Jack Champion’s surreal experience being surrounded by crows in the Nevada desert inspired a public art piece that is not to be missed when passing through downtown Laguna Beach near City Hall.
On the lawn in front of the city buildings with a backdrop of the high cliffs and homes rising above Forest Avenue are two gigantic black crows weighing 1,000 pounds each.
“Three crows or more is considered a murder,” Champion explained, describing his artwork’s title.”This is only two, so it’s an “Attempted Murder.’”
The bronze sculptures – each about 6 feet tall -– were selected by the city’s Arts Commission as the second of three Arts in Public Places displays this year and will be perched in front of City Hall until early September.
The public art displays are a Cultural Arts Department program funded by the lodging establishments and the City of Laguna Beach – the temporary installation is costing the city $58,000.
Champion, who lives near San Francisco, said getting the crows a prime spot in an arts community like Laguna Beach is extra rewarding.
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“It’s a great fit,” he said. “I love the community, and it’s nice to see that it’s art-based.”
Champion, 71, first came up with the idea of immortalizing crows after taking part in Burning Man, a week-long counterculture festival that happens in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada each year around Labor Day.
It was in 2016, and he was the lead on a construction project to build the temple at the festival. After working all night and turning off the construction lights in the morning, he said he was surrounded by black crows who appeared to be looking for bugs in the surrounding landscape.
“It was so surreal to see crows in the middle of the desert,” he said. “Where did they all come from?”
He said his artwork is a perspective of what it was like walking up to them.
“As you approach them, they just seemed to get larger and larger,” he said.
In all, he’s created 10 crows made from fiberglass and the two bronze ones at Laguna Beach City Hall.
Five were previously on display in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., as part of an exhibit “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” in the American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery.
Creating the crows was a labor of love, he said. And, it took some time. He worked on them in his art studio in Cotati, a small city near San Francisco, where he lives on three acres.
He started with a metal armature, covered it with mesh, and then sculpted the forms from clay. Next, he made a rubber mold and used plaster fired in a kiln. The process took several months, he said. The two in Laguna Beach were made in a similar way, but then cast in bronze in a foundry in Berkley.
Nine of the 10 fiberglass crows he sculpted have been sold, he said, each costing $15,000.
The pair at City Hall is also available and can be had for $300,000. While he would love to see them become permanent public art, he said he would be happy to have them go to a private collection.
While his experience at Burning Man was the impetus for his vision, he said he has long been a fan of the birds.
“I’ve had an infatuation with them for a long time,” he said. “When I lived in Marin County, there were three that would follow my truck. When I got home, they would come to my deck, squawk, and wait to be fed peanuts.”
In another place he lived, he said the crows were “more suspicious” and would also wait to be fed, but not stay as close to him.
“Now I have 39 eucalyptus trees,” he said, “and there are very few crows because there are hawks that fly by and I haven’t been able to connect with them.”
A favorite memory, though, is one he remembers as a young child visiting his grandmother in Lompoc.
“She had a historical boarding house, an aviary with 200 birds and a pet crow, Goldie Gold Digger,” he said.
“They’re just such intelligent animals, so evolved,” he added. “They have facial recognition; If someone is mean to them, they’ll remember that face.”
Champion said he hopes those who visit to view the crows will develop a similar passion for the birds.
“I hope people just take a moment to breathe and take them in,” he said. “To have a moment to reflect on art and nature is important.”
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