Residents Call for Face Lift of Copper Curtain at Arts Plaza : Thousand Oaks: Commission is seeking City Council authorization to look for ways to enhance the appearance of the $150,000 work.

One resident compares it to the back of an old refrigerator. A member of the City Council classifies it as a travesty, and others are still trying to explain what it is to out-of-town visitors.

Loved by few, hated by many, the copper curtain hanging on the side of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza may soon get a face lift of sorts.

Faced with a continued stream of negative comments from residents deriding the artistic beauty of the infamous curtain, the Thousand Oaks Arts Commission is ready to look for a solution.

On Tuesday, the commission plans to ask the City Council to authorize it to make recommendations on how the $150,000 curtain can be enhanced.

The enhancements could include creating a design on the curtain--of either the oak tree, the city symbol, or the Exuberant Muse that symbolizes the arts plaza. Members of a public art committee say the design would either be sprayed on with a chemical solution that turns the copper green or cut out of the existing panels.

Another idea is to accelerate the copper’s natural greening process by spraying a chemical solution over the entire curtain.

The curtain was designed by Antoine Predock, architect of the $64-million Civic Arts Plaza, which was completed in 1994. Predock has said he considers the curtain a success, and he hopes that it will be left as is.

Predock planned all along that the curtain would change color, but he didn’t count on the lack of patience from residents.

Committee member Barcie Freinberg said she supports the idea of speeding up the natural process.

“Otherwise, it would take 25 years, and we can’t wait that long,” she said.

Complaints about the curtain are getting louder, she added. “I’ve heard through the grapevine that some people think it’s ugly and it’s getting uglier.

“I think [changing] it would be real easy. We could just have someone go up there with a spray bottle.”

Forrest Frields, also a member of the committee, said changing the color would actually be a little more complicated than that.

“It’s expensive,” he said. “Scaffolding would be required to do anything to it, so we’re talking about $3,000 to $5,000 just to access it.”

While Frields agrees that something must be done about the curtain, which in certain light looks rusty, he said he is concerned about spending any more public money on it.

“From Day 1 . . . people have complained about it,” he said. “But I haven’t heard anybody say that they want to spend a whole lot more money on it.”

One solution, he suggested, would be to use $10,000 set aside from the city’s Percent for the Arts fund to pay for art in public places.

“The committee is just trying to come up with alternatives,” he said.

Not a moment too soon for Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, who refers to the curtain as “that travesty.” But she, too, has concerns about spending more money on it.

“It’s non-debatable that the curtain is not liked by the community,” she said. “But it is debatable that the community wants to spend any more money on that curtain.”

Zeanah serves on the public arts committee, but said she has mixed emotions about participating in the decision making, since she was one of the council members who approved the original design.