Opinion: Los Angeles' officialdom objects to utility pole sculptures. Neighbors love them.

A green painted frog scultpure with a yellow guitar that reads "ribbit," attached to a wood utility pole

Aug. 14, 2024 2:36 PM PT

The great Mar Vista street art skirmish took place shortly after 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Neighbors who love the whimsical metal sculptures that artist Lori Powers has stealthily attached to utility poles since 2017 faced off against hard-hatted Los Angeles Department of Water and Power workers busy unbolting one of her signature pieces.

For the record:

5:01 p.m. Aug. 14, 2024An earlier version of this piece misspelled L.A. City Councilwoman Traci Park’s name. It is Park, not Parks.

No one on either side looked happy.

Opinion Columnist

Robin Abcarian

Read more from Robin Abcarian

“We need to chain our bodies to the poles,” Powers 67, had told the two dozen-plus locals who gathered in front of her home before several gleaming white DWP trucks pulled up a block away.

“I swear to God, I’ll do it,” said Scott Baldyga, 55, a novelist and screenwriter who has lived in the area for 13 years. The sculptures, he said, many of which entertain commuters on Palms Boulevard between Walgrove and Beethoven avenues, make the neighborhood feel like “home.”

Retired UCLA senior lecturer Paul Von Blum, a neighbor who has written and taught about Powers’ art, approached the DWP workers, who had begun dismantling one of the pieces. “Why are you doing this?” he asked indignantly. “You’re just following orders?”

They didn’t respond, but their supervisor, Dan Grout, politely asked Von Blum to step away from the truck.

A woman behind a sculpture involving a bird cage in front of a decorated door and house

Neighbors had been informed last week that the art pieces, which another neighbor had complained about — why no one, including the DWP, could tell me — were to be removed. In response, Powers’ fans mounted a social media and email campaign to save the art.

But Powers and her allies, among them former L.A. City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, had been led to believe that the DWP had given them a reprieve, pending the return this week of the neighborhood’s current councilwoman, Traci Park, who has been in Paris at the Olympics.

Grout, however, told me he was unaware of a change in plans. And, he implied understandably, that he’d been dreading this assignment. “Last weekend, I was thinking, ‘This is gonna be a fun job,’ ” he said glumly.

A few minutes later, after a phone call or two, Grout told his crews to “wrap it up,” and soon the men in hard hats and their shiny white trucks were gone.

All but two of the 28 sculptures were spared. At least for now.

A few hours after everyone had drifted away, I drove back to the intersection of Rosewood Avenue and Marco Place.

Powers had just finished reinstalling “Beam Love,” one of the artworks the DWP had removed.

“Beam Love” is made from a tool box attached to a small fire extinguisher. It features big eyes made out of a Coleman camp stove grill with eyelashes scavenged from a neighbor’s leftover artificial turf. Flat glass marbles on the fire extinguisher “body” glittered in the sunlight. Each of Powers’ pieces contains a gold sports medallion, usually disguised, in homage to her years playing for an award-winning senior women’s three-on-three basketball team. “It’s my signature,” she said.

Her fanciful creations, some with comforting messages like “Be You,” are welded together from all kinds of cast-off materials, painted in bright colors and securely attached to the utility poles with four-inch bolts and chains. She says she inspects them weekly, repainting and repairing when necessary.

She began making them after she retired from her career as a computer consultant and realized she needed a hobby. She took up welding, and her fanciful artwork soon evolved.

I’d been alerted to the kerfuffle last week, when Galanter emailed me. She represented this neighborhood during her 16 years on the City Council, and has little patience for obstinate bureaucracy. She had reached out to Park’s office and was told by one of the councilmember’s staffers that an unnamed DWP staffer had outlined the department’s unflinching position in an email, which Galanter forwarded to me:

“The attachments are illegal,” said the DWP’s vaguely threatening email. “We are opting this time not to pursue the criminal/civil recourse. We are just removing the items as quickly as possible to mitigate clear and present safety hazards for any utility workers that have to access the pole, and mitigate any damage they did to the pole while illegally climbing the pole and illegally attaching items to the pole. We are not releasing any statements on the matter. We are not meeting with constituents on this matter. We bear no responsibility for any damage or destruction to the illegal items.”

I could practically hear Galanter sputter.

“There is no question that the art on the poles is illegal,” she told me. “But so what? There is a procedure to make it legal. And if anybody cared, they would do that.” I’m not sure there is an actual procedure, but I take her point: Angelenos need to remember they can push the city in directions they prefer.

A streetsign topped with a sculpture and people gathered across the street

As examples, Galanter reminded me that during her tenure, the city had planned to tear down the storm-damaged Venice Pier until Galanter, the Coastal Conservancy and her constituents fought to save it. Rebuilding the pier helped revitalize nearby shops and restaurants in what is now called Washington Square. And that city engineers once refused to install a stop sign on Rose Avenue in front of the Venice Family Clinic because there was not enough car traffic, until she pointed out that the issue was about pedestrian safety.

On Tuesday afternoon, DWP communications director Elena Stern sounded a softer tone, but said the department was firmly committed to removing Powers’ pieces. The state’s Public Utilities Commission sets the rules, she said, and forbids foreign objects on the poles.

“We want to come up with a solution that’s a win-win for everybody,” said Stern, though it’s not clear what that would involve — maybe moving the sculptures to a more accommodating public space. “We need to be respectful, we are standing by to brainstorm and listen to the community.”

Whatever happens, at least Powers knows her neighbors — well, most of them — are huge fans.

“I’ve gotten so much love and support,” Powers said, “I probably don’t have to go to therapy this week.”

@robinkabcarian