In San Clemente, Artwork Can Be Pointed, but Not This Pointed

Cutting-edge art. That’s what city officials were afraid they had on their hands.

Too avant-garde?

No. Too sharp, too pointed, too dangerous.

So the metal sculptures of plants such as hibiscus and bird of paradise that were installed to add some life to a well-traveled alleyway near San Clemente’s downtown were uprooted and put in storage. The works will stay in lockup until the city can determine how they can be reinstalled without putting pedestrians at risk.

The city commissioned the Collaborative West, a San Clemente architectural design firm, to create metal sculptures that would be attached to the walls of stores that back onto the alley.

The idea was to enhance a pedestrian’s walk from the public parking lots to the shops and restaurants on Avenida del Mar. To that end, the alley was decorated with Tivoli lights and colored asphalt. It was even given a name: Paseo del Mar.

Separate sculptures of fish, surfboards, starfish, beach umbrellas were attached to the alley walls in October, and they were not a safety issue.

The plant sculptures were likewise to hang from the wall at the rear of Stanford Art, an antiques store in a historic building. But because the rear windows of the building had been covered with stucco and the owner wasn’t sure where they were, the expense of compensating for that as a part of installation made it more cost-effective to put the plant sculptures on the walkways.

“Most reasonable people wouldn’t run into them, but someone could run into them and bang their head and create liability for the city,” said Marie Luna, an associate city planner.

Public artwork has been removed before in Orange County -- if not for safety reasons, then for aesthetics.

A sculpture of a nude surfer meant to grace the square in front of Huntington Beach City Hall caused such an uproar that officials moved it to the city beach. Now it’s something of an icon, and outgoing mayors are presented with replicas of it.

A metal sculpture on the front lawn of City Hall in Newport Beach was deemed “space junk” by a former city official and moved to a little-visited park.

In Laguna Beach, a modernistic sculpture titled “Vestige” was removed from the beach after a flurry of complaints. A councilwoman at the time called it a “huge hunk of rusting iron.”