Ojai City Council and Arts Commission Joint Meeting

Our Tuesday, September 9th, special joint session between the City Council and the Arts Commission. Roll call, please.

is remote. I'm sorry. He's en route. Council Member Whitman is currently absent. And we have Council Member Rule participating remotely tonight.

on their property as well. Vice Chair Steiner will now walk us through the public arts program in greater detail. Thank you. I look forward to your insight as we refine our path forward.

Thank you. So I'm delighted to talk with you about our public art collection. Bridget, well, let me first start. Our collection is a contemporary collection of three-dimensional sculptural objects, mostly regional artists, commissioned in 2002 and going forward. There are no flashpoints in this collection. It's a very There are no monuments to Confederate generals. There are no, you know, conquerors of indigenous persons. There are no objects of cultural patrimony. There are no works with social, political, or ideological messaging. And so, unlike many communities where these flashpoints, in fact, matter, there's nothing for our community to look at in terms of engagement about what to retain and what to remove. So our job is made much easier for that reason.

Our job is to conserve and maintain. This commission has instituted best practices in the public art field. We undertook last year a first-ever comprehensive conservation assessment with funds you allotted. Thank you for that. Performed by recognized professionals who have conducted such assessments for other public jurisdictions, such as Ventura and quite a number of others.

The full assessment is right now with Bridget, and she will hand it out to each of you as we go through it. Oh, I'm supposed to ask you. Mayor, please, may we? Okay. And that's better. While Bridget is handing these out, I'll just say that I could talk with you all evening about the findings of this report, but my chair has admonished me that I have only a short time. So I'll review just a few objects, the good work completed, work that's slated for conservation, certain problem areas, and matters for this commission to grapple with and decide in this upcoming year.

The good news is that there are no works that are in imminent danger of irreversible damage or hazards to persons or property. The bad news is that years of deferred maintenance has taken a toll on the collection as a whole. So, I'm going to jump right in with our slide presentation to discuss the good and also the not so good. The first matter before us is the Trimpen Sound Arch, which, as you know, is at the entry to Libby Bowl. The artist is Trimpen, one name, like Cher, like Bono, like Madonna.

And he is no slouch. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Genius Grant. He was a longtime professor at MIT, and I believe that this is the only work in our collection that is not of a regional nature, but rather one of an artist of international stature. This work was conserved on August 20th, so just a mere few weeks ago, and rather than tell you about it myself, we have a short video, which is an interview Smitty conducted with Camilla Corbella, our contract conservator. Camilla is more articulate than I could ever be in describing this work, the work that was performed, the qualifications of her team, and so on. And I think you and the community will enjoy a sense of what's necessary to conserve an important work.

So with that, we'll go right to the slide, I mean the video of Camilla. There we go.

My name is Camilla Corrella, and I am the owner and principal conservator of LA Art Labs. So we're a Los Angeles-based conservation studio that focuses on art conservation, sculptures, and paintings. And we have done a very comprehensive assessment of the collection, the civic collection of art in the city of Ojai. How we got to do that was through Liza Shapiro and her company, Cura Art. So Liza is an OG Ojai girl who grew up here with her family, and she has a really wonderful family that I also feel very connected to.

And so she brought me on with the team at LA Art Labs to first assess the whole art collection that the city has, which is Incredible in depth and diversity and so once we assessed every single piece and we basically came out here together to look at every single one, assess the condition, see what else like could be improved, what kind of treatments are necessary, what would be a wish list in terms of And so now we embarked onto one first phase in terms of treatment and it's basically the care of the sound art.

It's special because it was particularly conceived for this park. Yeah, what I think is wonderful also to begin with is that it's interactive and that it actually works with the people that are visiting the park or that are going to enjoy a concert at the Bowl. And so, you know, like art generally speaking is wonderful, but when it's interactive and like the public can be involved accordingly, it makes everything much more special. Like it's like a little bit of magic. The piece itself, it has a couple of issues that can be very well remedied through maintenance and we'll have to also, based on our initial cleaning, inspect all the surfaces on a closer level in order to then see what else we have to actually do and basically build a, like, We have a two to five year plan for the artwork in order to anticipate if any other repairs are needed.

So we have different composite materials that the ark is composed of and we have concrete that has its own kind of like degradation phenomena which is like through wear because it's an outdoor sculpture. Everything is being weathered, and there are a couple of cracks and chips that will be stabilized after the initial cleaning, and then also compensated for loss, so that it, like, is, you know, more wholesome and doesn't, like, draw the eye to where any defects currently are. And then the metal will be considered after the cleaning with also very thorough inspection to any areas of corrosion, which is very normal at this stage for an outdoor sculpture. We'll also be treated, the corrosion byproducts will be removed and then the area passivated so no new corrosion will occur and then isolated in terms of like protecting the surface that had been aggregated before just by weathering and you know then there are like bird droppings, spider nests and like other debris that also just like cracked down the material so we remove everything in order to to also then add to the long-term preservation of the piece.

We have a couple of people on the team today and there is Ruth. Ruth actually has a PhD in contemporary art conservation. She is our senior conservator and She is obviously incredibly smart and talented. Then we have Malaika. She just graduated a while back and she has been on the team for a couple of months already and has been already jumping into all different projects.

She's interested in a career in conservation. Lisa is a newer member of the team, and I really wanted her to come because it's such a special experience. Also, working with public art is very different than the projects that she has been exposed to before. And she will also enter the path, the academic path, of becoming a conservator. Clarice, who just like bundled up because it's hot in the sun, she's an artist and so she's in a supportive role and she has been with us now for a longer time actually and is very sympathetic towards like materials because she has a very involved practice.

Eric is currently taking a break. He's just like helping also in the capacity of an assistant and facilitator. So he will take over very particular parts of the cleaning, which will also It includes some very light, gentle pressure washing. It sounds like more pressure than actually will be executed. We have a very eclectic client portfolio, and that's really wonderful, because that means that also the projects that we're entrusted with are very varied in scope, and also what the desired outcome is. So we do a lot of public projects, also in Los Angeles.

We have museums under contract, so we do regular maintenance, but then also special projects. And we are currently very involved with particularly the Broad Museum, where I oversee the physical well-being of each painting that is in their collection, but then also We are focusing a lot on preparing the inaugural exhibition for George Lucas Museum, which is supposed to open next year, and we're currently having over 20 projects in the pipeline, and we have, I think, completed around 200 thus far for the museum opening.

But then we also have a lot of private clients that have museum-grade collections, or private clients that, you know, just really care about their art. And then the other main component of the business, unfortunately, has developed emergency response. So in the aftermath of the California fires, we're heavily involved with helping our clients resurrect there.

Collections from, you know, the fire areas. Like, everybody here also, like, you know, is involved in academia or, like, outreach in one degree or another, or, like, in the capacity of, like, together. We're now working on a paper for the American Institute of Conservation about, for instance, our disaster recovery efforts. But then also I teach, for instance, conservation in various capacities, and I go once a year to Asia to teach conservation there, and that is enabled by the Fund for Cultural Development sponsored by the U.S., so that's really wonderful.

Anybody who engages in conservation, unlike the active I really, really love that and believe in how important it is to preserve our collective memory and make society better for our endeavors. There is something about caring for public artworks that is so important because it's actually art that is really needed. Where we can all not just benefit from it, but also a point of conversation, if like a gathering point. It has so many different functions that are so important. And so our endeavors in terms of spending our time to help preserve that is of such utmost importance. And it makes our work so much more meaningful in the end.

And, yeah, we're just grateful to be part of this. Also, Ojai, the city, taking, you know, their stewardship so important with preserving the collection that they have, which is so beautiful. And, yeah, just honored to be a part of this and grateful for the inclusion.

Thank you, and thank you, Smitty, for having conducted that interview. I hope this gives you a sense, Council, of how well your money is spent. We have Ph.D.s who are engaged in this process. We have professors. You could see it was five or six people that were part of this very experienced team, and this is just one work, although it's such an important work.

Next is local artist Ted Gall's Big Red Roller. This work is on page 15 of your conservation report, which Bridget earlier handed out. Here, there are many issues. There's pitting, there's fading, there's corrosion, there's graffiti, etc. The conservators, in fact, recommended that we consider moving it, given its potential for graffiti and But, you know, the wheel relates to the skate park in such a way that it would be lost elsewhere.

And, in fact, certainly in my view, the public interaction is a testament to its popularity and its value and that recognition of public art qua public. This one is going to be expensive because, unfortunately, there were years and years of deferred maintenance. We will be coming back to you with a budget item to address this soon, I think. I've spoken with the artist about this. He does want to approve the precise color, but does not want to undertake the conservation himself. Oh, and by the way, I had a conversation also with Trimpen in advance of Camilla's conservation, and he also, once I explained who they were, was fully confident that they would do a fine job, and he did not want to undertake that. So, Ted Gall wants to approve the color and wants Camilla and her group to go ahead, and I have informed them that this Likely is the next item on our wish list depending on what we vote for and what money you allow us to go forward with.

I do want to give a big thank you to the Public Works Department because they moved a trash can this summer that had been plopped down right in the middle of the sight line of Big Red Roller. And so that trash can is gone and I'm happy that that That is the case. Next on our list, there you get some sense of the pitting. Yeah, thank you for that. Okay. Next is another work by Ted Gall. You no doubt recognize this Corten steel horse. This work is in pretty good shape. It needs a little bit of cleaning, but it's going to be very manageable to do so. And by the way, I should take a moment now to say that there are some works where the maintenance obligation is on the city and other works where the obligation is on the building owner because it had been commissioned pursuant to the Percent for Art program, and that requires the building owner's attention.

Next, we have two works by Paul Lindhart that are on, as you know, opposite ends of Clough Vista Park. The conservation report notes that these are in stable condition, but that there is a crack that should be examined. This is a responsibility of the City. We should probably get to Looking at that, although it's noted again that it's in stable condition, so we have no worry of harm to persons or property.

Next in our presentation will be three works by the artist Douglas Lochner. This one, which is near the Business Center, is in fine shape. It could use a little dusting and cleaning, but it's good. The next one is his work called Fun for All at the Playground. It's noted there that there is some cracking, but that the sculpture appears stable for use by children. But no doubt we, the City, it's the City's responsibility, should address at some point that cracking. But again, I emphasize that it is stable and safe.

The next work presents real problems that this commission is going to have to grapple with in this upcoming year. This work is called Reflections of Ojai. It's 2007. Shortly after it was installed, the building owner sandblasted the entire building, including the work itself. So the work, the conservators correctly note, is a total loss. Looking back at the fact that it's 2007 and that it is still on display and still installed, what we know is that the building owner was at fault for doing that and then not taking any action.

Frankly, the artist is at fault because the artist enjoys rights under both California and federal law, rights of attribution and integrity, but has not formally notified the City to exercise those rights. And, of course, the City is wrong because it has, knowing of this condition, has allowed it to continue. So that's going to be, we're going to tee that up very soon for this commission to decide how we handle this work that's been on display for 18 years but has real problems.

This is at, oh sorry, it's at Bryant Park. It's one of those large buildings at Bryant Park and these individual 10 brass panels are on the piers of that building.

And it's

a different

owner now, I understand.

Yeah, it's a different owner. The address is 420. And we'll get to the resolution. We're going to need assistance from the city because we have no power to do things. So Ben will be coming to you for suggestions about how to address these matters. Thank you. Next is Matillaha Poppy Fountain. No doubt you know that work. The conservators note that there's corrosion on the brass. This is an artist, Sandra Johnson, who is a, I believe is or was a Paso Robles artist. So we're going to have to decide how that's handled. Again, maintenance is City of Ojai.

Again, no danger, no worry with that, but the sooner you address corrosion, the better it is for the piece itself. Next is another work at Bryant Park. This is called The Business of Bees, and this work, the conservator's note, is in poor condition. The building owner is obligated under the maintenance agreement, and it's another matter we will be addressing. That one, by the way, is specifically addressed on pages 5, 6, and 7 of your conservation report, so they gave it a great deal of attention. I'm sort of racing through this. There are many other works I'd love to talk with you about, but I think given our short time, we can just do these. Next is The Beloved Early Bird Shopper by the beloved Ojai artist Sylvia Raz, and the conservators note that there are certain problems here.

The bronze surfaces have some pitting and other damages, there's color issues, there's cleaning, etc. That's a City of Ojai responsibility, and the work is stable, but it should be addressed. Next, this, and may I see the next slide also, please? Okay, then we can jump back to the earlier slide. So, thank you. These are works at the inn. The lower portion is a table and the upper is three sort of bronze, I believe it's bronze, animals of which there should be I think it's eight.

The problem here is that public art, when commissioned, has two prerequisites. First, it has to be visible from the nearest public right-of-way, which obviously was waived by an earlier commission for the fact that it's at the inn. And secondly, it has to be available to the public. And it's that prong that is of real concern to me, because our conservators sought to—or our assess—conservator-assessors sought to view these works three separate times. Two times she was turned away, and the third time she was walked through the property by an employee.

And, by the way, they could only find three of the eight works. So we will address that. We've got a good relationship with the Inn, and they, as Smitty noted, held an event that was quite a success for Now, I'm going to close on a bit of a nuisance, which is our friend Elliot the Bear. So, Elliot the Bear seems to be in overall good condition, however, the shops that are in the area seem to Thank you. Thank you very much.

Beautify, elucidate, educate, and delight. Certainly those purposes are being eroded by those sorts of actions. And that concludes my talk. And if anyone has questions, I'd love to talk and talk about public art.

Thank you for that. Shall we proceed, then, to the second part? Yeah, any comments? Oh. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. That was actually fantastic, and this packet's fantastic. So I guess what I'd love to do now is, before we move into the discussion items that have been proposed here, is ask Mr. Montgomery if there's anybody online for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor. We have no in-house cards received, but we do have two participants on Zoom, so let's take our obligation seriously for our hybrid format. Zoom participants, we are taking public comment at our special meeting for our one noticed item on our special meeting agenda. I'll give you a moment to raise your hand if needed. And we can move on, Mayor.

Thank you. So, as I'm reading it, the first item I'm looking at under discussion is integration with the city's general plan. Do you wanna say a few words about that? Oh, and say what you need to say, yeah.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So we're a little bit unique, and this is where we wanted just maybe some council discussion in that we, this is a commission that kind of has a plan and is developed with the public in mind and at the direction of council. But we've been operating under the liaison model in terms of our relationship with staff, as the other commissions do as well.

And since I've been on the commission, there's been three managers, seven liaisons. I mean, think about it, and there's been the new council, too. In some ways, you're good commissioners in this city, or have the longest tenure of any of the constituents here, too. My volunteers take this very seriously and our plan very seriously, and I've gotten their kind of buy-in that, hey, we can make government help the creative economy here in this town. So this is worth some of your time here to try to make that happen, because all these people, including myself, can do this other ways, you know, just privately as well, as most art organizations choose to do.

So, we're looking, and when we look at best practices in other cities, a larger city would have a staff member who was the arts director or responsible for coordinating and making sure that the plan is being implemented, you know. So, we don't have that here. And so, a lot of times we feel like we're bugging the city or bugging the council when indeed we see our responsibilities to the council as establishing this plan, this five-year plan.

But implementing it feels like every little step is, we're bothering somebody, you know, rather than, and so I think I'd label this, integrate it with a master plan or something like that. I'm trying to see, get your ideas as if this becomes as important as a pothole to somebody, then it will get done and it won't, it might work better than a liaison model. That's really helpful.

What I was thinking about that I would love to hear from everyone here is there's a lot of activity that's happening right now related both in the Council and outside of the Council on understanding our general plan and trying to understand our economy from different factors. And so even yesterday, there was a meeting with the Women's Fund around a needs assessment for nonprofits. And I was thinking of our meeting that we're going to have here today.

And so I guess part of what I'm thinking about in the integration of what does the creative economy do for Ojai in a way that we can quantify in a way that's never been quantified before is as we work, in fact, what's going to come up soon in our regular meeting will be looking at diversifying our economy as one of the issues. that we have a very explicit part of what does the creative economy look like for us and how, I don't begin, I don't know how to do that yet, but it would be exploring that question. So it'd be, how could we figure out what are the creative endeavors that contribute to our economy in a way that we can make, that makes sense, that then would then justify what's the right kind of budget for the city to spend. That's what I was thinking, but please, Ms.

Lang.

Yeah, I had something along those lines. First of all, we are doing so much with you, as you probably know, we're doing so much with our general plan right now. In fact, later on today, we have an agenda item about this that I won't talk about at this moment. But one of the things that we are doing with our general plan is that we are working with a consultant to do an economic diversification I guess a study on that that we can incorporate into our general plan. We also have a climate action plan that we're doing.

And so I think there would be an opportunity to, I mean, if that does move forward, We will be directing our consultants to look at specific things that we want them to consider when developing that plan. I went with you to that meeting, and I think there's so much potential with working with the county, Focusing on the Creative Economy. And so I think that there will be an opportunity for us to weave some of your goals and your strategies in with what we're already doing. Instead of having it being a separate arts addendum to that plan, to weave it into, to make it more of a, to make more of, to include it in what we're already doing.

I agree with that.

If I may, how would one do that? I mean, I understand that integrating the arts into everything would be quite appealing, but our frustration, and I think that was Smitty's point, is that most jurisdictions, large and small, have cultural affairs departments, or at least some people who are saying art, culture, and so to say We wanted to be a part of everything. It sounds great, but I fear that the grandiosity of it means that it's going to get lost. If I can give one very small example from the video, what we saw were very good jobs, and so our contract conservators could train someone within Public Works, or Public Works could hire someone to go around and do the kind of work that our contract people schlep up from Los Angeles to do. These are good paying jobs, real jobs, and a way to actually integrate art into everything else that's being done.

So I'm not questioning your statement. I'm just wondering how we make that happen.

I think that's a really interesting idea, to say that an employee here does that work that we're contracting out for anyway. That's a great idea. I guess, just to tag on to what you just said, I was thinking, if we could quantify all of the economic activity that happens, now, of course, there's all kinds of other benefits, but that relate to music, visual arts, dance, all of those things to say, This is the kind of aspect of our economy that we're paying attention to, which I think is going to be much bigger. Well, maybe somebody knows it. I don't feel like I know it well to say it's this percentage or something like that. I would love to be able to know that.

And then it seems to me it becomes more interesting to say we're granting to the community. It sounds more like an investment than a grant when we think about it like that. For the health of our community in general, please.

That's, you're speaking to exactly what I was trying to get at with this could be a part of that strategy, the plan that we're working on with the contractors.

Yes, please, and then we'll go to Mr.

Whitman. I just wanted to mention that the county, I might have mentioned this to some of you, is undergoing a impact statement of what is the creative economy in Ventura County, and I've seen a draft of one of the early drafts, and it was very interesting. They're using the same consulting firm that was used in Los Angeles. L.A. County came up with a number like eight, okay, the national average of the impact of the arts in a community. In the United States, it's four and a half percent of GDP or whatever, you know, number that you're measuring. In Los Angeles County, it might not surprise you that it's eight and a half percent.

They're going to find in Ventura County, the number is going to be below the national average, okay? We have a lot of small cities and rural cities and that sort of thing. So what's Ojai's number? What would the Ojai Valley's number be? I would hope it's higher. We would hope it would be maybe even higher than LASA, but we don't know that. And so that's why maybe our second part of this discussion item was to piggyback on what the county has done to try to put a handle on that. So it isn't just making things pretty and good for artists. It becomes a clean, positive job creating, good job creating, no traffic creating, you know, part of the master plan. Thank you. Mr. Whitman, please.

Yeah, so mechanically, we've been working on a general plan since I joined the City Council. And I think it was, you know, it had been begun before that point in time. And my general understanding is that It has elements, the general plan has elements, and they'll have drafts printed of each element. And then there'll be a period of time for comment in addition to what's in the draft.

And so I think there's an opportunity for the Arts Commission to take each and every element, if you have an interest in it, Look at it and give us comments and recommendations about what we should be, you know, considering for addition in the general plan. Certainly the economic piece is We're gonna have those things we're talking about with the artist community, creative community, but the land use element potentially has some potential for that, for there to be relevance. I don't know what all the elements are, actually, having never gone through this before, but we're essentially gonna be adopting a whole new plan And I think I agree with Council Member Lang that, you know, it's not so much of, like, creating a place for the arts, but interweaving the arts in each of the elements of the plan is the way I would see.

I mean, that's the way I would answer your question. That's the way it's logic to me.

Oh, yes, Ms. Rule. Thanks.

I was just going to I was just going to sort of note that I do think that the economic action plan is the perfect place for this, really. And it is it is one of our goals for diversifying the economy. It seems to me that it would be very targeted and would speak exactly to, you know, the creative economy. That's not to say that it doesn't make sense for I want you to give comments on all of the elements of the general plan. But honestly, and you know, if you want to get lost, start commenting on the general plan, in my experience.

So I would say really target it and work with us on the economic action plan, because I think all of us feel there is a creative economy. And we can have it from start to finish. We can have an apprentice program. You know, we're speaking now, Council Member Mang and I, about putting students on each of the commissions and seeing, you know, how they can be mentored and sort of brought into a working situation for them. So, I mean, that's where I see the natural fit.

And I would I would head to that. I would head there in the diversifying the economy idea.

Thanks. Yes.

One thing, too, I just wanted to mention, and we're going to talk about goals and priorities this evening, too, is that actually you'll I think you'll be pleased to hear that one of our goals that one of the goals that we have for arts, culture and recreation funding is to consider an Ojai cultural contribution. And so while the general plan might be further out, this is something that we could do more immediate. And so what we mentioned was dedicating a portion of the TOT to non-profit applicants influencing the arts, culture, and recreation. So, looking at it more from a budgetary perspective first, and then, you know, as we're developing these components of the general plan, see where we can, where maybe our consultants have suggestions for how we could do that.

Two things occurred to me. One is, I would encourage everybody, if you come across an idea that another city is doing, don't hesitate. Capture it, send it our way, because I keep learning things all the time that other cities are up to in terms of like an artist residency program or an incubator program or whatever, and it gets really exciting to think, oh, we could actually help bring about something that we would like to do, and I just don't know what I don't know, you know, so that's one. The second is, we've been talking about a survey, and we keep thinking about different needs for this survey that we might end up doing, but it's asking questions that typically the census may not ask, like, do you work from home? Is this your second home?

Things like that. But the more I think about this, and I think of nonprofits that also want to help contribute to this survey, financially and in content, This seems like a great opportunity to ask questions like this. Are you part of the creative economy? How do you do that? A lot of us, art is a side gig, you know, so it's, but it'd be something that would be really interesting to know about.

I will say also, if I could, that I've spoken to the director of the Chamber of Commerce, and she's also very interested in making art. part of the Chamber of Commerce and actually supporting artists who might need the Chamber's help, you know, to be able to actually expand their artistic, you know, their livelihood. And so that seems to me, when you're talking about a creative economy, you're all really tied into also, you know, the Chamber of Commerce.

Yes, please go. Just a little more fertilizer on that and some best practices. I remember when the homeless community, what do we call it? The tent town? Yeah, our tent town. I think we got a grant for that or something at some point. And they're very common grants these days and large grants for cities all across the country right now. And, and many in the more progressive art communities have, you know, automatically put a, you know, 8% or a 10% or some number in there of something that will be part of the creative economy in there. So for, and it's beyond having murals on the side of the wall and that sort of thing. It could be, it could be a It could be a workshop where there's paints and easels and classes, you know, and or even a store where the residents who create art, you know, spread, you know, spread the message, not just beauty, but, you know, the enterprise of the creative economy.