Bathtub battle ended, SF sculptor finishes art project in Petaluma

On Sunday morning, Brian Goggin stood on a 20-foot boom and used a caulking gun to apply the final coat of glaze to two antique claw-foot bathtubs that had taken him six years to install.

Construction took only six months, but controversy in Petaluma lasted six years, forcing him to compromise by reducing the perimeter from six bathtubs to two. He also moved it from a downtown waterfront park to a run-down little park on the industrial north end of town, right on the Petaluma Slough, a slow-moving waterway that empties into the Petaluma River.

“It’s great that it’s finally finished,” said kayaker John Spaulding as he paddled past with his son. “When will it open?”

The answer, Goggin shouted to him, is September 8 at 6 p.m., when the solar-powered lighting is ready. It’s an event not to be missed, because a Goggin art exhibition is a uniquely dramatic and theatrical event.

When Goggin opened “Defenestration” in 1996, in which he hung furniture, including a freestanding bathtub, from the windows of a four-story hotel that was about to be demolished, he attracted 2,500 people to San Francisco’s Sixth Street. “It’s like ‘Defenestration’ without the building,” he said.

When he opened “Language of the Birds” in 2008 — for the show he hung 23 illuminated books above a poetry-printed sidewalk at the corner of Broadway and Columbus Avenue in San Francisco — Goggin climbed a rickety ladder to use an extension pole that was barely long enough to unhook a noose while a huge crowd watched in amazement.

When he opened “Caruso’s Dream” in 2013 – 13 standard-sized glass and steel pianos suspended over the entrance of a 17-story apartment building on the corner of Ninth and Mission streets – he had aerialists descend from the roof. He hopes people will arrive by boat for “Fine Balance.”

There is always tension surrounding an art exhibition in Goggin, and this time there was tension from the start because a group of outsiders and preservationists from the community were determined to stop the exhibition altogether.

He lost this battle and with it a third of the total budget of $150,000 that had gone into the design of the structure. Private fundraising was not enough, so he had to reduce the number of sculptures from five to two. The production of each of the two tubs and the forging of the iron stilts cost $89,000. The installation cost $40,000, which drove him deep into credit card debt.

“Looks good,” Spaulding said before paddling off in his kayak. “Sorry about the controversy.”

“If it weren’t for the controversy, nobody would know about it,” Goggin replied. “The controversy sparked interest in the work.”

Although the construction site in the H Street Pocket Park in the Foundry Wharf neighborhood will be fenced off until it opens, the two tubs are clearly visible above the fence, and people have expressed unkind comments about them on social media. A surveillance system with security cameras and audio is connected to the Petaluma Police Department.

“We remain true to the idea that intense public dialogue is not only healthy but necessary, and we will continue to support art in our public spaces, even when it is difficult,” Jamieson Bunn, communications manager for the city of Petaluma, said in a statement. “We know that many Petaluma residents join us in eagerly awaiting the final unveiling of the finished work in September.”

Ingrid Alverde, the city’s director of economic development and open government, referred a request for comment and information to the director of community development and the planning department, neither of whom responded.

“Nine out of 10 people who came by supported me,” Goggin said. “The suspense makes the piece even better.” Goggin is the son of retired state Assemblyman Terry Goggin, and nothing stops him – not even multiple sclerosis, which he was diagnosed with around the time he won a Petaluma Art Committee competition in 2016.

Since then, he has suffered from weakness in the right side of his body, which he combats with medication and exercises. The title of the work, “Fine Balance,” has a double meaning, because as precarious as these bathtubs on stilts look, that’s pretty much how he feels.

“I imagine myself as a bathtub on stilts, a heavy object that has to navigate a complicated environment,” said Goggin, 58.

The connection goes beyond his personal history. In Petaluma’s early days in the mid-19th century, bathtubs were manufactured in San Francisco, then transported by barge from the bay and across the Petaluma River to be installed in Victorian homes. Goggin molded the two bathtubs from cast iron, the primary building material of the time, in his studio at the Artaud project in the Mission District.

The installation was carried out by a local team and Goggin stayed on site, never spending more than three nights on a couch.

He hopes to spend more nights in the city as he continues to pursue his original plan to build three more bathtubs and place them in a sculpture park across the Petaluma Slough.

“That would create a gate,” said Goggin, who now likes the small park better than the original location he fought so hard for.

“I think this site is much better,” he said, pointing to a disused cement plant directly across from the swamp. “We really needed this without realizing we needed it.”

Goggin hopes to finance the next phase by building 2-foot-scale models of the bathtubs, which will then be sold for $1,500 each.

But that is still a long way off. Sunday was his last day before returning the lift, and he had to tie the bathtubs to the stilts. A sailor’s knot maker was used for this purpose.

“Today is race time,” said Goggin before ending his break and taking the lift back up.

Reach Sam Whiting: [email protected]