CANNY IDEA ARTISTS TRY TO MAKE TRASH BINS FUN TO SEE.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- ``Beautiful 55-gallon metal trash cans'' may sound like an oxymoron, but 10 will soon be open for business in downtown Newhall.

Fusing function and form, Santa Clarita city government commissioned artists to decorate refurbished trash bins as part of its Art in Public Places program.

``We're hoping through the project to bring new visual images to the community to view, ponder, use their imagination to think what it's about and hopefully enjoy,'' said Michael Marks, arts and events supervisor for the city. And viewers can toss in their trash.

The idea was hatched at an Old Town Newhall Association board meeting. Someone said the community needs more trash cans, and an arts group member suggested decorating them.

The work of Valencia artist Anne Marie Darrach will be double-billed when her featured 12-foot-by-12-foot street painting holds court with her trash can.

Viewers will need help realizing that one hand created both works. Darrach plans to model a multihued pastel chalk drawing on Western-theme pinup art. The trash drum will become a take on the children's series ``Where's Waldo,'' with 1880s bandit Tiburcio Vasquez's cartooney head peeking out from craggy Vasquez Rocks amid native plants, bunnies and a rattlesnake. She spent about $30 on a half-dozen cans of Rust-Oleum paint.

``I'm working my way up, ... going from the street to a trash can,'' she joked. ``At least the trash can will last a little longer than the (street) painting.''

Smaller pastel drawings usually take 15 hours over two days to complete, but she expects to toil longer over three days on the street painting. Workers powerwash the sidewalk art away after about a day, but Phil Lantis, the city's arts-events administrator, said the cans should remain in place for up to a year.

In July, the Santa Clarita Arts Advisory Council chose 10 winning entries from 65 proposals for the cans sent in by nearly three dozen artists. The works centered on two themes: the history of Santa Clarita or the street as an art gallery. Winners were paid $500 each.

Lake Hughes-based artist Donna Weil is known for her colorful oils on canvas. A cougar, bear and coyote circle around her ``Wild About Santa Clarita'' bin, which is topped with a swooping red-tailed hawk. Her work is exhibited in galleries, but street art is in her blood.

For a patriotic celebration when when she lived in Encinitas, ``I painted all the fire hydrants on our block red, white and blue, with little Revolutionary characters,'' she said. Envious neighbors on surrounding blocks prevailed on her to decorate their plugs, too.

Castaic-based photographer Ray Pinjanthuk shoots scenery from several vantage points and uses a computer program to collage the color photos into a multifaceted whole. He began mulling over subjects in the 1980s on his lengthy commute from the Mojave Desert to Hollywood, where he worked as a darkroom technician.

Unlike Darrach, some members of the Santa Clarita Valley Artists Association refused to submit entries because they consider trash cans unsuitable surfaces for their work.

``I am glad that people have the opportunity, (but)... it should be positioned in a way where artists' talents are being used in a higher form, to elevate the idea of what an artist is really doing.'' said Lorelle Miller, a local artist and art teacher. ``It's not necessarily decorative surface design. There is really a lot of experience, from soul searching to mathematics, that goes into art-making.''

Weil, who serves as president of the Lakes and Valleys Art Guild in Lake Hughes, disagrees.

``I think it's fabulous. I was very honored I was picked,'' she said. ``I'm not a very high-nosed artist.''

Miller, who serves on the Arts Advisory Board, helped judge the entries, but did not enter her own work.

The project was funded by city government, which also sponsors the Cowboy Festival, Concerts in the Parks and the Bear Project that features large-scale fiberglass bears, sold for up to $5,000 to civic groups. Five bears have been sold, and the new series, to be released next week, will cost more, Marks said.

Next, city officials plan to commission a mural on the stuccoed north wall of El Trocadero Steak House, for which one artist will be paid $5,000. The project, to be publicized in the next month, is to be finished by June 2007.

After the trash bins are unveiled at the city's Street Art Festival in Newhall on Oct. 7 and 8, they will be shielded with anti-graffiti coating and spaced along San Fernando Road between Lyons Avenue and Fifth Street.

judy.orourke(at)dailynews.com

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