Dizdar Park Interpretive Display Summary of Proposals
Submitted by Studio Channel Islands Art Center
Studio Channel Islands ran a call for submissions from April 20th, 2024 to June 30th, 2024. This included a direct mail to over 800 public art agencies and individuals as well as social media posting, and advertisements placed within public art publications.
There were 1,381 requests for information resulting in 5 completed submissions. Two submissions were withdrawn, leaving three options to review.
These submissions were from:
o Joe Adams
o Jose Trejo Maya
o Elisa Torres
Joe Adams
Describe your experience of delivering community engagement programs within public art projects.
From 2019 to present I’ve been a member of and work at SCIart developing public art projects here in Camarillo. From initial design to installation, creating large stone sculptures, painting murals, collaborating with other artists, working with structural engineers and fabricators, electricians and crane operators and consulting with experts in whatever direction a project may evolve.
Currently, One 12x18 foot mural is ready for installation. It is a 2 part mural, each mural tips forward 1 foot from the wall and has its own embedded graze lighting system. Each mural is supported by a complex aluminum superstructure. The top mural I designed and painted to work in tandem with the bottom mural, it is 10.5x12 feet and sits above the 7.5x12 foot ceramic tile mural, created working in collaboration with community members lead by ceramic artist Janet Neuwalder. This mural’s imagery celebrates 4 aspects of Camarillo, nature, history, agriculture and high tech industry.
Another project is near completion it is comprised of 54 stainless steel sculpted leaves with brushed texture that shows each leaf’s structure, they are painted with natural colors that fade to the steel color, giving the viewer a sense of high tech nature. The leaves represent Camarillo agriculture – avocados, lemons, limes and strawberries.
They will be mounted on two walls that join at the corner of the block, at the center of which, a 21 foot high brushed and painted stainless steel two part sculpture will be installed with leaves wrapping around the upper halves of an abstract tree spiraling form. The walls and sculpture will engage the public to look closer and enter the shopping complex including a large grocery store (hence the focus on Camarillo’s historical and current agricultural base).
2 more projects in design stages, scheduled to be completed this year, focus on different aspects of Camarillo’s history. One is an 8,500 lb. obelisk limestone sculpture that will show Chumash medicinal plants sculpted like a vertical landscape image from acorns at the bottom on eroded rocks up to 11.2 foot high sage brush and all the other plants in between, on the back will be a plaque with each Chumash plant name translated into English with a brief description of its use, on the two sides will be 12 colorful tiles of each medicinal plant (6 per side). The 2nd project will be in 3 parts, one is a 20x20 foot mural of the Camarillo lumber company and Juan Camarillo referencing the shipping of wood from Washington and Oregon to build all the ranches and building in the startup of Camarillo’s early development. The other two parts are tile murals of the trees in their natural habitat on each side of the entrance signage for a housing development welcoming visitors and tenants alike, information plaques will be incorporated to give people a sense of place and history.
The SCIart Roxie Ray Memorial Sculpture Garden is currently being developed. The central 106 foot in circumference all brick Labyrinth with a 4,500 lb. limestone “Celtic Nautilus” sculpture is now complete. The sculpture combines the design elements that Roxie Ray loved. 2022: UMAfl.org commissions 7 to 10 artists each year to create underwater sculptures to build an artificial reef in the Florida Gulf, they submerged my sculpture June 21st 2022, it is now part of a destination dive underwater art gallery that will over time morph into a thriving reef, photos show how fish and divers a like love these sculptures. The sculpture I created is 112 inches high, 1,745 lb., made of turkey foot limestone, steel pipe and ferro cement sculptural elements, each of which attract and support coral growth. It is the only underwater sculptural garden “museum” in the US. Doing this sculpture falls in line with the work I do with Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Lab in Monterey CA developing programs and exhibitions that combine art and marine science building community relations and raising funding for marine initiatives, we are looking at ideas for public art as well. 2017: Two Public Art projects were completed and installed, each have had notable success in engaging community one was an 8x 10 foot wood fired ceramic tile mural. I assisted Richard Rowland in all aspects of design, sculpture and production – commissioned by CMH-OHSU Knight Cancer Collaborative in Astoria, OR this mural is a large Plane Tree with river rocks at its base. People love this and relax with it around a quite pond of contemplation, the mural speaks of growth, strength and healing to the viewer. The other project is a "Sun Stone" Sculpture commission for Ventana Big Sur, an Alila Luxury Hotel in Big Sur, CA. The 1,600 Lb. limestone "Sunburst" that rotates on a concrete base within a Meditation Circle allows the viewer to interact with the landscape and move the stone and look through the portal at the ocean horizon line, also 100’s of people take photos of each other looking through the portal, images have gone viral on social media. 4 boulders are set on the cardinal directions and 8 redwood logs complete the circle or Medicine Wheel. This project was completed in 18 days, 8 days before Ventana Big Sur was reopened 10-20-2017. Describe how you will interpret / present the history of the fire house within this project and include the role of a professional historian in creating the interpretative elements. Collaborating with a professional historian and researching imagery and information with the Camarillo library, historical groups, and fire department will be essential in developing the visuals that will combine imagery with creative and engaging typography and text information etched or laser carved into metal sheets that will follow the contour of a curved wall of limestone. The curved wall will, in a sense, represent the façade of a building. Cut out of the wall will be “windows” of embedded translucent onyx with white and rust red agate like lines and crystalline lined holes to, in a sense, represent fire without actually looking like fire, (these windows could be lit from within). At one end of the wall there will be a sculpture in bas-relief the same thickness as the wall, made of the same limestone, revealing the outside profile shape cut out of a fire fighter in full gear. The fire fighter will be holding a hose that will spiral down along the bottom, he will be spraying water above the wall, the stream of water will be made of metal sheets cut into beautiful arching shapes, long shapes emulating spraying water with droplets and lines of movement, laser cut out, to create beautiful shadows on the ground as the sun passes by. The wall will have dynamic lines and angles carved in bas-relief to accentuate the water movement and graphics in the metal sheet imagery and text design.
Describe how your proposed artwork reflects or interprets the history of the firehouse and how it will engage visitors to the park in learning about the City. The Dynamic design with the sculpted fire fighter and metal “water” spray patterns over the curved wall will pull people’s attention in, the graphics, the glowing onyx “windows” will attract a closer look to engage with each viewer’s curiosity and interest in interacting with historical content and learning. Proposed program to engage the community in the project:
Staging events with local firefighter fundraisers and creating events that can pull in some aspect of firefighter interaction with kids groups could be a great way to engage the community. The project will be interactive with people walking around it and with QR codes visible to get further information and links to community related groups and activities. A website could be established or a page added to the cities website that holds this data may be a way to make all this work. Size Begin with a 16x6 foot cement foundation with reinforced rebar, 2 feet deep with stainless steel ¼” thick, 3 inch wide, 4 foot long pipes, placed every 3 feet embedded 18 inches into the foundation sticking up, pinning the Limestone wall secure to the ground. The limestone wall will be 6 to 7 feet high, 9 feet long, in 3 or 4 piece sections flush together, a foot thick with 3.5 inch wide holes drilled into each for the pipes to pin into. The wall will be curving in and out slowly to filling and outside width of 4 feet from side to side. The fire fighter will be a foot thick maybe more and be 5 feet long and 6 feet high. The metal arching water spray pattern sheets will be mounted on top of the wall and connect the firefighter’s hose with secure welded rods and not go above the overall height of 15 feet. The metal sheets with graphics will be pinned into the wall with solid metal rods welded to the back and epoxy or prism grout can be used to permanently secure them to the wall. The onyx “windows will be cut and fitted to design and secured in wall with epoxy or prism grout. Large crane or 10 ton reach forklift will be needed for installation. All surfaces will have a protective coatings or sealers added after install to help if attacked with graffiti. Low maintenance hose wash off and occasionally pressure wash, only, if extremely dirty. Budget $ 5,000.00 Design and layout time $ 5,000.00 Interpretation Copy Creation $10,000.00 Metal for water spray and sheets for graphics $10,000.00 Etching and laser cutting $ 1,500.00 Pipe for pinning limestone $ 5,000.00 Fabrication $ 20,000.00 Stone and drilling $ 25,000.00 Sculpting stone $ 5,000.00 Transport and Installation $ 3,500.00 Contingency Jose Trejo Maya Describe your experience of delivering community engagement programs within public art projects. I have completed five public art commissions in WA, OR, and MA and included within these have public art talks on the subject.
Describe how you will interpret / present the history of the fire house within this project and include the role of a professional historian in creating the interpretative elements. I will interpret the history on the fact that knowledge (i.e. indigenous lore/iconography) gives a sense of place to the old fire-house location for the simple objective is to create dialogue and literacy. The visual art installation proposal is both interactive, multidisciplinary, and kinesthetic audio-visual sculpture. It’s a multiphase comprehensive exposé on Mesoamerican lore and more specifically on a pre-Columbian notion of time. Here, there would be three simultaneous and concurrent proposals that center on concrete poetry. I am interested
in this opportunity to let contemporary society at large know that poetry is alive, and that the oral tradition still lives, though it’s thought that this ancient culture is dead. Proposal concept 1 [i.e., sculpture or façade installation] all will be made with the two primary elements: plastic transparency films and acrylic/plexiglass. The first is titled Transparencies in Time: Cuahpohualli embedded in ethnopoetic poetry [proposal concept 1 will comprise of two hollow cylinders on whose inside surface will be placed the transparencies] sealed within a second acrylic/plexiglass that’s cylindrical to create a hologram-mirror type effect. Proposal concept 2 & 3 will both comprise a wall/frame of solid acrylic/plexiglass in thickness will seal the plastic transparency films, who’s shaped of the X and Y chromosomes of the DNA double helix. In the proposal concept 3 transparencies will be placed in the shape of a pyramid. My work is rooted in the original peoples and/or 1st nations so it’s original by default, therefore my visual art speaks for itself. The sculpture(s) are a mirror and/or a mosaic of ideas in hologram or transparent as a pool screen…. While the second proposal concept is called Cyclones in the DNA2: Double Helix/Haiku Transparencies in [Space] Time and the 3rd, will be titled Dream Images: TransparenXcies Pyramid Shifts: 3D. Within these sculptures specifications are a back-projection scheme on plexiglass on façade of walls and motion-sensors for moving sculptures...with art glass LED backlight with solar adaptations. Describe how your proposed artwork reflects or interprets the history of the firehouse and how it will engage visitors to the park in learning about the City.
It will be a spark of creativity figuratively for the sculpture visual art conception is brought from the flame that arises literacy and dreams. So the community can engage with the sculptural proposals. Size Two cylinders, each measuring L 7 (feet) x W (7 feet) x H (3 foot) Budget No details given.
Elisa Torres Describe your experience of delivering community engagement programs within public art projects. Elisa Torres has been a member of the Oxnard Commission for Public Art for two years. In that time, she has completed several large murals within the city and is currently working on the commissioning of over $1M of work. Elisa’s work has been exhibited at galleries, festivals and museums locally including Acuña Art Gallery, Ojai City Hall, Studio Channel Islands Art Center, Buenaventura Art Gallery , Mc. Nish Art Gallery, DWTN Art Gallery. She has also been a part of PACC The Arts Festival in 2017. Other festivals include the Juneteenth Festival (2016), Día de los Muertos at Heritage Square (2016), night in Oaxaca (2016), Artists for Justice (2015).
Her work has been printed in Merenguezine (Tijuana 2015) & The Soaring Condor (2017). In addition to creating her own artwork Elisa develops workshops for children at the Dr.Lopez community garden. She believes that creating through art /images can be a positive outlet and is encouragement for positive change within communities. She has
led many large community participation projects, involving groups in the creation of murals and other public art installations. Describe how you will interpret / present the history of the fire house within this project and include the role of a professional historian in creating the interpretative elements. This project will be built upon original research into the Fire House and the history of the park as well as the findings from the professional historian retained by the City of Camarillo. The ‘chapters’ of the story will be shared with the community through a series of workshops and talks at Studio Channel Islands as well as through social media. These workshops will create visual motifs and details for inclusion in the final work. The research of the professional historian will be summarized within the main interpretation panel. The project will be supported by students and faculty from California State University Channel Islands, this will include talks and creative programs which encourage the community to share their stories about the park and the fire house. It is intended that a digital archive will be created with photographs of objects and audio recordings of stories told by member of the community. Describe how your proposed artwork reflects or interprets the history of the firehouse and how it will engage visitors to the park in learning about the City. In preparation for the submission Elissa Torres visited the Museum of Ventura County to visit the photography archive and to gather newspaper and other primary sources. The results of this research will be presented within the final design, this includes the production of never-before-seen photographs of the fire house developed from negatives deposited with the museum.
The artwork will comprise a series of metal sheets with etched tiles depicting the history of the park. The panels will be constructed from sheet metal tiles manufactured in partnership with Rancho Campana High School’s RC Makes program. The tiles can be organized in various configurations, either in a single line as shown on the architects’ renderings or spaced out around a central courtyard as show below.
The tiles will show the various chapters of the story of the park. The first panel will describe the gifting of the land by the Camarillo family for the creation of a church yard. The second panel will introduce Mike Dizdar, after whom the park was named. The third panel will tell the story of the Eugene Putnam and the creation of the Fire House. The final panel will show the end of the firehouse and the story of the transformation of the park. The community will be invited to print making events at Studio Channel Islands. This will create engagement in the program and the history of the site. Students and faculty from California State University Channel Islands will work with the community to make prints representing the park and its various meanings for the community, the students will record the stories gathered at these events and curate a digital archive of the project and the community involvement. The final panels in the park will contain a digital link (e.g. QR code) to connect visitors to the public art with the record of its creation and the history of the park.
Size Final size of panels to be determined by community engagement and fabrication solution. Estimated panel sizes to be four feet by four feet per panel, set into a concrete base. Budget $ 10,000 Artist Fee (Design and Management) $ 10,000 Metal sheets $ 48,500 Etching and laser cutting and Fabrication $ 3,000 Lighting $ 10,000 Community workshops, making and gathering stories and digital media $ 5,000 Transport and Installation $ 3,500 Contingency $90,000 Total