TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Talyn Mirzikhanian, City Manager
FROM:
Mark Leyman, Parks and Recreation Director
Eric Brinkman, Cultural Arts Senior Recreation Supervisor
SUBJECT:Title
Consideration of the Final Bruce’s Beach Artist and Design and Approval of Professional Services Agreement (No Budget Impact) (Parks and Recreation Director Leyman).
(Estimated Time: 2 Hrs.)
APPROVE
Body
_________________________________________________________
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council approve the final Bruce’s Beach Artist and Design:
1) Selecting one of the six artists shortlisted by the project’s Arts in Public Places Committee; and
2) Authorize the City to enter into a professional services agreement with the artist to advance the Bruce’s Beach public art project into design development, coordination, and implementation.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
On March 16, 2021, City Council allocated $350,000 from the Public Arts Trust Fund (PATF) to commemorate the history and honor the legacy of Bruce’s Beach. The allocated funds would be utilized for the project. There is no budget impact.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The City conducted a rigorous artist selection process with extensive community outreach for the proposed public art project at Bruce’s Beach Park through a Request for Qualifications (RFQ). From an extensive pool of applicants from across the United States, the Arts in Public Places Committee (APPC), serving in an advisory capacity, developed a shortlist of six artists based on demonstrated artistic merit, relevant experience, and alignment with the project’s goals. The shortlisted artists were invited to develop preliminary concepts for the site, and following evaluation of the proposals, the APPC refined the shortlist to the two highest ranking candidates-Toni Scott and April Banks.
In a parallel review using the same evaluation criteria, the Cultural Arts Commission (CAC) identified Toni Scott’s proposal as its preferred selection.
City Council retains discretion to consider any of the six shortlisted artists for contract award. Staff is requesting City Council select one artist to be awarded a professional services contract, allowing the project to proceed into design development, coordination with City staff, and required public engagement leading to final fabrication and installation.
BACKGROUND:
On March 16, 2021, the City Council allocated $350,000 from the Public Art Trust Fund to commission a permanent public artwork commemorating the history and honoring the legacy of Bruce’s Beach, with the goals of fostering reflection, healing, and public education.
To guide the project, an APPC was established, as required during the commissioning of public artworks under the Public Arts Master Plan. The composition of the APPC was intentionally designed to respond to the needs of the project and align with best practices for commissioning public art. The committee is comprised of former Bruce’s Beach Task Force members, Cultural Arts Commissioners, and City Councilmembers.
The APPC developed a Request for Proposals (RFP), which was approved by the Cultural Arts Commission on January 30, 2023. Following review of the RFP submissions, the APPC and staff determined that the proposals did not adequately meet the project’s goals and were largely infeasible due to scale, materials, engineering, permitting requirements, and budget constraints. In response, the City restructured the process from a RFP to a RFQ and restructured the $350,000 budget, designating $175,000 for artist fabrication and oversight and $175,000 for project management, engineering, permitting, and installation. The RFQ also set clear parameters for the placement, site lines, scale, care, conservation and risk management.
A revised RFQ was issued as a national call on March 3, 2025, accompanied by an extensive targeted outreach effort focused on the Los Angeles region and the Black artist community and cultural organizations. This resulted in 115 qualified applicants, including nationally recognized artists.
The APPC, originally convened during the first RFP process, was reactivated and expanded to include greater Black representation and supplemented with two arts professionals to ensure broader cultural and artistic advisement.
The current APPC includes:
• Councilmember Amy Howorth
• Cultural Arts Commissioner Carol Patterson
• Cultural Arts Commissioner Suzanne Karger
• Dr. Anthony Lee (Community Member, Former Bruce’s Beach Task Force Member)
• Amanda Park (Former Bruce’s Beach Task Force Member)
• Hildy Stern (Former Councilmember, Former Bruce’s Beach Task Force Member)
• Marcus Mitchell (Public Art Administrator, City of West Hollywood)
• Keith Magruder (Teaching and Exhibiting Artist, Manhattan Beach Arts Center)
Using a formal scoring rubric, the APPC evaluated 115 candidates based on the following criteria:
• Artistic merit, originality, and technical mastery (40 points)
• Professional recognition and experience (25 points)
• Appropriateness of medium, subject matter, and style (25 points)
• Experience with similar scope, budget, and scale (10 points)
The APPC prioritized shortlisting artists with a diverse range of artistic approaches and mediums and several nationally and internationally recognized artists were identified.
A shortlist of six finalists represented practices that range from representational bronze figures to conceptual monuments. All finalists were engaged in a RFP phase and have each been awarded $1,500 to develop their proposals, as outlined in the RFQ and RFP documents.
Shortlisted Artists (in alphabetical order):
1) April Banks
2) Austen Brantley
3) Nekisha Durrett
4) Toni Scott
5) Xaviera Simmons
6) Hana Ward
As part of the RFP process, the six shortlisted candidates participated in a site orientation and received extensive briefing documents to help facilitate site responsive proposals. Candidates also had the opportunity to participate in a Community Open House and meet the public to discuss their ideas and inspiration. This event was hosted by the City at the Manhattan Beach library on October 2, 2025 and over 150 residents attended. The event included a follow-up survey to further solicit dialogue and 349 responses were received.
The survey remained open during the event and on the City’s website for a two-month period, resulting in 349 total responses. Based on the 349 responses evaluating six criteria, Nekisha Durett’s proposal ranked highest across all categories, including historical representation, thematic resonance, site compatibility, scale and proportion, preservation of views and park activities, and durability for permanent outdoor installation. April Banks ranked second overall with consistent support across criteria, followed by Toni Scott, while the remaining proposals received comparatively lower rankings with higher concentrations of lower-choice placements.
DISCUSSION:
The APPC served as the City’s advisory body for evaluating artist qualifications and proposals for the Bruce’s Beach public art project. Drawing on the committee’s combined expertise in public art, cultural history, and community representation, the APPC applied professional judgment and best practices to assess each proposal’s artistic merit, historical relevance, and feasibility.
Refinements to the selection process, including the transition to a RFQ and targeted outreach, resulted in a stronger and more competitive group of finalists. This approach allowed the APPC to prioritize demonstrated experience and conceptual alignment before advancing artists to the proposal phase, leading to more viable and responsive design concepts.
Together, these efforts resulted in a diverse and compelling set of finalist proposals that thoughtfully engage the history, context, and significance of Bruce’s Beach. The following sections summarize each artist’s proposed concept, highlighting their artistic approach, thematic intent, and how the work responds to the goals of the project.
All artists have indicated a willingness to refine their work in response to feedback from staff, the APPC, and City Council, to ensure alignment with the project’s goals, site conditions, and historical parameters.
April Banks
Building Paradise is an abstracted beach cottage and is a literal ‘open house’ that honors the Bruces and the Black homeowners and entrepreneurs who built their lives and dreams along the coast and welcomed visitors to the site. The artwork features an exterior and interior façade connected by an open archway, with an overall footprint of 10 feet tall by 11 feet long by 5 feet wide. Its carefully considered scale and form are designed to be visible from the park terraces above and below while respecting site lines to the ocean. The exterior wall is composed of patterned brickwork with indigo glass accents, referencing the resourcefulness and craftsmanship of Black bricklayers and their families who migrated west. The design details were inspired by improvisation designs of domestic traditions and such as quilts that preserved storytelling while providing warmth and comfort, and blue bottle trees that provided spiritual protection for the home as well as decoration.
The interior walls depict the lives of residents and beachgoers through glass mosaic figures collaged from archival photographs, set against blue and white ceramic tiles that evoke vintage toile or tropical wallpaper. The imagery would be created using cyanotypes-sun prints of plants and leaves gathered from present-day Bruce’s Beach Park-which would be transferred and fired into the ceramic tiles, producing an aesthetic that bridges past and present. Familiar and welcoming in form, Building Paradise offers a space for cultural legacy, healing, hospitality and pride, standing as a vision of what might have been and what may still come. The work builds upon Bank’s practice working across visual art, architecture and creative social engagement.
Austen Brantley
Austen Brantley’s figurative bronze sculpture entitled Withstanding the Tides asks with optimism, what it means to be a modern Black family in the United States, and what Willa and Charles Bruce might express in response. For the artist, it reflects resilience, calm, dignity and unity to endure and thrive in modern America. The work’s meaning is carried through a quiet visual language of strength, endurance, and grace, expressed in the figures’ presence rather than overt narrative.
The father’s stoic, far-reaching gaze conveys calm and resolve, while the mother, softly veiled, meets the viewer with a balance of fragility and dignity as she resides protectively over her children. Meanwhile, the children face forward as they focus on building sandcastles, symbolizing a productive and determined Black future shaped by care and determination, grounded in the earth beneath them. Together, the figures express the profound significance of a family entitled to enjoy each other’s company in harmony, undisturbed within the peace and tranquility of the beach.
The sculpture stands 9 feet high and is installed on a black granite pedestal. The figures would face the street with their backs to the beach. The work demonstrates Brantley’s extensive capabilities in large scale representational work inspired by classical forms.
Nekisha Durrett
Rooted in the Akan concept of Sankofa- “to go back and fetch it”-When Two or Three Are Gathered draws on interconnected histories of Black migration, leisure, and survival. Historically in the United States, Black gathering has often been treated as threatening, making togetherness an act of both joy and resistance. These moments of leisure were essential, sustaining dignity, culture, and kinship in the face of exclusion. These moments of leisure were essential, sustaining dignity, culture, and kinship in the face of exclusion. For the Bruce family, creating a beachside resort was an act of sanctuary building, offering Black families a protected place to swim, picnic, and gather at a time when most public beaches were inaccessible to the Black community.
The sculpture consists of three ten-foot-tall vertical boards arranged in a half circle, evoking ancestors in communion. The configuration allows for clear site lines to the ocean. Constructed from recycled oyster shells and quartz, the materials reference the Low Country coastal regions and symbolically connect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Rebar wraps the forms like masks, recalling Gullah Geechee basketry. The boards themselves pay homage to early wave riding culture originating from West Africa. Together, these elements enact Sankofa, linking oceans, histories, and generations while inviting the community to gather, remember, and move forward together.
Toni Scott
Unity: Circle of Memory rises as an offering of remembrance and healing, depicting a solitary figure lifting a circular form overhead as a gesture of collective memory. The circle held to the light catches and frames a view to the beach, and represents return, continuity, and the unbroken spirit of the families who once filled this shoreline with gathering, joy, and hope. At the base, vignettes of families at the beach honor lives lived here before displacement, inviting the community to reflect with history as memory restored to dignity rather than loss alone.
Elements of classical figurative sculptural expression are evident. The torso would be rendered in bronze and the skirt and base in cast concrete with some optional mosaic within the vignettes. The sculpture would stand eight feet tall, including the base.
The figure does not portray a single individual but serves as a vessel for ancestors, descendants, and future generations, emphasizing that both identity and memory as something living-lifted, shared, and carried forward. Scott’s lineage is connected to this history, and the work continues her practice of honoring ancestral narratives through monumental public art.
Xaveira Simmons
Xaviera Simmon’s work, which is untitled, serves as both a marker of memory and a site of hope and spiritual presence, depicting a contemporary family rendered in graphite patina over bronze as they quietly appreciate the landscape. The figures reflect the aspirations of the Black families who created, visited, and found leisure at Charles and Willa Bruce’s resort, honoring both the Bruce family and countless Black communities whose dreams of safe beachfront spaces for rest and play were denied.
Featuring four figures-two adults and one boy and one girl-the work affirms each individual’s right to exist freely in and enjoy nature, whether through play, reflection, or connection to the ocean. The gaze of the figures is direct and assured and they stand tightly, shoulder to shoulder, staid in mutual support.
By presenting Black figures simply at ease within the landscape, the sculpture bridges past and future, celebrating historic achievement while envisioning a more harmonious and inclusive Manhattan Beach. It offers visitors a sense of calm, delight, and grounding, addressing the enduring absence of public artworks depicting Black Americans in moments of everyday freedom. The sculptures would stand six feet high including the base and face the street with their backs to the beach. This work demonstrates Simmons’ ability to span formal artistic practice through conceptual approaches to traditional sculpture.
Hana Ward
This figurative sculpture entitled A Piece of Peace depicts a couple of bathers resting together on the shore-one basking in sunlight and peace, the other absorbed in a book-reclaiming both the physical land and the psychological freedom Bruce’s Beach once offered to the Black community. While acknowledging the injustices tied to the site, the work centers Bruce’s Beach as a safe place where Black residents will again connect with nature, rest, and experience a sense of quiet belonging and acceptance.
The sculpture would be fabricated in bronze with clothing rendered in a softly colored patina inspired by local seashells, drawing from the artist’s childhood memories of Manhattan Beach. The seated figure reading represents introspection, with a mirrored book surface symbolizing inward reflection, while the reclining figure embodies harmony with nature, marked by a quilted sunflower that references the sun and African American storytelling traditions. Inspired in part by a photograph of the artist’s great-grandmother who was a patron of Bruce’s Beach, the piece honors the joy, respite, and spiritual expansion found in this location. The figures would be installed on an organically shaped concrete pad covered with aggregate that suggests sand and shells. The work would stand approximately five feet tall, including the base. Ward is a ceramist whose practice depicts transformative Black and Brown figures who dream and create worlds from the inside out.
The following sections summarize the APPC’s discussion during the APPC’s meeting on October 2, 2025, of each proposal, including identified strengths and areas for refinement, as part of the committee’s advisory role to City Council.
Austen Brantley
The committee responded positively to Mr. Brantley’s overall sculptural practice, particularly his previous work. However, the committee felt that the proposed bronze sculpture depicting the Bruce family portrayed the figures inaccurately, noting that they appeared overly muscular and more representative of bodybuilders than of realistic individuals.
Pros: Classical, easy to comprehend
Cons: Not unique to Bruce’s Beach, doesn’t have a Manhattan Beach vibe
Toni Scott
The committee responded positively to Ms. Scott’s proposal due to the figure’s strong presence and its potential to convey themes of healing and strength. The committee noted that the proposal offered an opportunity to interpret the history of Bruce’s Beach through the pedestal to which the figure is affixed. A frieze incorporated into the pedestal could be designed, with City oversight, to depict the history of Bruce’s Beach.
Pros: Universal theme; clear and easily understood concept; durable, low-maintenance materials; adaptable to potential modifications; integrates well with the surrounding park environment
Cons: Mosaic at base needs to be redesigned thematically and materially.
April Banks
The committee reached consensus that Ms. Banks’s proposal met the project criteria, particularly in its thoughtful portrayal of the history of Bruce’s Beach. The committee appreciated the way the proposal integrates themes of Black culture and early Black architecture while clearly referencing the site’s historical context.
Pros: This sculpture has the most direct references to Bruce’s Beach history and African American craft traditions
Cons: House structure needs to be redesigned to preserve sight lines, susceptible to graffiti, doesn’t integrate into landscape, needs expansive lighting to maintain site lines, could attract unwanted loitering
Hana Ward
The committee felt that Ms. Ward’s proposal lacked sufficient detail to fully understand the work as proposed. Stylistically, the committee noted that the work did not provide enough specificity or depth to effectively convey the history of Bruce’s Beach.
Pros: Gentle and relaxed- not confrontational
Cons: Lacked clear definition, maintenance concerns
Xaviera Simmons
The committee identified multiple concerns with Ms. Simmons’s proposal. The figures were consistently described as lacking lifelike qualities and appearing overly stoic and a little cold. Additionally, apart from the child holding a model of the original Bruce family estate, the committee felt the figures had limited direct connection to the history of Bruce’s Beach.
Pros: Powerful composition
Cons: Need something more relaxed
Nekisha Durett
The committee appreciated the depth of research undertaken by Ms. Durett in developing her proposal. The work presents a narrative that weaves the artist’s personal history with the broader erasure of Black surfers from surfing history. While the community responded positively to the proposal, the committee felt that it did not address the specific history of Bruce’s Beach as directly as desired.
Pros: Identifies with surf culture and African American artistic expression
Cons: Need more direct ties to Bruce’s Beach history
Results:
Following deliberation and application of the formal scoring rubric, the APPC identified two proposals to recommend to City Council: those by Toni Scott and April Banks. In addition, the full list of six shortlisted artists was presented to the CAC on November 17, 2025, to leverage the Commission’s expertise in public art commissioning, long-term maintenance considerations, and aesthetic value. After its review, the CAC recommended the proposal by Toni Scott, citing long-term feasibility as a primary consideration.
PUBLIC OUTREACH:
This item was previously discussed by City Council at its March 16, 2021 and February 21, 2023 meetings. The Cultural Arts Commission also reviewed the item at its August 21, 2023 meeting and during multiple meetings between March 3, 2025 and November 17, 2025. In addition, the Arts in Public Places Committee discussed the item at the following meetings: October 11, 2022; November 10, 2022; August 8, 2023; January 24, 2024; March 7, 2024; April 23, 2024; October 1, 2024; May 22, 2025; June 18, 2025; October 2, 2025; and November 13, 2025.
On Friday, October 3, the Parks and Recreation Department hosted a public open house at the Manhattan Beach Library to gather community feedback on proposals for the Bruce’s Beach public art project. Approximately 150 people attended.
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council select Toni Scott’s proposal for the Bruce’s Beach public art project, as it aligns with the findings and recommendations of the APPC and the CAC, and authorize the City to enter into a professional services agreement with the selected artist to advance the project into design development, coordination, and implementation.
POLICY ALTERNATIVES:
Select one of the remaining five shortlisted artists and authorize the City to enter into a professional services agreement with the selected artist.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW:
The City has reviewed the proposed project for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and has determined that the project qualifies for a Class 11 categorical exemption pursuant to Section 15311, Accessory Structures, of the State CEQA Guidelines, as it consists of an art installation intended as an ancillary use within Bruce’s Beach Park. Thus, no further environmental review is necessary.
LEGAL REVIEW:
The City Attorney has approved the agreement as to form.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Proposal - April Banks
2. Proposal - Toni Scott
3. Proposal - Xaviera Simmons
4. Proposal - Nekisha Durrett
5. Proposal - Austen Brantley
6. Proposal - Hana Ward
7. APPC Scoresheets
8. Survey Results
9. RFQ
10. Agreement - Professional Services
11. PowerPoint Presentation