Laguna Artist’s Big Mural Stirs Debate in Long Beach : Art: Robert Wyland’s ‘Planet Ocean’ is planned as the world’s largest such work. But critics say it’s out of bounds at arena.

LONG BEACH —  Artist Robert Wyland will begin painting life-size gray whales, Catalina goldfish and sea lions on the walls of the Long Beach Arena before the month is out.

On Tuesday, the City Council gave the Laguna Beach artist the go-ahead for a project that he calls “Planet Ocean”--but his critics call an oversize cartoon.

Despite objections by architects and artists, Wyland will begin covering the arena’s exterior walls in eight shades of blue next week and plans to complete the world’s largest mural by April 30.

“It’s more than art. It’s about education. It’s about promotion,” said Vice Mayor Jeffrey A. Kellogg, who started the project in December.

Since then, Wyland has received donations to cover most of the project’s costs, including scaffolding, 7,000 gallons of paint and more than 100 volunteers to help with such details as mixing paint.

Wyland has agreed to pay for materials that are not donated. He estimates that the whole project will cost more than $150,000 but declined to say how much he plans to contribute.

He has painted murals of life-size marine animals on 33 walls in cities around the world, including Redondo Beach.

The arena “is the kind of canvas I need,” Wyland said. “I paint the largest animals, so I need the largest canvas.”

It is the choice of canvas, however, that has disturbed area artists and one of the arena’s architects.

“It sounds like something Barnum & Bailey might have dreamed up,” said Faure Rilliet, who headed the art department at Jordan High School for 17 years.

“I’m depressed that my colleagues and I didn’t do a better job teaching you about art and aesthetics,” she told City Council members.

Kenneth S. Wing Jr., who designed the arena with his father in the late 1950s, said the painting will distract viewers from the complex’s architectural design.

“I think it’s totally inappropriate to have a huge cartoon over there,” he said.

The arena is a 116,000-square-foot oval with glass-enclosed staircases on the outside perimeter.

“There is a lot of interesting detail on the outside of the building,” Wing said.

Wing said his father was the first Long Beach architect to win a national award for his design on the arena. “They’ve lost Disney, but they’re still trying to create a Disney atmosphere,” Wing said.

However, educators, environmentalists and City Council members have praised Kellogg for trying to bring attention to both marine life and the city.

The artist, who owns a home in Laguna Beach, plans to stay in Long Beach six days a week while working on the project, which he views as a contribution to the environment.

“There’s no rest when you’re on planetary duty,” he said.

In response to questions raised by the Public Corporation for the Arts about maintenance for the mural, Kellogg said it should not need repainting for more than 20 years.

Council members asked that the arts panel and other experts be consulted before another such project is planned but were not disturbed by the controversy that the proposal has generated.

“You can always sandblast it off,” Councilman Wallace Edgerton said.