California town wants artist to correct spelling

California town wants artist to correct spelling
Last Updated Thu, 07 Oct 2004 10:51:49 EDT
LIVERMORE, CALIF. - City councillors in Livermore, Calif., want to spend $6,000 US to correct the spelling on a large mural outside the city's new library.
Councillors and spectators were shocked when the $40,000 US ceramic mural was unveiled outside the new library in June, revealing the misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures.
"Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," city councillor Lorraine Dietrich told the Associated Press.
Dietrich is one of three council members who voted this week to authorize paying another $6,000 US, plus expenses, to fly artist Maria Alquilar from Florida to fix the errors. Livermore city council has four councillors plus Mayor Marshall Kamena.
Alquilar told the Associated Press she is willing to fix the five-metre mural, but had no apology for misspelling 11 names, including "Eistein," "Shakespere" and "Michaelangelo." There are 175 names on the mural.
"The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said. "They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."
She created the work on her own time and it sat for two years before the city installed it. She said plenty of people who could and should have noticed the spelling errors had been around during the installation.
True artists, she said, wouldn't have noticed the errors. "The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said.

"In their mind, the words register correctly."
Livermore is a town of about 80,000 people located 65 kilometres southeast of San Francisco.
Written by CBC News Online staff