Halting Step Taken by Port in Art Program : Culture: The port district, which rejected earlier advice, has hired a husband and wife consulting team to help it decide how the port’s $2.5-million fund for public art should be spent.

SAN DIEGO —  The San Diego Unified Port District’s fund for public art has risen as steadily and ominously as the fever of a sick child. Contrary to expectation, the art fund’s growth has been regarded more as a source of anxiety, a problem to be solved, than as a windfall for the advancement of art in San Diego.

In its eight-year history, the port’s public art program has suffered far more setbacks than it has celebrated successes. As a result, members of the local art community greeted new developments in the program with skepticism, shadowed by a subdued sense of hope.

Last Monday, the port voted to hire Carol and Thomas Hobson, a husband-and-wife team of arts management specialists, to serve as their latest art consultants. Though their contract will not be finalized until later this month, the Hobsons are expected to spend their one-year term developing a public art master plan for the port.

The news was received as a mixed blessing by many local art professionals, who applauded the port’s continuing commitment to art but raised doubts about the Hobsons’ qualifications. No one from the art community would speak on the record about their reservations, however.

Both Carol and Tom Hobson have lived in San Diego since the mid-70s. From 1987 to 1989, she worked as executive director of the county’s Public Arts Advisory Council, primarily offering technical assistance to artists and disseminating information about grants and other programs. Recently, she organized a competition for a mural on an exterior wall of the Ramada Inn downtown, and she has also been assisting local arts organizations with staff development and planning.

Tom Hobson has worked as a consultant to private industry in the areas of systems analysis and staff training. His consulting work, according to Carol, “was with developing processes, making lines of communication clear, identifying modes of getting the work done.”

Although Carol has been active in the local art community for more than 10 years, few of the other arts professionals contacted could pinpoint her accomplishments. None were aware of her husband’s involvement in the field of arts management.

Last week’s hiring was the first long-term measure that the port has taken in several years to put its behemoth-like art fund to constructive use. The fund, which has accrued 3/8ths of 1% of the port’s gross annual revenues since 1982, now contains more than $2.5 million.

A sculpture by local artist Kenneth Capps was acquired in the early years of the port’s public art program, but subsequent efforts to commission works have been defeated. In 1984, port commissioners accepted a proposal for a major work by New York sculptor Ellsworth Kelly, but the artist eventually withdrew after the commissioners demanded numerous changes in his design.

By 1988, the port’s art fund had swelled to more than $1.25 million, but again, the commissioners could not see eye-to-eye with the artists selected by their own art advisory committee, consisting of local leaders in the arts. Mid-year, the port voted to reject proposals for waterfront art projects by New York-based artist Vito Acconci and San Diegan Roberto Salas, citing public objections and the commissioners’ own distaste for the artworks. After the vote, the six-member art advisory committee resigned in protest.

Early last year, port commissioners approached Washington art conservator David Bull as a possible consultant, but their meeting never materialized. Later in the year, however, Henry T. Hopkins, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles and former director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, paid a visit to the Port District to assess their public art program.

Hopkins, like the members of the port’s former art advisory committee, focused on advising the commissioners on the process of collecting art for the port.

“My thought,” he said by telephone from Los Angeles, “was that they should seek out, with some speed, two or three works of art already on the market, so they would see exactly what they were getting. Once those were in place, and they could see the reaction, they could go ahead and commission more.”

The acquisition process dominated the port commissioners’ attention, too, until they met recently with representatives from the city’s Commission for Arts and Culture. Those on the arts commission suggested that the port first devise a master plan for its public art program, then purchase or commission works of art.

“It’s a logical progression,” said Gail Goldman, coordinator of art in public places for the arts commission. “A master plan sets policy. It’s doing the homework, then taking the test. Before, (the port) took the test without doing the homework first.”

Goldman, who is implementing a master plan for the city, added that such a document could help prevent a repeat of the port’s earlier fiascoes.

“A master plan makes the process more objective. It establishes the goals and procedures. It identifies the range of properties and the necessary liaisons. By nature of a plan, everyone contributes and no one is feeling imposed upon. Everyone involved will establish a sense of ownership. With that ownership comes pride and, generally, success.”

Carol and Tom Hobson refused to comment on their plans for the port until after their contract is signed.

“The past will be taken into consideration as we go through the process,” Carol Hobson said, but she would not discuss whether prior consultants to the port would have a voice in the new plan.

The port’s ad-hoc art committee reviewed 30 applications before voting to hire the Hobsons and their Management for the Arts company.

“We felt the Hobson team was the superior one in terms of dealing with the public and developing a master plan,” said Port Commissioner Dan Larsen, a member of the ad-hoc committee. “They’re local, Carol has worked with a lot of people in the art community and that’s helpful. Thomas had the management abilities and will help in dealing with public meetings and developing reports.”

By the time the Hobsons’ one-year contract is completed, the port’s art fund will have risen to an estimated $3.1 million. How that sum will be spent--and by whom--remains to be seen, but members of the port commission have had their optimism renewed by the commitment to a master plan.

“At least this has a chance of producing some forward motion in a program that has run afoul in the past five or six years,” said Admiral Raymond Burk, also on the port’s ad-hoc art committee. “Why didn’t we do this before? I don’t know. None of us are artists, or know a lot about art. We do have a desire to provide something of benefit to the people of Southern California. Finally, we’re on to something that will show the real sincerity of our program.”