VENTURA : $10,000 Awarded for 7 Local Art Projects

A soap opera based on local news, and sculpture made of trash are among the projects the Ventura Arts Council has decided to fund.

The council, a private, nonprofit organization that allocates city funds to the arts, has awarded $10,000 to seven artists. It is the first time the council has given city funds directly to artists rather than to organizations, said Maureen Davidson, executive director of the council.

Two panels of local arts specialists--one specializing in visual arts, the other in performing and literary arts--selected the winners from 25 applicants. The criteria included community impact, past work of the artists, and likelihood of the new proposal’s completion.

The money will go toward a wide variety of projects, from Kim Loucks’ “trash totem”--a public display of reshaped non-recyclable trash--to Pamela Pilkenton’s plans for a live-performance soap opera based on current events in Ventura County. The city funds will be augmented by about $250 in accumulated interest, council officials said.

Loucks plans seven temporary exhibits at public sites, and has enlisted Waste Management of Ventura County as a contributor of $1,000 on top of $2,500 from the city.

Pilkenton, who lives in Ojai and serves as co-director of the Plexus Dance Theater, envisions a series of free lunchtime stagings of her local soap opera, using the Livery building at 34 N. Palm Ave. in Ventura as a backdrop. Pilkenton was awarded $1,000.

Helle Sharling-Todd, a Danish-born artist who executed a floor mosaic in the Port Hueneme Library last year, received $2,500. She plans a mosaic at the Wright Library in Ventura.

John Biggs, who received $1,000, plans a musical composition to be played by the Ventura County Symphony during American Music Week in November.

Denee Jordan, choreographer and co-director of the Plexus Dance Theater, received $1,200. She plans a series of dance performances in untraditional settings, including Laundromats.

Jeff Kaiser, who received $450, plans to research, compose and perform an electronic musical composition based on traditional Chumash Indian music.

John O’Brien, who received $1,600, plans to produce in Ventura a participatory theater piece entitled “Club: Apocalypse,” which O’Brien describes as “a cross between Dr. Strangelove and Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”

Under the council’s guidelines, the artists’ new projects must be completed between June and January, 1991.