the Artesia stop on the Blue Line. “They gave me the opportunity to study the site and its history,” she recalls. “I was interested in going back to an earlier time, thinking about Artesia, which was named for these wells that naturally bubble to the surface. I began to think of them as a metaphor for urban experience.

“You’re really fortunate if you get excited about a public art project,” says Aldrich, who has dealt with water in her own art as well. “There’s a lot of research involved, and many artists feel restricted because of the guidelines. I felt lucky it was a theme I was really interested in engaging with.”

For reasons of maintenance, MTA stipulated that no water could be used, so Aldrich constructed a simulation of a wishing well with a low circular stone wall and, inside, ripples of water mimicked by colored mosaic tiles. To extend that notion, she collected the wishes of local schoolchildren for their community and inscribed them on tiles set into a kiosk.

Something else reminds visitors of the same tradition that inspires donations to Fine’s pools at the Riordan Central Library. Aldrich has affixed a sprinkling of metal discs--her version of coins--to the surface of the mosaic water.

With a small laugh, she says, “Sometimes you find real pennies in there.”

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“Liquid Art,” through next Sunday, Self-Help Graphics, 2802 Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, closed Mondays. Comerica Bank, Jan. 21-Feb. 15, 600 B St., San Diego, closed Saturdays and Sundays, (619) 230-8881. Center for the Moving Arts, Feb. 19-March 22, 3255 5th Ave., San Diego, closed Saturdays and Sundays, (619) 298-2687. For further venues, call the MWD at (213) 217-6485.

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Scarlet Cheng is a regular contributor to Calendar.