City Loses Arts Czar; May Leave Position Unfilled

By Jorge Casuso

July 31 -- After 13 years at the helm, Maria Luisa de Herrera, Santa Monica's colorful arts czar, has left her post to pursue a graduate degree, leaving a void that may not be immediately filled by the cash-strapped City.

City officials are expected to hammer out a short and long term plan for the Cultural Affairs Division with input from the Arts Commission before deciding whether to fill the post, which oversees a staff of two and pays a starting salary of $71,496.

"The City has a selective hiring freeze, so every position that is vacant will be discussed," said Barbara Stinchfield, director of Community and Cultural Services. "We need to know what the State funding situation will be like, so we're kind of in an evaluation mode.

"My focus will be on getting input on what's needed in the future, then we'll go back to the drawing board and see how we can support those efforts," Stinchfield said. "It's a very small division, but it does a lot."

The three-person division oversees everything from public art to citywide festivals and events and coordinates art competitions. The division also works to expand opportunities for artists to live and work in the city.

Known for integrating public artists into the design teams for capital projects, De Herrera's mark can be seen in the sculptural design for a waste treatment plant by the pier and in the touches that grace the BIG Project in Palisades Park, which include restrooms that evoke Japanese lanterns.

"When you drive or walk around Santa Monica, there are many visible representations of her vision and work," Stinchfield said at de Herrera's going away party Wednesday afternoon.

"Whether you chuckle at the picnic table that traverses a watercourse at Douglas Park, yearn longingly for a Solar Web that should have been, or delight in the many murals throughout the City, you should know that it was Maria Luisa who, with our local arts community, worked to advance the City’s commitment to public art,"

During de Herrera's tenure, the Cultural Affairs Division also grappled with an unprecedented exodus of artists driven out by an escalating real estate market.

A report conducted in 2000 by the division found that the number of artist live/work spaces in the City was slashed in half -- from 156 to 78 -- between the time the survey was conducted and the time a first draft was presented to the Arts Commission two months later.

Bruria Finkel, a long-time champion of the arts, thinks this is no time to leave de Herrera's post unfilled.

"The City should do a national search for an excellent top-notch administrator for the arts because we really need it," Finkel said. "To cut anything out of this department would be terrible."

Whether it fills the post or not, the City will not abandon its commitment to the arts, Stinchfield said.