Photo: Frances Rivetti
Blue skies made for a bright backdrop as Petalumans were invited to see for themselves how the city's first proposed large scale public art installation will look in place during a story pole event for San Francisco artist Brian Goggin's controversial five Victorian cast iron bathtubs on stilts. "A Fine Balance" has drawn hot debate from a vocal range of residents, most of whom either love it or hate it, with plenty others on the fence as to its potential for somewhere else other than Water Street.
To put the scene into perspective for anyone who is reading this post and is not familiar with Petaluma's Water Street, which runs parallel to Petaluma Boulevard's restaurant row in the riverfront city's charming iron front historic downtown, this is, in the words of my friend, photographer Frank Simpson, whose photos are featured in this post: "the most abused street in Petaluma."
It's also one of the most beloved historical locations given the importance of the river and its turning basin as a vital lifeline throughout the city's founding Gold Rush era. Blighted by a failed cobblestone installation, frequent rat infestations, an historic railroad trestle that is fenced off and is shamefully crumbling day by day into a river that has almost filled with mud, a big art debate shines a major spotlight on the indisputable fact there's a lot to be done to save the grace and beauty of the little street that once was the city's most dynamic incoming and outgoing hub.
Flash forward from the Gold Rush to 2019 and the city of Petaluma's first ever large scale public art installation has many of its citizens spitting verbal abuse at one another online and in person as to whether or not the San Francisco artist's idea should continue to make it through the final steps to go forward in this prime location. I talked with one resident who said she had expected to be met with neighbors holding torches, their pitchforks at the ready. "The villagers are not happy," she remarked, adding that the prototype was not nearly as big or oppressive as the unfortunately post-apocalyptic artists impression that has been splashed across social media. A reliable source told me later that particular take of a dark sepia illustration was never intended to have been distributed.
The community of Petaluma is a notoriously headstrong one. That Goggin's concept is Petaluma's pathway as it navigates the path forward while maintaining its treasured heritage, agricultural roots and eclecticism seems to be lost on the majority of its naysayers.
Photo: Frank Simpson, Artist Brian Goggin arrives on the scene for a public story pole event on Petaluma's Water Street.
A crowd of around 200 mingled and awaited Goggin's story pole procession, slowly moving the same large scale prototype from one of its five positions to another. There was some shouting and scuffling and reports of people not being on their most polite behavior at the start of the event, but on the whole it proved a civil gathering and a there was lots of debate and discussion going down between both sides of the yes or no nod for the installation being made permanent. It still has one more round with the city council for a final vote after the story pole event is reviewed.
Newly sworn in Mayor of Petaluma Teresa Barrett was surrounded by constituents vying for an impassioned word in her ear. The mayor kept her cool, reminding people that whatever the outcome of the installation, it would not feed or keep someone from being fed. One of the key talking points being that the $150,000 awarded to the project by a specially assigned Public Art Committee is earmarked for public art and public art alone (sorry, no budget anywhere else for dredging the river & fixing up the trestle).
"I don't find it offensive," said Mayor Barrett, in discussion with a politely agitated group. "There is nothing that we'd all like. Let Petaluma be the town that can have controversy and keep community." She pointed out that people were talking to others they wouldn't usually be having conversations with. "If you look at it in context," she said, referring to the positioning of the fifth and final tub on stilts mid-Water Street, with the feed mill in the background, "it doesn't look so out of place." The Mayor did concede that she would have liked to have seen the installation across the Washington Street Bridge in the more industrial part of Water Street down by Brewsters Beer Garden, though that was not the part of town the public art fund was earmarked for.
Carol Isaak is a Petaluma resident for over fifty years and the city's Volunteer of the Year for 2017 for her years of exemplary volunteer service. A former librarian with a 30-year career with the Petaluma City Schools District managing the teaching and learning resources center at the district office, Isaak has dedicated her retirement to sorting books and home goods in the store room of Alphabet Soup, the fundraising store of Petaluma Educational Foundation. Isaak is not a fan of the bathtubs on stilts. "Absolutely not," she said, when I talked to her during Saturday's story pole event. Isaak and several others I spoke with were not against the art being relocated to a more suitable location. "If they put it in the wetlands over at Ellis Creek (Water Cycling Facility) it would be better suited. It would look like long-legged shore birds standing in the water."
Landscape architect Louise Leff on the other hand, is thoroughly on board. "It's thrilling to me to see a bathtub juxtaposed with the river," she said. "I love the form, the beautiful, round, elegant form, the heaviness of it, the tension on the stilts." She considers it "really cool to have sculpture amongst the trees and five of them have a rhythm."
Photo: Frances Rivetti
Goggin spoke of his research into Petaluma history and his interest in "some of the only existing iron front buildings in California." The Victorian era ball and claw tubs he'll be using were cast in San Francisco and reclaimed from an abandoned building — representing a tribute to the bathtubs traded with early Petalumans building their Victorian homes in exchange for farm goods during the Gold Rush era. Goggin's mom was in town to support her artist son and served tea to attendees.
I spotted multi-generational Petaluman and journalist John Sheehy author of the wildly popular newly released On A River Winding Home, a beautiful book of photography by Scott Hess and his own essays on the Petaluma watershed. "Another river story," John said of "A Fine Balance" and the energy it has whipped up, "an important new element of Petaluma's history."
A large comment box filled up with folded paper by the end of the afternoon. A good sign that there are still opportunities for all sides to be heard.
The Wall Street Journal sent a photojournalist who spent a good part of his day capturing the event. Look out for his take on our riverfront conundrum, it will be interesting to read a report from an outsider looking in.
Citizens Against Bathtubs posted the following on Facebook after the event: "There are many many issues with this "event". First, no construction project I have ever seen that included story poles has had only a portion of the structure represented, and then not at full height, and only for 30 seconds. If the intent if this was to give the public a feel for the installation, and its impact on circulation and visual elements, it failed, big time! IMO the PPAC has not met the requirement set forth by the council as a provisional of moving forward. They need to go back and erect actual story poles representing all FIVE tubs and all 20 poles, at full height, and leave them there for at least a week or two." The group will be taking this up with he council at the next meeting.
Photo: Frank Simpson
Photo: Frank Simpson
"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see,"
Edgar Degas
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