Posted on 10/07/2004 2:23:02 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican
LIVERMORE, Calif. - It didn't take a nuclear physicist to realize changes were needed after a $40,000 ceramic mural was unveiled outside the city's new library and everyone could see the misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures.
"Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," said city councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich, one of three council members who voted Monday to authorize paying another $6,000, plus expenses, to fly the artist up from Miami to fix the errors.
Reached at her Miami studio Wednesday by The Associated Press, Maria Alquilar said she was willing to fix the brightly colored 16-foot-wide circular work, but offered no apologizes for the 11 misspellings among the 175 names.
"The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said. "They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."
Alquilar said it took her quite a bit of her own time and money to create and install the work, and that it sat idle at her Santa Cruz studio for two years until the city cleared the way for its installation.
There were plenty of people around during the installation who could and should have seen the missing and misplaced letters, she said. "Even though I was on my hands and knees laying the installation out, I didn't see it," she said.
The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said.
"The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said. "In their mind the words register correctly."
Why did they hire an artist from Miama?
Probably to avoid the homo-erotic drivel of the SF Bay, ahem, artists.
publik skrul ejumacashun
Ah, but we may well end up being united in denigrating your work.
This obnehead lives in a Keryr wrold.
wuz id owtsorsed?
But, I'll bet the mural does not have the word "God" in it. And, anybody should know that "true artisians" don't concern themselves with details like spelling. I'll bet she would be concerned with a little detail like her name misspelled on her check or the decimal inproperly placed before the zeros on the check.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.
AlQuedalar should be fixing the mistakes at her own expense.
Surely there's at least one FReeper close by with a camera who could post some pix of this.
A picture is worth a thousand misspelled words.....
I have to agree with her. Anyone who hires artists has to check their lettering very closely. It's a given in the publishing world. Artists should never be expected to spell right, as they rarely do. It just isn't on their job description. The real question is why didn't the library officials catch the errors right away?
I would love to have seen this artists response if they had misspelled her name in the promotional pieces. I would have done it on purpose just to make a point.
. "The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said. "
It's a Library, words correctly spelled is important!!
no English-competent artists were available, I suppose?
"The real question is why didn't the library officials catch the errors right away?"
The arteest already answered that. They all are "into Blake's concept of enlightenment."
And I'll bet the "art" isn't one bit better than the spelling. Got a pitcher of it?
But the mispelled names were part of her art and as such she should have made sure that they were spelled correctly. These weren't names listed at the bottom of the painting, they were in the painting itself.
No different than if she had accidently painted a third arm on an individual (Unless it was an abstract)
The frgihtneing tihng is taht tehy mgiht be rihgt- I can undresntad ecxatly waht you wrtoe!
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