City’s urban art needs help
They range from the surreal to the educational to the modern and mechanical. And keeping them sharp can cost City Hall hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Graffiti, exhaust, moisture, time — a variety of forces work against Santa Monica’s collection of 14 public murals, the first of which was painted in 1939.
Artists, officials and members of the public will meet tonight at the Ken Edwards Center to discuss which of the murals most need attention, and in what form. Refurbishing and protecting a large mural can cost $100,000 or more, officials said.
Conservators recently deemed the 1980 mural in Joslyn Park, “Ocean Park Historical Postcards,” as in “poor” condition. Four other murals, including two at Ocean Park Boulevard and Fourth Street, and one in Marine Park are considered in “fair” condition. The remaining 11 Santa Monica murals were ranked as “good” or “excellent” in condition.
The money to care for — and create — the large artworks comes from City Hall’s “Percent for Arts” fund, which this year totals just $63,700. One percent of all general fund capital improvement projects is dedicated for art projects.
City Hall officials sometimes will let that funding accrue, so they can afford to pay for a new mural, said Hamp Simmons, City Hall’s cultural affairs coordinator. Such was the case with “Building Sea,” a $100,000 mural to be painted at the expanded Virginia Avenue Park.
“It’s going to be huge,” Simmons said. “It’s going to be 17 feet tall, by 80 feet long and it’s being painted by a mural team called, ‘East Los Streetscapers’ and the two individual artists that make that (team are) David Botello and Wayne Healy... It will be on a building facing Pico Boulevard.”
Mural projects are awarded to artists through competition. A panel — made up of three to five artists and community members — reviews submissions and narrows down the field of candidates. Finalists are then interviewed and the panel makes a recommendation, which is forwarded on to City Hall’s Public Art Committee and the Arts Commission, Simmons said.
Art Mortimer, 62, has painted two of the public murals in Santa Monica. “Ocean Park Historical Postcards” in Joslyn Park and the 1998 “Santa Monica Beach,” on the side of parking structure No. 1, at 1234 Fourth St. Mortimer first painted a mural in 1971, when he painted a portrait of his then-girlfriend Daphne on the side of his Ocean Park apartment.
“I did a few back then,” he said. “This was back when murals were first getting started in the Los Angeles area and artists were just going outside and doing their art on the side of the buildings, as opposed to on a canvas in a studio. I though it was pretty cool.
“Just about any mural is an improvement over a blank wall... Murals really are an excellent way, as an artist, to reach people in the Los Angeles area, because so many people drive around in their cars. They don’t walk and go into galleries, things like that.”
Tonight’s meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Hosted by the Public Art Committee, the meeting is touted as an opportunity to learn about the public murals, hear a report on their conditions, and provide input on treatment, repair and protection measures. The murals needing attention will be ranked and prioritized. In June, the issue will go before the Arts Commission.
The group will consider various techniques for preserving the murals — including intense cleaning, refurbishing and applying what’s called a “sacrificial wax coating,” because it covers the mural and can be washed off to remove graffiti, Simmons said.
Though repainting a mural is sometimes less expensive than other methods, Simmons said it’s not always used — especially with historic murals.
“You’re never going to get the same thing,” Simmons said. “No artist can repaint something exactly as he painted it before.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 4, 2004. Read the original PDF.