SOME RESIDENTS DON'T WANT THE LADY-IN-WAITING PROPOSAL TO REVIVE OLD FREEWAY MURAL GETS MIXED REVIEW.

Byline: James Nash Staff Writer

SHERMAN OAKS - For years, a mural of the ``Old Woman of the Freeway'' stared at traffic along the Hollywood Freeway near downtown Los Angeles, her wide-open right eye depicting unconditional love and her half-closed left eye suggesting a stern rebuke.

Now, some Sherman Oaks residents and property owners are looking askance at plans to revive the Freeway Lady in their neighborhood.

The mural, first painted in 1974 in Echo Park, would adorn the side of an art gallery on Moorpark Street in Sherman Oaks by 2006 under plans unveiled this month by a group of San Fernando Valley artists and the muralist behind the original artwork.

The Freeway Lady has been gone since a billboard company painted her over in 1986. The Valley Institute of Visual Art, a consortium of five artists groups, is raising $65,000 for muralist Kent Twitchell to resurrect the Freeway Lady on a 26-foot by 90-foot building wall on the north side of Moorpark Street.

Some residents and property owners say a giant mural doesn't belong in their neighborhood - regardless of its artistic merits. Others are attacking the work itself, saying the image of the old woman looks evil.

``It's a matter of eye pollution - it's a quality-of-life issue,'' said public-relations consultant Edward Lozzi, who is working for project opponents at no charge. ``It's not beloved. It's considered evil and satanic. It's scary. If you had a grandmother who looked like that, you'd be in your bedroom hiding under the sheets.''

Twitchell, who calls the Freeway Lady the most iconic of the 30 murals he's painted, said he's stunned and mystified by the opposition.

``It's meant to show the dignity and wisdom of older people,'' Twitchell said. ``Satanic? Nothing could be further from the truth. I don't even know how to respond to that.''

Lozzi said he and other opponents plan to petition city officials to block the mural project, which needs the approval of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The gallery site is in the district of Councilman Jack Weiss, near the border of Councilwoman Wendy Greuel's district. Aides to both Weiss and Greuel said Monday that they haven't heard of any opposition to the mural.

Susan Kuss, a board member of the Valley Institute of Visual Art, said it would be a shame for the Valley to lose out on a significant art project because of narrow neighborhood concerns.

``Kent Twitchell is an artistic treasure,'' Kuss said of the artist, who moved from Los Angeles to Northern California after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

``People in Los Angeles would love to have his murals,'' Kuss said. ``It's amazing that people would oppose something that would make Sherman Oaks the cultural center of the Valley.''

Bill Lasarow, the publisher of ArtScene magazine, called Twitchell ``arguably the top living muralist in the country.'' Lasarow said the Freeway Lady's half-squinty visage isn't sinister, just a complex expression of both love and harsh judgment.

``I'd be curious to know who would oppose something like this, but there are curmudgeons who'd oppose just about anything, I guess,'' Lasarow said.

Greg Crosby, who lives near the proposed mural site, said he's no curmudgeon and even admires Twitchell's work. But Crosby said a neighborhood of homes, condominiums and apartments is the wrong place for a large piece of art.

``People live in this neighborhood because it's a quiet residential neighborhood, not the Sunset Strip,'' Crosby said. ``This is something that would work perfectly on the Sunset Strip.''

James Nash, [phone]

james.nash(at)dailynews.com

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Map:

Proposed 90-foot by 26-foot mural

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist