CUTTHROAT COMMISSION.

Byline: TOM SHARPE, COURTESY ILLUSTRATIONS

SANTA FE COMMUNITY CONVENTION CENTER

Arc of native trout to grace new facility's courtyard for $100,000

Cutthroat: Artist says sculpture won't be installed by opening day

Twenty-seven granite trout that appear to leap from the pavement will greet visitors to a courtyard in the new Santa Fe Community Convention Center.

Colette Hosmer, known for artwork depicting or using animal parts, like pig tails, cow snouts and marrow bones, will receive a $100,000 commission for her proposed artwork, Santa Fe Current.

The Santa Fe City Council last Wednesday approved a contract for the sculptures, chosen by a special arts committee and previously endorsed by council committees.

Twenty-four artists or groups of artists applied for the city-funded project. The two other finalists for the commission were Roxanne Swentzell and Alan Houser. Swentzell, a Santa Clara Pueblo sculptor, won a previous $100,000 commission for her large bas-relief for the center's lobby. Existing works by Houser, a Chiricahua Apache sculptor who died in 1994, were offered through his estate.

Hosmer proposes an arc of sculptures of the front halves of 27 Rio Grande cutthroat trout, each 2 feet high, 3.5 feet long and weighing 650 pounds. She proposed using dark gray granite, but said pink granite also is an option.

Each trout will look like it's jumping out of a stream that Hosmer says symbolizes Santa Fe -- "fluid, vital and forward moving."

Cutthroat trout, she wrote, are "an indicator of a perfectly balanced ecology, as they can only thrive in the cleanest waters."

In fact, the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, New Mexico's state fish, has been having some difficulty. It has been designated as a candidate for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act as threats mount against the fish and the cold-water streams it calls home. It has disappeared from about 90 percent of its historic range in the Rio Grande basin in New Mexico and Colorado.

Under an agreement with the city late last year, the state Department of Game and Fish put some 1,900 of the native fish in Santa Fe Canyon reservoirs -- which are closed to the public -- as part of an effort to boost genetically pure populations.

In describing the artwork she will install in a courtyard on the southeastern portion of the new center, Hosmer wrote, "Santa Fe Current is designed to encourage public interaction. This composition will draw people from the sidewalk into the plaza ... (i)nviting visitors to wander among the fish, to intermingle with the stream. Santa Fe Current reflects the Civic Center's role as Santa Fe's foremost venue for coming together."

Hosmer said her sculpture will have no sharp edges, and the fish will be sturdy enough that adults can sit on them, children can slide down their backs, and no maintenance will be required. She estimated about half the $100,000 will go for the granite and production costs.

Artworks will take up about $453,000 of the budget for the $50 million, 72,000-square-foot center with an underground parking garage, which is funded by the lodgers tax and parking revenue.

Hosmer, who is represented by the William Siegel Galleries, said her piece won't be ready to install in time for the center's opening later this summer.

"I won't have it ready by then because I've had to wait ... until I've had a signed contract," she said last week. "I plan to install it in March or April, as soon as the ground thaws again. ... It's too late to do it before October, before the freeze."

Contact Tom Sharpe

at 986-3080 or [e-mail].

CAPTION(S):

1. PUBLIC ART PROJECT

The City Council approved a $100,000 granite sculpture of Rio Grande cutthroat trout, called Santa Fe Current, by artist Colette Hosmer for the new civic center. Hosmer says in the wild, the fish are 'an indicator of a perfectly balanced ecology, as they can only thrive in the cleanest waters.'