New Arroyo Grande public art piece is rooted in diversity

A cross burning outside an African-American teen’s window in Arroyo Grande five years ago sparked a conversation on hate speech that continues in the community today.

As part of that conversation, current and former Arroyo Grande High School students have been working on a different kind of statement — a public art sculpture titled, “Arboring Our Roots of Diversity,” that aims to “communicate the message of unity, acceptance and the celebration of diversity through a public art piece,” according to 5 Cities Diversity Coalition member Jim Trask.

The Coalition was formed in 2011, when public outrage and concern erupted after four people placed a burning cross in the yard next to the home of a biracial family, which was then seen by the family’s teenage daughter through her window. Four people, three men and one woman, were later convicted of arson, terrorism and committing a hate crime.

The Coalition’s goal has since been to promote an environment of understanding that would prevent and respond to similar hate crimes, and it has worked on a number of projects and initiatives throughout the South County area to jump-start that discussion on tolerance.

“I happened to be at the meeting a couple of years ago where they were discussing, how do we physically go about representing diversity?” he said. “I raised my hand and volunteered to coordinate with students. I had no idea what we could do, but I kind of trusted my intuition about holding together some students to do this.”

Trask, a local artist, is the design and construction mentor in charge of organizing the project. From the beginning, he has worked with the group of students to conceptualize and design a piece of artwork that would represent diversity, to be placed near Arroyo Grande High School.

The resulting 12-foot metal and fiberglass sculpture will be of a tree, with the leaves shaped like continents forming a globe. Five roots — symbolizing the Five Cities — will cover the base of the sculpture, displaying the words: “heritage,” “individuality,” “culture,” “unity,” “community,” “education,” “diversity” and “peace.” It is expected to cost between $13,000 and $15,000, and will be entirely privately funded.

When he first put out the call for interest in such a project in 2014, Trask said there were about 19 responses from students, though that dwindled to nine by the time the first actual meeting came around.

Since then, Trask said, only three students have really stayed with the project all the way from conception to this approval phase. Of the three students, one, Zoe Newcomb, is still an Arroyo Grande High School student (she is a senior). The other two, Gabriella Santiago and Cassie Travis, are now freshmen at Cal Poly and Humboldt State University, respectively. All three were high school students when they began the project.

“I’m really excited,” Santiago said. “It got put on the back burner for a little bit, but now that it’s coming to fruition, it’s good to see it get rolling finally. I’m excited to get working on it and see it built.”

Santiago said she and her fellow students put in hours of after-school work to come up with a design for their art piece, including taking field trips to San Luis Obispo to examine the public artwork downtown. After polling 5 Cities Diversity Coalition members on what diversity meant to them, and on words that spoke to those ideas, the students came up with the idea for a sculpture of a tree.

“We just felt that a tree was a unifying kind of symbol,” Santiago said. “The roots especially. It’s as if to say that our community is rooted in diversity.”

Once completed, it will be installed between Arroyo Grande High School and Clark Center for Performing Arts entrances, so students can view it every day and be reminded of the importance of diversity in the area.

“They’ll be able to see it every day they go to school,” Trask said. “Hopefully, over the school years, they’ll become familiar with it and develop a whole generation with a little more consciousness of what diversity is and how we all present things differently — that we have to have more tolerance for others’ ideas, even if they don’t mesh with yours.”

The sculpture is still in its conceptual phase, as it goes through the lengthy public artwork approval process. It was approved by both the Clark Center Foundation and Lucia Mar Unified School District Board of Directors in February and received no opposition at a public hearing during the Arroyo Grande City Council meeting March 8.

Now it must await the final thumbs-up from the Arroyo Grande Public Arts Panel, which is expected sometime this month or early April.

“We’re very optimistic that the panel will approve it,” 5 Cities Diversity Coalition President David Conn said. “They were very supportive of it at previous meetings, so there shouldn’t be a problem there.”

Once it is approved, Conn said he expects they will attempt to install the piece over summer break. A professional metalworker will be brought in to do the metalworking for the sculpture, like the leaves, but both Conn and Trask said they are hoping to get students involved in constructing the fiberglass tree base.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 7:48 PM with the headline "New Arroyo Grande public art piece is rooted in diversity."