RON DAVIS -- Through my eyes

There’s been a whole lot of wailing and blubbering about the whale art

the Huntington Beach City Council approved for the entrance to the city

beach at Beach Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway.

It would be an easy matter to join those harpooning the council for their

decision, particularly since I was so critical of the council’s

expenditure of $52,000 for bird tiles, but I’ll have to pass on the

opportunity.

The 52 grand we spent on the bird tiles came from the city’s general

fund, and therefore the money was available for general use and could be

used to repair sidewalks and sewers.

The money for the whale art comes from the American Trader spill, and

legally must be used at the beach. Accordingly, the city couldn’t have

repaired your sidewalk or mine with the money, even if they wanted to.

The approved art is a small part of a $7-million rehabilitation of the

city’s south beach. The city will be renovating restrooms, parking lots,

the bike trail and snack facilities.

Given the comprehensive nature of this improvement, the city was required

to do something where the proposed art will be located. That “something”

could have been cheap benches and asphalt, rather than a piece of public

art.

By analogy, it is somewhat like rebuilding your house. When it comes to

considering what kind of front door you’ll have, there are many options.

They range from the cheapest, most unattractive door imaginable to

something very attractive, but more costly.

If you cheap-out and buy an economy door, you run the risk of replacing

it later with something nicer, and buying two doors rather than one.

While you might be able to live with your unattractive front door, I

doubt that the citizens of Huntington Beach would tolerate an

unattractive entry to their prime attraction -- the beach.

Having a significant piece of public art in a city makes good visual and

economic sense. Public art can become readily identifiable with a city,

like the Statue of Liberty and New York.

While our whale art may not become as much of a global icon as the Statue

of Liberty, it will nonetheless serve as a backdrop for countless

visitors who have their pictures taken -- something unique and attractive

that identifies Huntington Beach.

Having seen renderings of the piece, I’m not sure that whale bones is an

apt description of the piece.

While one could certainly describe the piece as whale bones, as

apparently the artist and the City Council did, I see something more

modern and abstract in the flow of the work. In some ways, the lines of

the work remind me of the opera house in Sidney, Australia.

But then again, this is a guy who thought art was short for Arthur until

he heard about the bird tiles.

Now that I think a little more about it, I kind of like the ring of “The

Humpback of Huntington Beach.”

* RON DAVIS is a private attorney who lives in Huntington Beach. He can

be reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected]