Orange County officials are calling on local artists to help transform and beautify areas around the 57 Freeway in Placentia, part of a statewide campaign to improve the look of roads and the communities they pass through.

With funding from the Clean California initiative, local leaders are looking for an artist or group of artists to create a sculpture that would act as a gateway to Placentia, as well as two murals along a nearby underpass.

“It’s very exciting,” said Richard Stein, president and CEO of Arts Orange County, a nonprofit helping Placentia and Caltrans commission the artwork. “Placentia is certainly a city that has an old town, and in that old town they had some historical murals installed, but beyond that, this is something that is totally new.”

Stein said his team is working to get the word out to artists about the two art projects, which together have a $500,000 budget from state funds. His nonprofit will help collect and review submissions, then oversee the selection process.

Clean California, part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California Comeback Plan, allocates $1.1 billion to state and local governments to clean up trash and debris and beautify communities and public areas along roadways.

Stein likened the project to the federal New Deal in the 1930s, which also hired artists to help document American lives and create art in public spaces.

​​”It was a great thing to do then, and it is a great thing to do now,” he said. “It makes the community better all around.”

He called the project in Placentia beneficial in two ways, by adding art and beauty to an area lacking visual appeal, while also providing local artists with a living wage.

“​​It can be a tough profession to make a living,” Stein said.

The Placentia project is open to Southern California-based artists or artist teams – which includes those based in Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial counties – to create and install a large-scale, three-dimensional “gateway monument,” which could include one or more sculptures, said Christianne Smith, the Caltrans District 12 public information officer focused on Clean California.

The monument is planned for an open space along the southbound on- and off-ramps from Orangethorpe Avenue onto the 57 Freeway.

The officials are also looking for a local artist or team to design and install street murals for both sides of West Crowther Avenue under the freeway.

“I hope that people see these cities and they feel confident in them,” Smith said. “It attracts more visitors and more excitement – but not just for visitors, but residents as well, creating a stronger community identity.”

Smith said the project was a “locally, need-driven model,” with Placentia leaders coming up with the two spaces for the art projects.

“The focus is to uplift underserved communities,” Smith said, “to transform cities, especially the areas that need it the most.”

Smith said there are almost a dozen other Clean California projects in the works in Orange County, including a $5 million investment in the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach, to improve safety for drivers and pedestrians, and to add a habitat garden and recreational area. Other projects include sprucing up roadsides near the Santa Ana Zoo and developing a park near the Santiago Creek trail along the 22 Freeway, Smith said.

Artists interested in working on the two murals in Placentia, which includes a $100,000 budget, or the sculptures, which have a $400,000 budget, can submit online through the state’s Call for Entries or CAFE platform.

Artists interested in working on the two murals in Placentia, which includes a $100,000 budget, can submit online through the state’s Call for Entries or CAFE here, while sculpture artists interested in the monument can submit here. That project has a $400,000 budget.

All submissions are due by June 1, with hopes that the projects would by installed by November.

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