READERS RESPOND -- Is whale art educational or trash?

PRO

This is in response to the many naysayers of the proposed whale art on

Beach [Boulevard] and Pacific Coast Highway.

Have the naysayers even considered the educational value of this art? I

can envision teachers bringing children on field trips to see this art.

How many children can visualize how truly huge a whale is? How many

children have ever heard the sounds of the fog horn or bell buoys? How

many adults from other areas of the country have seen or heard the same?

In 1956, my family came to California for the first time. Everything at

the beach was a wonder to us. We had never seen the ocean and loved every

bit of it.

I can envision others coming today, and in the future, who would truly

enjoy Huntington Beach with all its changes and also the proposed whale

art.

I do agree that it would have made sense to have one of our own artists

come up with something for us, but that now is hindsight.

Many people will enjoy taking photos along the whale art, and their video

cameras will capture the sounds and sights of the ocean.

Whale art sounds will never erase the beautiful sound of the shore and

waves as you put your feet into the ocean for the first time. Whale art

sounds will only enhance their pleasure, and Huntington Beach will long

be remembered either as a vacation memory or an educational field trip.

Come on, folks. Huntington Beach is getting better every day. Let’s get

positive!!

CON

In their never-ending quest to steal the soul of Huntington Beach, the

members of the City Council have once again ventured above and beyond the

call of duty. Invoking the noble spirit of public art, they have proposed

the whale bone sculpture -- a piece more akin to the golden arches of

McDonald’s than to the Statue of Liberty.

Ron Davis, in his celebratory column last week, bluntly states the whale

sculpture’s true purpose. The sculpture, he informs us, will serve as a

“unique” and “attractive” backdrop for picture-taking tourists. Since

visitors have apparently become bored with such tried and true Huntington

Beach backdrops as the sparkling blue Pacific, the pier, lifeguard

towers,beach bonfires, palm trees, Coke machines that line the sand and

the artfully decorated trash cans that seem to outnumber beachgoers most

days of the year, they need something new to help them memorialize their

trip to Huntington Beach.

Davis assures us that the new sculpture is truly a sight to behold --

what with its “modern” and “abstract” flow and the way the work’s lines

conjure up images of the opera house in Sidney, Australia, it’s sure to

draw a crowd. It will only be a matter of time, Davis believes, before

the whale bone sculpture will become readily identifiable with the city.

You know, New York has the Statue of Liberty, Washington, D.C., has the

capital building, and Huntington Beach has the concrete whale bones. Go

figure.

It seems to me, however, that public art should reflect community values,

concerns and the distinctive regional culture in which it is both created

and displayed. Surely the approved whale monstrosity does not symbolize

the community of Huntington Beach. Or does it?

Some of you obviously voted for the misguided souls who make up our City

Council; they wouldn’t be there without your vote. Or perhaps, like me,

you sat idly by while the village elders sold the community out to the

highest bidder. Victims of the plague of apathy which our kickback beach

lifestyle seems to induce, many of us chose not to get involved, raise

our voices, nor even vote -- after all, the wind was offshore that day,

and the sets were overhead.

The concrete whale bones may be an adequate symbol of life in Huntington

Beach for our aesthetically challenged City Council members and city

boosters, like Ron Davis, who elected them, but the bones don’t represent

the true spirit of Huntington Beach.

How can synthetic whale bones possibly capture the spirit of the surfer

as he glides down the face of a wave and into the warm embrace of the

rising sun? The spirit of the water nymphs as they playfully splash in

the shore break on a sunny summer afternoon as bronzed young men admire

their antics from behind the dark lenses of wraparound shades? The spirit

of the group of twentysomethings mounted on vintage beach cruisers as

they peddle happily to the alley party a few blocks away? The spirit of

the retired couple who sit side by side on their front porch sipping

vodka tonics as they watch with amusement as yet another minivan full of

inland visitors attempts to parallel park in front of their house? The

spirit of the young family as they push their baby stroller from fruit

stand to fruit stand at the farmers market on a warm Friday in July?

Concrete whale bones, indeed.