In 1965, Robert Cohen, a young dramatist intent on gaining a tenured professorship, faced a choice between offers from UC Berkeley or the fledgling UC Irvine, sprouting amid cow pastures and orange groves.

He chose the latter. “It was close to the beach,” recalled Cohen.

Habitually looking forward rather than back, the UCI community did that for the Laguna Beach resident Sunday when he and Lorna, his wife of 43 years, were awarded the third Claire Trevor Commemorative Star, to be placed at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts.

The first star honored Donald McKayle, a choreographer who transcended racial barriers in modern dance during the 1950s and ‘60s. The second went to Joan and Don Beal, avid arts supporters and namesake of the Beal Center for Art and Technology.

The third star goes to the Cohens, who met in 1965 when Lorna was one of Robert’s drama students. They got together in 1971 when she returned to UCI to earn a teaching credential and he invited her to a bassoon concert. “We held hands that entire evening,” recalled Lorna.

Over 25-years as the drama department’s founding chairman, Cohen created its first graduate program. Many of its alumni and colleagues were present Sunday and performed songs and skits commemorating the professor emeritus’ illustrious career.   “Robert Cohen was a humanist at heart who brought his experiences back to the classroom. Altogether, he directed 50 shows here,” said Eli Simon, an acting professor and artistic director of UCI’s New Swan Shakespeare Festival. “Robert taught me to stay curious, to explore choices,” he said.

James Calleri, who earned his master’s in fine art from UCI in 1990, now is a casting director and drama teacher at Columbia University. He served as master of ceremonies. “Robert was an imposing figure; he terrified most of his students and I was often physically sick before class, but all we wanted was to do the very best for him we possibly could,” he recalled.

Julie Aber initially majored in French, until lured into the theater by Cohen to serve as an assistant stage manager. She went on to graduate school at Yale. “Robert wrote letters for me and I got in,” she recalled. She also credits him for supporting her pursuit of a male-dominated career. “Robert’s enthusiasm for the art and the desire to pass that on, even outside the classroom, brought people to the theater. And then he accepted me as a colleague,” she recalled.

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Nick Tag, Julia Duffy and Alexandra Johnston in “Sex and Education,” a one-act play in production at Laguna Playhouse through May 22. Photo by Ed Krieger

It’s three days before graduation and Roosevelt High School basketball star Joe Marks is not only beset by senioritis, but horniness that addles his senses. He jeopardizes a college scholarship and an NBA fantasy during a final English exam by passing a sexually explicit mash note to Hannah, his cheerleader girlfriend.

Their teacher, Miss Edwards, intercepts the missive. To the audience she reads it aloud, unfazed by foul language directed towards her but taken aback instead by atrocious grammar, poor sentence structure and lack of organization.

Thus commences “Sex and Education,” a one-act play about the angst of teens, their skepticism of education’s value and a teacher trying to instill a modicum of knowledge before finally chucking it all.

Written by Lissa Levin originally for the 2009 Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival and initially performed at the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival, it received mixed reviews in its longer, two-act version. The whittled down version that opened for a month-long run last Saturday at Laguna Playhouse is a hilarious success.

Under deft direction by Andrew Barnicle, the Playhouse’s former artistic director, the story moves swiftly.

Alexandra Johnston portrays a statuesque Hanna, whose mature good looks don’t quite match her character, a teen-ager grappling with sex and its ramifications, impending adulthood. Alas, she remains something of a cipher until near the end where she emerges as a strong, intelligent woman looking for more in a boyfriend than the star jock trawling for sex.

Tall and lanky and endowed with boyish expressiveness, Nick Tag delivers a nuanced portrayal of a young man developing his sense of self and sorting out his feelings for Hanna.

At first glance, the story seems like a retread of similar tales: a teen-aged male who sees little practical value in anything besides sex and sports and a protagonist trying to teach the finer points of writing and literature.

But plot twists upend assumptions about jocks, vapid cheerleaders and selfless teachers.

Here, Miss Edwards, played by a highly animated Julia Duffy, is at the end of her tether career-wise and ready to embark on a new one as a real estate agent, hoping to finally make a living. Her aspirations do not escape Joe, who threatens to buy his first mansion from someone else once he gets his NBA contract. While he’s at it, he also explains the intricacies of a triangle defense in basketball, showing up her ignorance to get even for being kept after school.

Duffy’s talent for comedic delivery on television shows such as “Designing Women” and “Newhart” earned her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.

Dedicating her Playhouse role to Deb Frank, her own favorite English teacher, she does not disappoint here, vacillating between authority and frustration, security and self-doubt, with a thin overlay of compassion for her hapless charge.

Yes, there are pratfalls, at least for the PC set, such as whether a woman would consent to sex over persuasive writing or know better than a man if she is ready for carnal pleasure. Spoiler alert here: redemption arrives when Joe, seemingly guided by his sub-conscious and adroit at displaying his new-found knowledge, seduces Hannah with word play.

Some may think the youth-oriented storyline and script laced with vulgarities is a bit of a stretch for the Playhouse and its older audience. In her program note, Artistic Director Ann E. Wareham apologizes for “racy” vocabulary, but points out that language is, in effect, the story’s central character.

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Helen Lundeberg creates a double self-portrait, part of an exceptional Laguna Art Museum exhibit closing May 30.

Wearing a frilly white dress, a small girl sits next to a low table bearing a clock. Most striking are the tyke’s eyes, hinting at preternatural depth while gazing at the viewer. Behind her, the elongated shadow of a grown woman visually connects her to a painting of the grown woman she is destined to become. The grown-up pictured is painter Helen Lundeberg, who has transposed an earlier painting of herself titled “Artist, Flowers, and Hemisphere” into a composition which she titled “Double Portrait of the Artist in Time.”

Painted in 1935, the intriguingly composed work is included in the current Laguna Art Museum retrospective of paintings by Helen Lundeberg (1908-1999), which closes May 30.

Comprised of 60 paintings and three years in the making, the first part of the exhibition focuses on Lundeberg’s interpretations of European Surrealism, which she and her husband Lorser Feitelson re-classified for their own purposes as “New Classicism” and then “Post-Surrealism.” The second part shows Lundeberg’s transition into the abstract geometry of the 1960s and beyond.

Viewers will undoubtedly be intrigued by Lundeberg’s creative explorations, deftly assembled by Ilene Susan Fort, a senior curator and Gail and John Liebes, curator of American art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It’s rare to see a show where nearly all the works are as highly compelling, both visually and in terms of craft. Whichever ones ultimately hold sway thus depends on a viewer’s personal preference.

Essayist Michael Duncan quotes Lundeberg as saying: “By classicism I mean not traditionalism of any sort but a highly conscious concern with esthetic structure which is the antithesis of intuitive, romantic or realistic approaches to painting. My aim, realized or not, is to calculate and reconsider every element in a painting with regard to its function in the whole organization….”

In her own catalogue essay, Fort describes Lundeberg’s paintings as the result of the artist’s imagination rather than what she has seen, and cites “Studio-Night” and “Studio Afternoon.” Done in 1958 and ’59, the works reveal her mastery of light and shadow and use of perspective, which allows one to wander through the images much as one might through rooms seen at distant points in time. They also show her gradual shift into geometric abstraction, a process that intensifies in paintings like the 1961 “Scene of a Dream” or a 1964 “Untitled” composition that evidences a strong influence of Italian surrealist Giorgio De Chirico. Another example is “Portrait of Inez” where the figure recalls Renaissance portraits and the background Chirico’s compositions.

Didactics remind that Lundeberg, while not possessing an extensive formal education, was a formidably independent learner with an interest in history, math, sciences and astronomy, as “Red Planet” and her luminous planet series reveal. A 1944 self-portrait shows a blond woman with inquisitive blue eyes holding a planet like sphere in one hand and a paintbrush in the other with a painting of a planetary surface in the background.

That Lundeberg has not received the attention she clearly warranted is largely due to sexism in the art scene, but also to the fact that she reportedly did not crave attention and remained disinterested in the vagaries of the art market.

It’s may be an overstatement to say that this exhibit makes up for lost time, but it’s fair to say that it effectively illuminates the mind of a woman with deep comprehension of her own inner workings and appreciation of the physical world she inhabited.

Also closing this month:

“City Life, Los Angeles: 1930s to 1959s.”

Retta Scott’s “Speakeasy” is part of the museum’s basement level exhibit on prohibition era Los Angeles.

Looking at paintings such as Retta Scott’s “Speakeasy,” Barse Miller’s “Jitterbugs,” or Elmer Plummer’s “Piano Man,” transports the viewer into what was the Los Angeles club scene around prohibition. Lively, with details more suggested than elaborated, these works make it clear why few get tired of California Scene Painting.

This exhibition comprised of paintings by members of the California Watercolor Society includes works by lesser known artists such as Fritz Willis whose “Late Night in Los Angeles” evokes the dark appeal of Edward Hopper and stalwarts like Emil Kosa, Jr., who appears to have taken his easel into the city as often as he did into more bucolic settings. Altogether it’s a charming tour through a bygone time and a growing city and its people.

Frederick Hammersley: Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection.

A small show located on the museum’s mezzanine, it gives insight into Hammersley, the gifted draftsman. Although he was critically acclaimed after exhibiting his paintings along with contemporaries Karl Benjamin, John McLaughlin and Lorser Feitelson, his drawings, prints and sketches shown here support the arch definition of a “sure hand.” Spare but eloquent, the works shown don’t miss a beat.

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Artist Steffi Homa mimics her painting “Dark Matter Dancer,” part of a solo show at Artist Republic Gallery. Photo by Daniella Walsh.

The young man is wide-eyed, as if he’s seeing something he can’t quite fathom, and small wonder. While standing in purplish blue water, he’s wearing an orange space helmet and the replica of a little green alien around his neck. Around him swirl multi-colored pieces of confetti and soap bubbles and he’s wearing a shirt emblazoned with images of “My Little Pony.” The fantastic scenario is captured in a painting, “The Other End of the Spectrum” and part of an exhibition bannered “Extendable Realities: Change Everything You Are” currently at the Artist Republic Gallery in Laguna Beach until June 19.

Then there’s “Catch a Wave,” another large oil painting featuring a bikini-clad redhead. She is depicted moving towards a masked water skier wearing a version of an Indian headdress, whizzing over a wavy mountain. Swimmers, a space alien in a cowboy hat and a huge cigarette butt serve as lane markers. Oh, and let’s not forget the deer, juxtaposed against a beach towel in the foreground munching kibble from a dog bowl.

These and other dream-like scenarios are the work of German-born Steffi Homa, who goes by the moniker Super Future Kid. “Extendable Realities” is her first U.S. solo show. Her work has been seen in group shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Torrey Cook, proprietor of Artist Republic, likes Homa’s mix of pop culture with images of her own invention and her use of color. Homa also mixes a bit of darkness into her narrative, enough to be thought-provoking but never enough to be depressing, Cook said. “Search Trash Pile,” with its deer caught up in power lines, is a good example of the latter.

A 34-year-old London-based painter, Homa makes good use of her diversified cultural background by creating works that may seem wacky, though they quite effectively mirror the fractured realities of the present generation. The reflect those engrossed in surfing the web, playing video games, remembering childhood toys, watching TV and then mentally processing the variegated, multi-themed and multi-hued jumble that comprises today’s visual world.

Born in the vicinity of Berlin in 1981, Homa, was 8 when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Having spent her early years in the relative isolation of the East Zone as Germans then called the German Democratic Republic, a new world opened up for the curious little girl with a precocious ambition to become an artist. Once she had finished university prep high school in Berlin, she studied design. “My move to London was a spontaneous one. I did not want to work in a corporate environment, so I freelanced.” she said. “My goal has always been to build my own world.”

And what a world it became, once she and her family were able to leave the confines of East Berlin. She enjoyed her first Coca Cola, saw TV commercials and shows beyond the two state-approved channels she was accustomed to. “Friends gave me a set of My Little Ponies and I got Barbie dolls and houses and cars, but since my parents did not have a lot of money, a lot of things were still out of reach for me. But I looked at and studied anything I could get my hands on,” she recalled.

Today those things along with her fascination with space travel have found their way into the multi-layered story lines of her paintings.

There are references to Brothers Grimm fairytales and childhood holidays, along with action figures and video games all rendered in bright primary or pastel colors in paintings such as “Forever and a day” where the action hero brandishes a sword made from Legos. And then, there is the often-present St. Bernard, replete with his little flask filled with brandy, who assists during rescues in the Alps.

“My brain puts things together that are unrelated and creates new plots. They are not straight stories, but often bizarre situations that come together in dreams,” she said. “But, at the time I put them on canvas, they make sense.” She said her quest for pictorial material is constant. She makes mental collages subconsciously and consciously works on composition and its varied elements in oil, acrylics, guache and even spray paint.

“With every painting, my universe grows,” she said. She also said that decisions regarding painting subjects are intuitive, originating in her subconscious. “I find the subconscious more powerful than the conscious,” she said.

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Freshly minted bachelor of fine arts graduate Pooja Shah now hopes to join the ranks of heart-driven entrepreneurs with an idea that might improve the lives of the visually impaired.

Inspired by her brother Poris, who is legally blind, she invented a “smart cane” to help the sight restricted navigate with a vibrating handle that identifies obstacles through echo-location and sonar.

Designing the cane was a senior thesis project for the 21-year-old design and digital media major, who had transferred from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Bradford James Smith celebrates receiving his graduate degree in painting and drawing. Photo by Carol Covarrubias.

Shah is one of 116 undergrads who received their diplomas this past Monday, May 23, at Laguna College of Art and Design’s commencement. With four master’s of fine art grads and three post baccalaureate grads bringing the total to 123, it is the largest graduating class in LCAD’s history and a 40 percent increase over last year. Then, 78 undergrads and 10 grad students received degrees.

“Stay courageous and stay in touch,” said LCAD president Jonathan Burke, acknowledging the students long hours working on studio projects and excitement to apply their learning. “You are ambassadors and advocates for art,” he said.

Commencement speaker Elizabeth Turk homed in on success as a vital component of life as an artist.

“Success as an artist is capricious; too much money, too much glamor implies selling out. Too little and nothing is created, nothing communicated,” said the award-winning sculptor who divides her time between her home in Newport Beach, a production studio in Santa Ana, and commitments to New York galleries. She received a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2010, and her work can be found in several museum collections and countless private ones.

Commencement speaker and sculptor Elizabeth Turk.

“The reality of success for us creative types changes,” she said. “It’s chasing the high of a great idea, that obsession regardless of outcome. It’s having time to feel the exuberance of losing your conscious self in making something new. It’s the feeling of magic when everything comes together and seems to work.”

Turk creates marble sculptures that seem to defy the limitations of solid material and typical subject matter. For example, she replicates lace collars in stone with tools as fine as a dentist’s drill.

The growing size of the graduating class also reflects a shift in the popularity of some disciplines at the private college. While in 2015, 20 students majored in traditional art forms, just 15 did this year. Game art leads with 29 majors, compared to 16 the year before. The second most popular discipline, animation, drew 23 majors compared to eight with the specialty in 2015. Design and digital media with varying specialties drew 11 majors.

Despite the trends, student speaker Sigmundur Thorgeirsson, 30, revealed that after losing a boring tech job, he began studying drawing and painting in Reykjavik, Iceland. After more than two years of study there, he moved to Laguna Beach and graduated with a bachelor of arts in illustration with an entertainment emphasis.

“At first I was battling culture shock, intense heat and feeling ancient. After two and a half years, I leave with fulfilled dreams and a larger beard,” said Thorgeirsson, bound for Canada to join his fiancée and forge a career in the animation industry.

Observation suggests a slight generation gap among the graduate students, none older than 35 and all of them majoring in painting or drawing. One of them, Trevor Christiansen, 32, has already secured a booth at this year’s Festival of Arts and will also be a resident artist at LCAD during the summer.

Jonathan Burke, president of Laguna College of Art and Design, sends off the class of 2016.

In digital art forms, LCAD women are on par with their male counterparts. Alyx Tortorice, 23, a surfer who majored in design and digital media with an emphasis on action sports, designed and produced women’s wetsuits with removable arm and leg sleeves. Her Starfysh Wetsuits can be found online, at The Soul Project in Laguna Beach and at Flying Point Surf Shop in New York. “My ambition is to devote myself to Starfysh full-time,” she said.

Another already on a career path is Rachel Newman, 27, a design and digital media major, who created an electronic installation depicting undersea creatures that is displayed in airports. She said she was offered a three-year contract.

In citing the creativity and inventiveness evident in student projects — such as a pain-reducing textile and childhood embarrassments retold as animated narratives of courage and bravery – Turk predicted, “such examples of thoughtful perspectives will expand our culture’s larger vision for itself.”

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“Time Flies,” by Sawdust Art Festival artist Ulrike Scheuchl was created for a treasure-hunt like art festival promotion.

In a new twist on the old adage “time flies,” organizers of the city’s three art festivals and its tourism promoter have devised a way to give physical dimension to their tagline “Art is Timeless.”

To emphasize the point and promote the upcoming summer art season, the Festival of Arts, Sawdust Festival and Laguna Art-A-Fair have commissioned artists to create 50 clocks to be displayed at various locations throughout Laguna Beach from June 20 to Aug. 21.

Similar to a treasure hunt, those wanting to acquire or just visit an artist-made clock will be able to pick up or download maps showing the location of the time keeping creations beginning June 15. (See side bar for addresses.)

The event and its motto have been inspired by the large vintage clock gracing the Sawdust Festival grounds.

The initiative is part of Visit Laguna Beach’s Passport to the Arts, which provides a common ticket for unlimited visits to all three summer arts festivals and merchant discounts. The displays of clocks help tick off 50th anniversaries for the Sawdust Festival and Art-A-Fair.

For the public, time is short lived to enjoy the timepieces. On Aug. 23, all clocks will be sold at auction at Seven Degrees, a benefit for all three arts festivals and their education programs, said Festival of Arts spokeswoman Sharbie Higuchi.

Four participating artists were eager to talk about their creations and the ideas that inspire them.

Assemblage artist Tim L. Brown created a rustic looking replica of an alarm clock titled “A Walk in Time.” Its body shows images of local beaches and a mandala shaped replica of a small tattoo, explained Brown.

“I was inspired by the fact that we are constantly changing and evolving as people and as an arts colony,” he said. A retired educator and Dana Point resident, he will also exhibit his free-standing and wall-sized assemblages for the first time at the Festival of Arts this summer. His clock, valued at $150, will be displayed at the Festival of Arts grounds.

Carol Heiman-Greene’s contribution.

Carol Heiman-Greene, a 20-year Laguna Art-A-Fair exhibitor, titled her clock “Only Time Will Tell.” Painted in the manner of Dutch and Flemish old masters, it depicts a bird’s nest filled with eggs. “I do birds nests as part of my collection. They are promises for the future,” she said. The Orange resident has built her career as a wildlife artist. She has also painted the Laguna Art-A-Fair’s 50th anniversary commemorative poster. The nest will be displayed at the LAAF grounds. Value has been set at $975.

Gerald Schwartz describes himself as an “atmospheric” painter,

Work by Gerald Schwartz

which means that the atmosphere depicted in a painting overrides location or subject matter. “I paint night or day with lots of dramatic skies, paintings that convey a feeling,” he said. Conversely he produced a clock where clouds and constellations populate a night sky and titled it “Night and Today.”

“There is no time in art. Art is forever,” he said. Even the hands are placed off center, running off the composition, which forms a nice balance. “I will have to make one like it for me,” he added. Schwartz lives and works in Dana Point. His clock will be seen at the Festival of Arts grounds and is valued at $150.

Austrian-born photographer Ulrike Scheuchl titled her clock “Time Flies.” A rectangular composition, it shows two faces. The upper face shows an endless sky where the hands, at least at times, suggest a small airplane making its way. The second consists on joined yin and yang symbols as background for hands and numbers. A Laguna Beach resident for seven years, she has exhibited her works at the Sawdust Festival for four years. Her clock is valued at $100 and will be shown at Gina’s Pizza.

Other treasure hunts to pique interest in works of art have taken different tacks.

The Laguna Beach Music Festival commissioned artists to turn violins into works of visual art in 2012. The “Artful Violins” created by Sandra Jones Campbell, Kirsten Whalen, the late Cheryl Ekstrom and others were first displayed at gallery before being dispersed around town. They sold online at four-figure prices.

A year later, Dana Point staged an Elephant Parade of 30 life-sized statues of baby elephants, also hand-painted by artists and dispersed in town. The creations were designed to raise awareness of elephants as endangered species.

Locations for “Art is Timeless” Clocks

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Workmen ready the site for a new version of Leonard Glasser’s “Sunbathers” by removing a cement pad for the original sculpture, which had deteriorated due to age and elements. Photo by Jody Tiongco.

Should they stay or go was the question posed earlier in the year when Leonard Glasser’s sculpture “The Sunbathers” showed enough deterioration to be declared irreparable. In a rare move, the Arts Commission decided to de-accession the piece.

But, visitors to Nita Carmen Park where the two figures of a man and woman had reposed since 1983, vociferously protested the removal, and the City Council reconsidered.

First installed in powder coated steel at a cost of $6,000 and later restored with a white-wash, they will be re-crafted by the San Fernando Valley artist in more durable stainless steel, as Glasser first suggested when the Arts Commission suggested removal.

Whether the female figure will wear a bikini again, as was requested by the city in 1983, is open to conjecture. “It’s an abstract stainless steel sculpture; no one puts a bathing suit on that,” said Glasser. “It’s like putting a belt on the man’s pants and laces into his shoes. It’s just silly.”

What will change is the original platform’s height to 12 inches, intended to deter dogs from leaving their mark on the pair.

The projected estimate for the stainless steel version is $7,000 with an extra $4,000 to replace the base.

“The City Council gave me until the end of the year to complete the new version, but I am sure I can complete it before that,” Glasser said in an interview this week.

“The city will be happy. It will look great and I hope there’s a big party when it’s re-installed.”

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This year’s Festival of Arts and the Pageant of the Masters open on July 7 and run through Aug. 31 on the Festival of Arts grounds and the Irvine Bowl. Throughout the summer, there will be live music concerts and art workshops for adults and children, wine and chocolate tastings, and arts lecture series. The popular fashion show comprised of ensembles created from recycled materials hits the runway on Aug. 17.

Readying for the Pageant. Photo by Jody Tiongco.

Pageant of the Masters:

Lewis and Clark, the Wright Brothers, Roy and Marie Ropp, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and, Adam and Eve.

These are some of the diverse sets of partners populating this year’s Pageant of the Masters titled “Partners,” a concept that its creator Diane Challis Davy has stretched to include painting and sculpture, inventions and exploration, science and legends of Hollywood and entertainment.

Richard Hill serves as technical director and Richard Doyle narrates the script written by Dan Duling.

Davy got first ideas for “Partners” while assembling material for “The Big Picture,” a 2013 production which inspired her to include dance numbers by Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Leslie Caron as suggested by movie posters. But, rather than using volunteers to dance, the Pageant hired professional dancers, explained Hill.

Another inspiration are the 1938 founders of the Pageant, Roy and Marie Ropp.

“Roy gets a lot of credit but Marie wore many hats as well,” said Davy.

Her research for the 2012 “The Genius” brought to light achievements by French scientists Marie-Anne and Antoine Lavoisier, dubbed “the father of modern chemistry.” Davy remarked that while he was executed during the French Revolution, she survived and preserved the records of their findings. “While ‘The Muse’ dealt with partnerships between artists and their models/muses, this is more about equal partnerships in a variety of fields,” she said.

The show begins with Adam and Eve in Jan Breughell the Younger and Peter Paul Rubens’ “The Garden of Eden.” There’s a partnership subplot here since the artist friends both worked on the painting around 1871.

In a similar vein, there are painted depictions of art collectors/partners Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas by Henry Matisse, and contemporary art patrons Fred and Marcia Weisman in David Hockney’s “American Collectors.”

Art couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are represented by Kahlo’s “On the Borderline” and Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” which has the distinction of being, at roughly 33 feet width, the largest backdrop ever done here, said backgrounds painter David Cooke.

A tour through the costume shop revealed that all are made from un-dyed material to the measurements of characters. Once sewn, artist Michelle Scrimpsher has to paint the costumes first while in three dimensions and then adjusting colors to resemble those of a two-dimensional painting. “It’s a challenge to coordinate the colors precisely with the originals and those painted by our set painters,” she said. Reagan Foy, promoted to costume director this year, recalls one of her first costumes nine years ago was for Diego Rivera’s “Dreams of Sunday.” “This year we are actually re-using it again, it survived well,” she said.

Carrie Morgan, a court-reporter by day, has volunteered in the make-up department for the last four years. An Aliso Viejo resident, she sees her fellow volunteers as a second family. “The greatest challenge is painting as many as 20 colors on the same character and meeting stage deadlines for each of them. Punctuality reigns supreme around here,” she said.

Festival of Arts:

The Festival of Arts will feature 140 artist from Orange County.

First time exhibitor Carla Bosch already made a name for herself in her native South Africa for bright colored, impressionistic landscape with a distinctly contemporary flair. She came to the US on an “Extraordinary Ability” green card which is only issued to applicants who have already proven notable success in their field. Now she has joined the multi-generational and cultural group of plein-air painters and has taken root in Irvine.

“I never paint from photographs, I don’t want to present mirror images of people and things but want convey my own impressions, the immediacy of what I see,” she said.

By contrast, ceramicist Mike Tauber is a veteran on the Laguna Beach art scene, at FoA as a ceramicist since 2008.

On preview night, he showed his latest work depicting “General Sherman,” a majestic Sequoia tree, a Cypress tree at Carmel and other nature scene rendered in fired ceramic tile. Holding up a piece in progress he said that the challenge of his medium lies in never seeing the finished colors until they are fired. “I get a lot my inspiration riding around on my mountain bike; Barbara’s Lake in the Canyon is a favorite,” he explained.

Multi-media artist Carolyn Machado will exhibit her signature assemblages and will teach two workshops, in July and August, on how to make a mosaic tile assemblages.

Also new on the scene is New Delhi born and educated printmaker Vinita Voogd. Her woodcuts printed on white paper show intricate motifs inspired by her travels through Asia, she said.

Admissions:

FoA hours: 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (Early closing Aug. 27, 1:30 p.m.)

Admission: Weekdays $8, weekends $12 Students/seniors weekdays $5, weekends, $8. Under 12, military, Laguna residents, Free.

Pageants of the Masters: Nightly, 8:30 p.m. Advance tickets: $15-$230 800-487-3378

949-494-1145 www.LagunaFestivalofArts.org

Location: 650 Laguna Canyon Rd. Laguna Beach 92651

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Roland Berry paints a mural on the exterior of the Sawdust Festival, which opens for its 50th season next Friday, June 24.

Los Angeles artist Rolland Berry expects this week to finish a wall-sized mural in Laguna Canyon to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sawdust Festival and pay homage to native American culture.

The mural features two mirror-image profiles of native American women wearing elaborate head dresses symbolizing strength, courage and accomplishment and the diverse origins of Americans, said Adam Casper, a local resident and artist’s representative.

“Making this connection to Laguna Beach, we thought it would open more doors for artists taking their art from the inside of galleries outside. It’s better on the outside,” said Casper, who also represented British street artist Ben Eine, creator of two murals in Laguna Beach last September “Charming” still survives in North Laguna.

Berry started the mural last weekend, first outlining the portraits.

The mural will temporarily grace a 45-foot long construction fence at the Sawdust Festival and is a gift of the artist, valued at $100,000, says a Sawdust statement.

“We believe that cultural exchange is beneficial in this day and age, and that sharing these symbols can lead to interesting conversations and mutual understanding,” says a statement from Berry, a part-time resident, who specializes in multimedia pop art and graffiti installations.

Berry’s medium is spray paint, which was described as compliant with environmental

The artist at work.

standards in a permit application approved by the Arts Commission May 28.

It is one of several new works of art in diverse media that will embellish the facade of the Sawdust Festival, which featured temporarily installed art works until 1982 and is now reviving that tradition for its 50th anniversary. Visitors should expect to see other new works on the grounds: Liz Avalon’s floral-themed bike rack, Larry Gill and Gavin Heath’s metal and glass gates, a “Cranes” water sculpture by Shamus Koch and 14 glass sculpture lights by Bruce Freund.

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In “Buyer and Cellar,” Laguna Playhouse’s latest offering, wordplay in the title signals what’s to come on stage.

Sprung from Jonathan Tolins’ imagination, the cellar is Barbra Streisand’s underground replica of an 18th century Main Street assembled in the basement of a barn erected on her Malibu estate. Replete with a dress shop holding her movie costumes, an ice cream parlor, a shop filled with her doll collection and others stocked with meticulously selected items, this private shopping mall is the lone refuge of a compulsive collector whose predilections were ostensibly shaped by a deprived childhood in the Bronx.

Alex More, onstage in “Buyer and Cellar” at Laguna Playhouse, through June 26.

Barbra is well known for her acquisition of the finest things in life, enough to fill her book “My Passion for Design,” where she functions as author and chief photographer. Published by Viking in 2010, the book is what inspired Tolins to pen the story of Alex More, a young, gay Los Angeles actor whose wallet is as skinny as his physique, accepting the position of caretaker of Barbra’s ersatz 18th century shopping mall.

Alex, the play’s sole physical protagonist, guides the audience through a funny and intelligent romp through his job after being fired from Disneyland, a workplace known to some as Mauschwitz and the Magic Kingdom to the masses. Combining hilarity, poignancy, self-introspection and philosophical insights regarding the power and price of celebrity, he delineates a little pisher’s place in the scheme of a larger world.

Emerson Collins as Alex is first-rate, keeping the play’s pace at just the right speed. At the performance’s end, the question that buzzed among the departing audience was “how on earth could he remember all those character’s lines and changing nuances without even coming up for air?”

Collins won a Desert Theatre League award for best actor in a comedy for his performance in The Regional Theatre premiere with “Coyote StageWorks” in Palm Springs and recently completed a season in the cable channel Bravo’s “The People’s Couch.” He is also working on Del Shore’s “A Very Sordid Wedding,” a sequel to “Sordid Lives.”

Besides Alex, he voices Sharon, Streisand’s seen-it-all house manager; his steady boyfriend, Barry; Vincent, the Disney pal who found him the job; and Barbra, in a breathy, somewhat hard to pinpoint fashion, but to spot-on effect.

The play starts innocuously enough, with Alex ruminating over the meaning of “corners of one’s mind,” the lyric from “Memories” in the film “The Way We Were” and one of Streisand’s mega hits. He also reminds the audience that the entire tale is complete fiction. “The premise is preposterous. What I am telling you could not possibly have happened with a person this famous, talented and litigious as Barbra Streisand.”

He also mentions that he generally does not do impressions. “When I tell you about the conversations we had–which never really took place–I’ll just be her and you can fill in the rest,” he says. “What does exist is this book,” he amends.

Humor revs up when Alex arrives at the Malibu compound replete with chickens. “Who has chickens in Malibu,” he muses while parking his dirt-encrusted Jetta behind a barn.

There are no sets save for two pieces of furniture, but background pictures loosely suggest the scene and prod the audience to fill in details. No costume changes, either. Alex’s coiffure is a mix between a Beatle haircut and a woman’s bob.

Hilarity escalates while one learns about Barry, a nice Jewish boy from the Bronx. He wants to wire Alex for sound and equip him with a good phone camera after learning for whom he now works despite the confidentiality agreement. “I have an artistic and historical interest,” says Barry, an under-employed screenwriter and not a whole-hearted Streisand fan, or Streisand queen, as he puts it.

Meanwhile, there are witty references to Barbra’s just-so tastes and, finally there’s the diva herself, touring her possessions. Alex’s description of Barbra’s appearance (“hair styled to look like hair always pops out of 68-year-old heads that way”) and the pair haggling over the price of a storied French musical doll is priceless.

Barbra, enters at first incognito; “Call me Sadie” she instructs. Over time, a tenuous relationship ensues which Alex emotionally embellishes into friendship, after Barbra reveals her real identity. Not to give too much away here, she has ulterior motives for befriending her hire, something he finds out after he’s finally given the grand tour of the main house he had come to dream about.

Slowly, poignancy takes hold. Convinced that Barbra is becoming a friend, he breaks off with Barry after he disparages Alex’s growing attachment to the star. “When there is someone like her in the world, someone that extraordinary, and I get to spend every day in her presence, then the only legitimate response is, thank you,” counters Alex.

Things go further south after Alex becomes Barbra’s acting coach for a planned re-make of “Gypsy.” “We raged, we cajoled, we toyed with each other. We sang….”

But, after a bout with heartbreak, his stars re-align, planets continue to spin in their orbits and Alex renews his joie de vivre.

Collins needn’t worry about his career in real life. He has pulled off being a one-man band with aplomb, assuring himself many more rounds of standing ovations.

The post Show’s Inspiration Rises from Below Ground appeared first on Laguna Beach Local News.

At a preview party for Sawdust Festival artists, Bill Ogden prepares to sign the poster he created to mark the art show’s 50th year. It opens to the public June 24.
Photos of preview party by Marilynn Young

Bill Ogden happily returned to Laguna Beach and Sawdust Art and Craft the Festival this week. Here, he earned recognition as an era-defining artist whose vision made him a standard bearer for heady times when youth culture pushed hard against a prevalent art establishment.

“My work embodies the consciousness of my generation and expresses the feeling of that era,” said Ogden of drawings and paintings depicting fantasy worlds often placed near or in the ocean.

Kathy Jepson-Bernier (center) celebrate the 50th anniversary with Tom Wilson,left, and Jordan Brodie in a VW Van at the Sawdust Festival on the opening night party for artists

Rebecca Barber hugs a friend in the booth of glass design artist John Barber. Photos by Marilynn Young

It was in the late 1960s that young art and crafts people were bent on turning Laguna from a stodgy province into a place for all whose art had something new to say.

The process included divorcing themselves from the prevailing art scene and starting their own venue, which culminated in establishing the Sawdust in 1966. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, it opens to the public on Friday, June 24, and runs through Aug. 28.

Holding aloft the painting he produced as a prototype for the poster to mark the milestone, Ogden noted that a feisty spirit remains alive in town through its artists. “I made art for people. I wanted them to have fun and figured that as an artist, if you’re not having fun, you’re doing something wrong.”

Today, he lives in the high desert, 4,000 feet up at Pinyon Flat, he said. “Living surrounded by nature, with a Sheltie dog and two horses, I welcome the lack of distraction. Nothing is pulling at me,” he said.

After exhibiting at the fledgling festival in 1968 and on and off in later years, Ogden returns as an invited guest. It’s an elevated status compared to 1997 when he was given a free spot in return for designing a poster for that year’s fest.

Spurred on by appreciative contemporaries such as Greg Thorne and Star Shields and board member Jay Grant, the organization chose to honor Ogden with a residency after learning he underwent treatment for cancer of the larynx. Ogden does not dwell on the illness and neither does anyone else who knew him then and still consider him an inspiration.

Now 73, he’s leaner in stature, but still large of vision, as creative and sure of his calling as he has ever been. And, while some suggest the prevalence of psychedelic drugs as fuel for his early inspiration, Ogden is adamant that his own, naturally induced imagination is the source of inspiration for works such as the spectacular 2004 “Pacific Awakening.” Now-vintage editions of his Sound Spectrum calendars can still be purchased at the music store on Coast Highway.

“LSD was a passing fad, really. For many of us, creativity continued to evolve from our own imagination, drawing and painting for pure joy,” he said.

He did design two “Timothy Leary Kidnapped By Government Officials” posters in 1970, calling for donations toward a $100,000 ransom. Leary, involved with the acid-making Brotherhood of Eternal Love, based in Laguna Beach, was arrested here and later escaped from prison. “Things actually began to fall apart around ’72 with the advance of Timothy Leary and the psychedelic revolution, but there was also a lot of creativity that came from it,” Ogden said.

Then again, joy pervades even his commercial works, which included ads for Jansen swimwear and surfboard designs for Hobie. “Jansen recognized that I had my finger on the pulse of my generation,” he said. His ‘60s surfing cartoons reveal a witty sense of humor. He said that his series of posters depicting female surfers show respect. “I had no intention of glamorizing the women, but gave them depth of character,” he said.

Artist Greg Thorne is greeted by twins Molly and Mackenzie Akins,22, by his booth as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Sawdust Festival at the opening night party for artists and invited guests June 21, 2016.

Thorne metamorphosed from festival musician to painter and now jewelry maker. “Bill Ogden inspired me to become an artist. Bill, more than anyone else captured the spirit of my generation’s presence in Laguna Beach,” said Thorne, an exhibitor since 1969. He said Ogden followed his own vision, which gave his peers their own place in the sun. “Many people do not know who Bill is or his legacy, but he changed my life,” said Thorne.

Shields, a mixed media artist, started showing at the Sawdust in 1972. This year, he painted the iconic VW mini-bus parked at the Sawdust entrance, and his booth features temporary tattoos, face painting, silkscreened shirts and surfboards featuring his designs. “We rallied around Bill this year and got the board to build him a booth and give him a spot for free. They have not done that for any artist, and everyone is happy to have him here,” said Shields.

Hand blown glass artist Alex Fritz at his booth on the 50th anniversary of the Sawdust Festival at the opening night party.

On preview night, Laguna residents also got a first look at the 14 glass lamps and a spectacular glass sculpture, “Helios Envista,” donated by Bruce Freund, a 38-year exhibitor.

Grant, the Sawdust board president, calls Ogden “a legend in Laguna.”

“Bill is a consummate artist and a good friend now. All of us are pleased to have him as our focused guest,” he said.

The post Legendary Artist Returns to the Sawdust appeared first on Laguna Beach Local News.

Kay Pastorius-Waller at the Sawdust Festival with a model of the missing 28-foot tall sculpture, “Passport,” that she intends to donate to the museum.

When Harold L. Pastorius, Jr., a multi-media artist and the first president of the Sawdust Festival, married teacher Kay Watts, he presented his bride with a painted self-portrait. Titled “Love me for a 100 Years,” it shows a bearded, intense-eyed man outlined in light paint on a greenish background.

Kay Pastorius-Waller with “Love me for 100 Years,” a self-portrait presented to her as a young bride.

Twenty-one years after his death, it is a treasure that his widow is sharing with the public as part of his artistic legacy and evidence that, even though she remarried and is now known as Kay Pastorius-Waller, she abides by her first husband’s wish. Currently the painting is on display at the festival in what is known as the “Old Timer’s Booth,” she said.

She returned to California to help celebrate the Sawdust’s 50th anniversary and also to donate a Pastorius sculpture, “Star Locator.”

She arrived from Atawhai, New Zealand, where she and her second husband, Joe Waller, operate a bed and breakfast. She is also on a separate mission to find out the fate of a monumental Pastorius sculpture, “Passport,” which has also been misidentified by another name, “Portal,” explained Waller. A different Pastorius sculpture by that name belongs to a private Palm Desert collector.

The mystery lies in the disappearance of “Passport” from the former Amberdon Plaza, at 1833 Alton Parkway, in Irvine. “We are offering a reward if some light can be shed on this art world tragedy,” said Waller.

Installed in 1984 on private property as a piece of public art, it was a 28 foot, 3,000 pound steel sculpture that was listed as missing in 2015, according to K.M. Williamson, president of Public Art in Public Places Project, based in Claremont. Then its bright yellow coat of paint earned it the moniker “Yellow Banana” according to a 1987 LA Times article. The same source states that its main function was to guide the public to the entrance, which otherwise was hard to find at the all-black glass building.

Williamson said that “Passport” had been removed by an unidentified property owner for paint repair, but was not re-installed and that current property owners have no record of the sculpture’s history or fate.

“We have found this unfortunate scenario not uncommon across Southern California and the U.S.,” Williamson said. “Although so many public assets have been lost in this manner throughout the decades, we are certainly amid a renaissance of public art appreciation and conservation.”

A Pastorius fountain and a sculpture installation at the Northgate development in Phoenix, Ariz., suffered a similar fate. Fabricated in 1988 for a commercial or residential development that never came to fruition, the fountain was gradually dismantled and the installation “Eagles Flight” vandalized and eventually demolished, with the site still unoccupied.

Sixteen years ago, Pastorius-Waller took a small model of “Passport” to New Zealand, which she is now donating to the Laguna Art Museum for its permanent collection. “I am hoping that the public will have a chance to see Hal’s artistic and also his engineering skills,” she said. Upwardly curvilinear, the piece rests on a square base but culminates in a triangle. “People always wondered how he did that,” she recalled.

A gift from Kay Pastorius-Waller to the Sawdust Festival, the sculpture “Star Locator” by her late husband Hal Pastorius. It is not yet permanently installed.

Even though Pastorius was firmly entrenched in the Laguna art scene since the 1960s, there are no public art works by him here, save for the “Mother and Child sculpture at Laguna Presbyterian Church on Second Street, explained Waller.

That’s about to change. In collaboration with the Festival of Arts, the city will install his “Bulk Head,” at the bus station for a three-year exhibit. The installation salutes the Sawdust on its 50th birthday and Pastorius as its first president. He also served on the Arts Commission and the Orange County Arts Alliance.

Pastorius was also known as an active promoter of public art. He has as many as 12 works in various sites in Brea, several pieces in Paramount City, Palm Springs and Palm Desert and elsewhere in the U.S.

But, he was also an enthusiastic boater, and in 1992 he and Kay decided to follow that passion by taking the Spice Sea on a 10-year world cruise. The cruise lasted but a year as Pastorius developed a brain tumor and died in 1995.

Once asked how he evolved into a metal sculptor, he answered: “My paintings were becoming smaller and smaller and the frames kept getting larger. When I framed a 16×16 painting into a six-foot frame, my wife bought me some welding equipment.”

The post Mystery Surrounds Pastorius Sculpture appeared first on Laguna Beach Local News.

 Kay Pastorius-Waller at the Sawdust Festival with the maquette of “Passport” she intends to donate to the museum.

When Harold L. Pastorius, Jr., a multi-media artist and the first president of the Sawdust Festival, married teacher Kay Watts, he presented his bride with a painted self-portrait. Titled “Love me for a 100 Years,” it shows a bearded, intense-eyed man outlined in light paint on a greenish background.

Twenty-one years after his death, it is a treasure that his widow is sharing with the public as part of his artistic legacy and evidence that, even though she remarried and is now known as Kay Pastorius-Waller, she abides by her first husband’s wish. Currently the painting is on display at the festival in what is known as the “Old Timer’s Booth,” she said.

She returned to California to help celebrate the Sawdust’s 50th anniversary and also to donate a Pastorius sculpture, “Star Locator.”

She arrived from Atawhai, New Zealand, where she and her second husband, Joe Waller, operate a bed and breakfast. She is also on a separate mission to find out the fate of a monumental Pastorius sculpture, “Passport,” which has also been misidentified by another name, “Portal,” explained Waller. A different Pastorius sculpture by that name belongs to a private Palm Desert collector.

The mystery lies in the disappearance of “Passport” from the former Amberdon Plaza, at 1833 Alton Parkway, in Irvine. “We are offering a reward if some light can be shed on this art world tragedy,” said Waller.

Installed in 1984 on private property as a piece of public art, it was a 28 foot, 3,000 pound steel sculpture that was listed as missing in 2015, according to K.M. Williamson, president of Public Art in Public Places Project, based in Claremont. Then its bright yellow coat of paint earned it the moniker “Yellow Banana” according to a 1987 LA Times article. The same source states that its main function was to guide the public to the entrance, which otherwise was hard to find at the all-black glass building.

Williamson said that “Passport” had been removed by an unidentified property owner for paint repair, but was not re-installed and that current property owners have no record of the sculpture’s history or fate.

“We have found this unfortunate scenario not uncommon across Southern California and the U.S.,” Williamson said. “Although so many public assets have been lost in this manner throughout the decades, we are certainly amid a renaissance of public art appreciation and conservation.”

A Pastorius fountain and a sculpture installation at the Northgate development in Phoenix, Ariz., suffered a similar fate. Fabricated in 1988 for a commercial or residential development that never came to fruition, the fountain was gradually dismantled and the installation “Eagles Flight” vandalized and eventually demolished, with the site still unoccupied.

Sixteen years ago, Pastorius-Waller took a small model of “Passport” to New Zealand, which she is now donating to the Laguna Art Museum for its permanent collection. “I am hoping that the public will have a chance to see Hal’s artistic and also his engineering skills,” she said. Upwardly curvilinear, the piece rests on a square base but culminates in a triangle. “People always wondered how he did that,” she recalled.

Even though Pastorius was firmly entrenched in the Laguna art scene since the 1960s, there are no public art works by him here, save for the “Mother and Child sculpture at Laguna Presbyterian Church on Second Street, explained Waller.

That’s about to change. In collaboration with the Festival of Arts, the city will install his “Bulk Head,” at the bus station for a three-year exhibit. The installation salutes the Sawdust on its 50th birthday and Pastorius as its first president. He also served on the Arts Commission and the Orange County Arts Alliance.

Pastorius was also known as an active promoter of public art. He has as many as 12 works in various sites in Brea, several pieces in Paramount City, Palm Springs and Palm Desert and elsewhere in the U.S.

But, he was also an enthusiastic boater, and in 1992 he and Kay decided to follow that passion by taking the Spice Sea on a 10-year world cruise. The cruise lasted but a year as Pastorius developed a brain tumor and died in 1995.

Once asked how he evolved into a metal sculptor, he answered: “My paintings were becoming smaller and smaller and the frames kept getting larger. When I framed a 16×16 painting into a six-foot frame, my wife bought me some welding equipment.”

The post Mystery Surrounds Pastorius Sculpture appeared first on Laguna Beach Local News.

An example of artist Peter Krasnow’s geometric works.

The “Peter Krasnow: Maverick Modernist” retrospective exhibition for the most part exhumes works from the Laguna Art Museum’s permanent collection. Looking at its variety, intriguing content and consistent quality, one must wonder why it took so long for Krasnow’s paintings and spectacular carvings to come to light again.

Curated by Michael Duncan, it strongly suggests that extensive schooling does not necessarily make an artist. Instead, it reveals that a willingness to experiment and grow, with all the tribulations that may entail, may conquer uncharted creative frontiers.

The show opened at the museum on June 26 and runs through Sept. 25.

Krasnow emigrated to the United States from the Ukraine in 1907 and studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He also lived in New York where he took inspiration from the hardscrabble life in immigrant ghettos, traversed the United States in a rickety Ford and finally settled in the diverse cultural atmosphere of Los Angeles, which he called a melting-pot conducive to making “living art.”

The show begins with a 1928 Gauguinesque self-portrait showing a man with intense eyes and handsome semitic features. Looking straight at viewers, he appears to demand close attention and yet proper distance. Equally impressive is his mastery of color that, regardless of painting style, pervades his entire body of work.

Krasnow’s stylistic diversity attests that, innately talented to begin with and having studied enough art to learn his craft, he learned most by looking at the art and culture of others, be it old masters, contemporary modernists and surrealists, ancient mythological illustrations or folk art practiced by people he encountered during his travels. To his credit, he also eschewed painting in what he called the “eucalyptus school” even when times were tough, insisting that it was “presumptuous for any man to paint an imitation of nature and call it art.”

As paintings like the 1916 “Market Place,” the 1920 “St. Andrews One Cent Coffee” and “Under the Brooklyn Bridge” attest, Krasnow lived in the moment before the phrase was coined, letting his subjects and perceived atmosphere determine his choices of color and style. The same holds true for his portraits which vary from the masterly formal, as in “Edward Henry Weston” in 1925, to those bearing the imprint of Expressionism as in “Portrait of Olaf Olesen,” circa 1921, and “The Dreamer (Portrait of Dr. Wissotsky),” from 1924.

Given Krasnow’s Jewish heritage, he was not oblivious to the murderous events taking shape in Europe. But, as he explained, he contradicted the darkness of the times with use of color. By 1941, his work had morphed into brightly hued geometric forms as attested by “”Untitled,” 1941, “K-1 1943” and “K-4 1944” (Architectural Landscape) 1944-1978.

Totem-like sculptures by Peter Krasnow carry the show.

As time progressed, his canvasses remained highly colorful and filled with Native American symbols and the terrain of Arizona and New Mexico, such as in “K-12 1975.” In light of his colorful, symbol-laden ‘60s and ’70s paintings, some wondered whether his cultural openness might have led to forays into some form of psychedelia.

We learn that in spite of Krasnow’s acclaim among his Los Angeles peers, commercial success flagged. He took a break from painting. On a whim, he began to carve wood. His majestic carvings reminiscent of (“Totemic Figure,” 1938) tribal totems and sometimes just simple natural forms that carry the show. Note “Praise” 1935 and “Untitled,” 1936.

As Duncan, a corresponding editor at Art in America, explains in his cogent catalog essay, those somewhat mysterious carvings brought the public, otherwise prejudiced against modern art, to his door. (The catalog has been designed by Wendy Peng and produced in partnership with Cal State Fullerton’s department of exhibition design/museum studies directed by Mike McGee.)

The museum’s executive director, Malcolm Warner, praised the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and the Magnes Collection in Berkeley along with Krasnow collectors Fred Fox and Greta Dockum for loaning works as well.

Also noteworthy are detailed pencil studies for a stained glass window and temple doors alluding to Old Testament themes and another drawing of a not realized bas relief mural for a Bullock’s department store. Contrary to common practice, Krasnow made detailed sketches of his sculptures after he had already carved them.

Given Krasnow’s artistic adventurism, it’s no wonder that American artist Lorser Feitelson (1898-1978), recognized as a creator of post-Surrealism among other directions in modern art, called Krasnow (1886-1979) the youngest old artist in Los Angeles and the oldest young artist because his art does not date but is ever present.

Anthony Friedkin’s “Textured Liquid Wave”, another new museum exhibit, reveals his devotion to the sea.

Waves with Distinct Personalities

Also not to be missed are 29 photographs from Anthony Friedkin’s “Wave Portfolio,” made between 1977 and 2006 at beaches between La Jolla and Carmel. A Santa Monica resident, Friedkin, 67, describes himself as a “disciple of the sea,” a surfer and photographer who feels connected in the water to man’s primordial origins.

“The photographs are silver gelatin prints, made traditionally in the darkroom,” explained Friedkin. The portfolio is in the museum’s own collection, a gift from local photography collectors Dan and Mary Solomon, and displayed in the upper level.

The works will especially intrigue anyone who has experienced the ocean’s fury. Each wave is different, with its own texture and personality.

The post Museum’s Krasnow Retrospective Intrigues appeared first on Laguna Beach Local News.

Patriarch David Solomon enjoys a moment with daughter Gaylen Solomon Corbett during Art Walk.

Work by plein-air watercolor painter David Solomon embellished booths at the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach for 35 years.

But that’s not his only distinction. At age 72, the four-decade local resident is the patriarch of a clan of artists that spans three generations.

During a recent First Thursday Art Walk, 10 family members showed off their works including oil and watercolor paintings, photographs, jewelry, painted T-shirts and artfully arranged miniature succulent gardens.

Equally artful was their ability to squeeze their works and, at times themselves, into the tiny Lang Fine Art gallery, 1450 S. Coast Highway, a venue normally featuring photographs, posters and photography books by Rick Lang. The show runs through July 31.

“Dave and I have been friends for 45 years. We are art scene partners,” said Lang.

The idea of a multi-generational show arose after Gaylen Solomon Corbett, David’s eldest daughter, displayed a solo show at the gallery, said Lang.

Solomon Corbett, 42, a self-described emerging painter, said curating the show is her main contribution. “Everyone, including the younger family members, have been active in art at least five years,” she said.

Tiffany Beauchamp Novak, 38, began designing jewelry featuring vintage Czech glass two years ago. Casey Corbett, 16, is just getting started. His pen and ink portrait of  Jimi Hendrix suggests that he is on the way to an art career. His sister Haley Corbett, 14, makes jewelry, but also draws, sews and does woodworking. Both teens are David Solomon’s grandchildren.

Among the younger Solomons, April counts as the more experienced. At age 33, she found her way back to art and enrolled as an illustration major in the Laguna College of Art and Design after a 13-year hiatus. Her painting, “Slowly but Surly,” where mythical beasts sport horns mutating into snakes, speaks of the convoluted road to what she has determined as her true calling.

The extended Solomon clan exhibits work at Lang Fine Art through July 31.

The post Artistic DNA Surfaces Across Three Generations appeared first on Laguna Beach Local News.

A makeup artist prepares volunteer Kyara Kalb for her stage role as a vintage butterfly brooch. Photo by Jody Tiongco

The quintessential partners Adam and Eve clearly enjoyed an idyllic start, but the situation turned south when Eve quested for knowledge. The iconic couple immortalized in a 1615 painting “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden” comprises the opening scene in this year’s Pageant of the Masters, where living people re-enact works of art.

Conceived by Diane Challis Davy with the script by Dan Duling and narration by Richard Doyle, the summer production titled “Partners” celebrates creative unions in the visual and performing arts, fiction and science and points between.

Under Challis Davy’s creative eye, partnerships can also include merely depicted ones such as in David Hockney’s “American Collectors,” a portrait of Fred and Marcia Weisman and Henry Matisse’s “Tea,” a rendition of Parisian salonistas Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Then again, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth’s “The Dancers” stands for the human connection inherent in creativity.

Volunteers Shiela Mann, left, and Kyara Kalb in reenactments of vintage jewelry.

If partnership involves the bestowing of gifts, that part is stunningly represented by two Art Nouveau creations “La Belle de Nuit” and “Butterfly Brooch.” Bravo to the svelte ladies embodying the central female figures and their costume and make-up artists.

The two-act production honors an influential local partnership, Roy and Marie Ropp, invited to take over presentation of the “living pictures” in 1935. While Robb worked on bringing paintings to life as a stage production, his wife proved equally valuable at selecting music and devising costumes from thrift store finds, says a program essay.

Over 80 years, production values change. And this year’s Pageant reflects its evolution to keep pace with the times. Some traditional elements remain, such as volunteers embodying characters in paintings such as Gerolamo Induno’s “The Kiss on the Hand,” standing stock-still among bucolic scenery.

But this year’s production brings movement, too. Perhaps even a surfeit, considering that the final scenes in act one are comprised of six movie posters featuring soft-shoe stars Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly and their partners. In each, professional dancers re-enact bits of movie choreography accompanied by the musical score.

Other novelties include a character traversing the Irvine Bowl on a zip line, to the delight of the audience.

Explorers of the American West Lewis and Clark garnered three paintings including the iconic Edgar S. Paxton 1912 canvas “Lewis and Clark at Three Forks” and one replica of a bas relief sculpture by Leo Friedlander.

The Wright Brothers get comparatively short shrift with “Wright Brothers Flight, 1940.”

The second act summons a colorful tribute to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, a pair famous for individual artistic prowess, their politics and erotic exploits.

Kahlo’s 1932 “On the Borderline” bears witness to her being pulled between cultures, with her native country winning. “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park,” a highly populated scene featuring Catrina, the traditional “Day of the Dead” skeleton dressed in bourgeoise finery, is Rivera’s creation.

As an extra novelty, nimble-footed “skeletons” and others in Mexican folk dress dance through the isles, including Festival of Arts board member Anita Mangels.

But then, at a width of roughly 33 feet, Rivera’s magnificent “Detroit Industry” steals the spotlight in this segment. Festival backdrop artist David Cooke described it as the largest backdrop done to date.

History and science come to life in the brilliant tribute to Marie-Anne and Antoine Lavoisier, dubbed “the father of modern chemistry.” With the help of a dramatic backdrop, the audience learns that after Antoine was executed during the French Revolution, his wife, whom he married while she was still a teen, preserved the couple’s research records as exemplified in her accomplished “Laboratory Sketch,” c. 1789.

Traditionalists will take delight in the depiction of Swedish painter Carl Larsson and his young wife Karin with whom he had eight children. “Outdoors Blow the Summer Winds,” from 1903, shows a happy family enjoying a bucolic summer.

At show’s end, tradition also prevails with the presentation of Leonardo DaVinci’s “Last Supper.” On two previous occasions, the Pageant chose to substitute a surreal, Salvador Dali version of the fateful repast, but to far less aplomb.

Since then the Pageant has returned to the DaVinci as originally debuted by the Ropps in 1936.

The show continues nightly at 8:30 p.m. in the Irvine Bowl on the grounds of the Festival of Arts, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, through Aug. 27. Ticketed separately from art show admission. (800) 487-3378

The post Pageant Turns Still Lifes Into a Moving Experience appeared first on Laguna Beach Local News.

Love-struck characters end up with unexpected partners in “All Shook Up” at Laguna Playhouse.

“A bless my soul what is wrong with me; I’m itching like a man on a fuzzy tree…. I’m in love, I’m all shook up.”

So goes the Elvis Presley hit “All Shook Up,” now the title of a Laguna Playhouse musical eliciting critical and audience acclaim. It’s scheduled to run through Aug. 7, even without any Elvis sightings to date.

Instead there are plenty of permutations on love as a tricky business as nearly everyone is falling in love but with the wrong someone before finding their intended match. If that concept sounds vaguely familiar, it also happens to be the overarching theme of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”

Tony award-winning playwright Joe Di Pietro loosely bases the story first performed on Broadway in 2005 on the Bard’s penchant for comedies that include disguises and gender bending.

What’s entirely original is setting the action to Elvis Presley songs performed by a spirited cast of 16 performers, who sing and dance into each other’s hearts and those of the opening night audience. (A pox though on the superannuated males emitting stadium whistles in place of applause.)

Di Pietro set the scene in a small Midwest burg. There, sexy blond newcomer Sandra (Jill Slyter), a newly hired curator for its museum, derides the town as one where “everyone marries their cousin.”

The stifling atmosphere stems from “The Mamie Eisenhower Decency Act,” which prohibits public necking, loud music, tight clothes and anything else vaguely risqué. Michelle Bendetti deftly embodies town mayor Matilda Hyde, a tight-laced shrew who enforces the letter of the law, who later reveals her own dark secret.

Meanwhile, the town’s teen-aged population finds ways to circumvent her dictums, while the adults fumble while sorting out their own affairs of the heart.

Rebellion erupts with the arrival of Chad, a motorcycle-riding, guitar-toting ladies’ man just released from jail for “riling up women” elsewhere. Hence the production begins with “Jail House Rock,” a number replete with a dour warden and sexy guards.

Chad soon riles up Natalie (Lily Ganser), a pretty mechanic who does not score points with the troubadour biker. Sensing opportunity to become his buddy, she transforms herself into Ed, Chad’s sidekick. Ganser embodies lovelorn Natalie with aplomb, but as Ed, replete with greased-on beard, becomes a bit hard to believe. No matter, Sandra falls for Ed after he hands her a note containing a Shakespeare sonnet ostensibly sent by Chad, who vainly tries to convince her that he’s more than a testosterone-soaked playboy. The unintended result is that Sandra falls for Ed, but let’s not give it all away here.

Sandra is not the only one who falls for Ed. Chad becomes attracted to his sidekick and new best friend, ready to abandon heterosexuality for affections unknown and unsettling.

Then there is Dennis, an aspiring dentist with a crush on Natalie and a penchant for Shakespeare, who provides the play’s most surprising character transformation. Christopher Hansell’s versatility in morphing Dennis from lovestruck geek to buoyant bridegroom is a treat.

Along the way is an engaging wealth of Presley songs, hip waggling and amorous subplots tied together with “One Night With You,” written by Dave Bartholomew and Pearl King.

Under the creative guidance of musical director Jeffrey Biering and choreographer Paula Hammons Sloan, the entire ensemble rocks to recorded music, singing and dancing on cue without the benefit of a live band. Dwan Hayes becomes a sort of mother courage with Motown pipes as Sylvia, mother of a cute and rebellious Lorraine, who’s in love with the mayor’s son. Alexa Briana Crismon more than holds her own as Lorraine.

Director Steve Steiner, a musician earlier in his career, said production costs prohibited hiring a live orchestra, but that lack of one proved a good teaching tool for a cast of mostly emerging performers.

“Jeff and I taught the cast how to feel as if an orchestra is behind them and how to make sure that tracks were matching the show while being able to slow down or speed them up as needed during rehearsals,” he said.

Steiner said that song lyrics are original, but that arrangements are revamped for the show. For example, Steve Oremus wrote the arrangement of “Heartbreak Hotel,” originally written by Tommy Durden and Mae Boren Axton. Steiner said the denizens of the museum’s sculpture garden, who come to life, are in the original Broadway script and not an homage to the Pageant of the Masters next door, as some might suspect.

Some cast members are performing at the Playhouse for the first time, and some are still attending college, said Steiner. Ganser, for example, is a sophomore at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and Crismon, a senior at UC Irvine.

Steiner returns to the Playhouse after directing “Ring of Fire” and “The Buddy Holly Story” here. As founding director of Boebe Productions, he is also the show’s producer. His wife Gail Anderson is the firm’s production manager.

Playhouse artistic director Ann E. Wareham said that “All Shook Up” was the third Boebe summer production and that she’s already casting about for next year.

With summer in mid-swing, one can already look forward to what she’ll surprise us with then.

Moulton Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach.

Through Aug. 7. Tickets $40-$75. 949 497-2787.

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Jordan Dimitrov works on a model sailing ship.

Jordan Dimitrov made his first replica of a ship at age 8 and remains fascinated with maritime history and sailing vessels plowing the seven seas to this day.

Thirty-two years later, three of his meticulously life-like model ships can be seen at this year’s Festival of Arts, where 140 artists of diverse media are once again showing their best work in an array of traditional media and label-defying hybrids.

A second year exhibitor, Dimitrov became intrigued with boats watching an Australian television show in his native Bulgaria. Thus started his study of sailing ships.

“All my ships are made completely true to life and from natural materials,” he explained. Rigging and sails are made from cotton and wooden pins, rather than nails, hold the ship’s parts together. “You can’t see it here, but I pay equal attention to the inside as I do to the outside of the ships,” he said.

Even though he is not a sailor, he eschews pre-sketches or any pictorial guidance. He said that he builds his creations from keel to masts, bow to stern, even ship’s figureheads, strictly from images in his head. “I visualize them in three dimensions in my mind,” he explained. The pirate vessel “Twilight” can be acquired for $20,000, and Dimitrov accepts commissions.

2) Brian Giberson surrounded by his totems

Painting, both acrylic and oil is well represented again this year, with many artists such as Carla Bosch, April Raber and Gerald Schwartz relying on the plein-air style of painting on location to capture bucolic or urban environments.

Ellen Rose’s stylized pooches cross lines between representation and abstraction with fetching result. On hiatus for four years, she’s back with “Charlie,” a humorously dour bulldog and other painted four-legged denizens. “I took time out since my art is not always what the public and festival want, technical quality and commercial viability. This time I hit that intersection with the dogs,” she said. Besides, the shaggy crew garners commissions, she said. Charlie, who also embellishes gift shop t-shirts, hoodies and coffee mugs, put her in the black, she said.

Elizabeth McGhee, an exhibitor since 2010 and then barely out of the Laguna College of Art and Design, uses elements of representation, ancient written lore and her own storytelling to give depth to meticulously crafted paintings. McGhee was recruited as a juror this year. “Being a juror let me step aside from my own biases. Instead I judged according to concept, creativity and craftsmanship as a balance of all three,” she said.

Among three-dimensional works, Brian Giberson’s totems invite close scrutiny. Made from recycled objects including musical instruments, masks, elements of furniture and small metal embellishments, they have an abstract spiritual quality that imbues a space with meaning, said Giberson. “Currently I am finding new methods to add different shading and texture to the pieces through build-up of material and use of color,” he said.

Then again, who would expect pieces of a flattened colander in a stained glass window? Barbara B. Bond has put new twists on an art form dating to the 14th century by connecting stained glass pieces with lead and metal, not copper foil, into independent hanging panels or freestanding sculpture. “I am hoping for a stained glass revival, but meanwhile I take the art form up a notch,” she said.

These are a few examples in the visual arts that prove intriguing:

Festival veteran Tom Lamb’s aerial photographs transform into head-turning abstracts. Robert Hansen’s images of the Yucatan Peninsula and elsewhere in Mexico are endless in their variety. As are works by glass artist Kent Kahlen and jewelry pieces by Karin Worden, who appears to have successfully transited from gallerist to solo studio artist.

On the entertainment front, festival events director Susan Davis has come up with new fare: Tuesday nights feature The Rising Stars Music Series, concerts by emerging musicians introduced by established stars. For example, on Aug. 2, Warren Hill will introduce Olivia Rox.

Also new is “Books and Brunch,” that introduce popular authors to visitors over brunch. Aug. 21 brings Michelle Gable, author of “I’ll See You in Paris,” featured on the New York Times bestseller list. Tickets cost $75.

“It’s a festival of arts, after all, so we want to introduce visitors to visual arts, theater, music and now writing,” said Davis.

So far, the festival is enjoying a sprightly 84th summer. Last Sunday, a celebratory mood arose among lawn picnickers when the harmonious voices and acoustic guitar of Justine Bennet and Jamie Drake, known as the Pendleton Sisters, broke into “Happy Birthday.” Heads swiveled toward its intended recipient, a small woman seated at a table with an attentive mien. Laguna Woods resident Bibi Griffin chose to spend her 100th birthday at the place that she has frequented every summer Sunday for decades. “I’m not quite sure how long I’ve been coming here; it’s at least 50 years by now,” she said.

The festival, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, runs through. Aug. 27. www.LagunaFestivalofArts.org

‘Ice Cream Man’ Paints Olympians

Years ago, Laguna Beach artist Scott Moore painted “Ice Cream Man.” Now, Moore wouldn’t be wrong to change the title of his oil painting to “Ice Cream Man and two Olympians.”

Moore, 66, used his neighbors’ daughters as the models for the painting. Now grown up, the girls are members of the U.S. women’s Olympic water polo team getting ready to play in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Scott Moore’s “Ice Cream Man.”

Aria and Makenzie Fischer also played on the Laguna Beach High School team. Makenzie graduated in 2015 and Aria starts her senior year in September.

In “Ice Cream Man,” Moore depicts that iconic childhood memory of the ice cream man’s visit, heralded by music coming from the truck.

“I love telling stories of my childhood through my paintings,” Moore said in a statement. ” ‘Ice Cream Man’ brings me back to summertime, where the music from the ice cream truck stopped us in our tracks. We’d beg mom for money and chase the truck down on our bicycles!”

Moore uses a unique style in his works. “Painting images with two scales gives me the freedom to enlarge some of the often forgotten objects that make up the details of a great memory,” he said.

Moore is one of the featured artists in Laguna Beach’s annual Festival of Arts, underway through Aug. 31.

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They are middle-schoolers with kooky monikers like William Barfée, Leaf Coneybear and Chip Tolentino, all vying to win the top prize at the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Divining the derivation of words like boanthropy or omphaloskepsis, they are supervised by a wackily stern Rona Lisa Peretti (Kristen Matson) and a merely wacky vice principal (Terry Christopher).

Rebecca B. Thomas shows off her spelling bee ranking to her dads ringed by other contestants in the No Square Theater production that closes this weekend, with shows Friday through Sunday.

Given esoteric word puzzles like “syzygy” (the alignment of the sun, earth and moon) or “Weltanschauung” (world view), the six spelling aces soldier on while learning that life can be unfair and love elusive, but that a little magic comes in handy.

Life’s give and take and the lessons six teens derive from it comprise the gist of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” in its final weekend at No Square Theater through Aug. 7.

Produced by No Square, the musical is based on “Crepuscule,” a play by Rebecca Feldman about a middle-school spelling bee. It first premiered at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway in 2005, but since then has been a staple on smaller stages nationwide.

It’s a fun romp under the direction and choreography by Joe Lauderdale, a stage veteran known for eliciting solid work from performers of all ages.

Straight off, signs delineating the spellers’ turf as “Home of the Putnam Possums,” set the tone, ranging from slapstick funny to slightly bizarre to poignantly moving.

Upping the bizarre quotient in this past Sunday’s production were audience members Pat Quilter, Carrie Reynolds, Maureen Maher and Leon Rosen (spouse of production manager Bree Burgess Rosen), who sat in having to spell “cow” and “Mexican” to the consternation of the more challenged teens. No worry though, the oldsters all washed out eventually. Burgess Rosen explained that the musical’s script allowed for individualization of locale and cast, so Lauderdale added the superannuated middle-schoolers and signage alluding to local supporters.

Cooper Reynolds, as last year’s spelling bee winner, Chip Tolentino, struts around in boy scout regalia and the outward cockiness of adolescent males, but eventually becomes fatally distracted from his spelling mission by longing (and its physical manifestation) for a fellow contestant’s sister. He’s hilarious as he hollers about “his erection” and the little head subverting the big one in “Chip’s Lament”.

His plight and that of other losers elicits scant sympathy from Midge Mahoney (Chancey Allen), a “comfort counselor” tasked with escorting them from the stage armed with a stern mien and a box of fruit juice. The slightly dissonant notes in her rendition of “Prayer of the Comfort Counselor” are written into the score, said Burgess Rosen.

As the insufferable, allergic-to-anything Barfée, pronounced Barfy to his ire, Eric T. Anderson steals the show with his insistence on first writing out a word with his foot. The magic foot works until sabotaged by another contestant’s two fathers, but magic prevails in the end.

Tara Waldschmidt portrays Olive Ostrovsky, saddled with an indifferent father and mother on a spiritual quest to India, as well as with the word lugubrious. Her best friend may be the dictionary, but after a couple of twists and turns she acquires a human one as well.

Aaron Griffin embodies an endearing Coneybear, a child-like sprite and graceful loser. Zofia Weretka ably portrays Marcy Park, a child prodigy speaking six languages but who’s ready to chuck it all for normalcy.

And there’s a live band. Whoopee to music director Christopher W. Smith on piano, Johnathon Smith on keyboard, Joseph Muskat on drums/percussion, Karen Zeal on reeds and Julia Howell on cello.

“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” No Square Theatre, 384 Legion St.

949-715-0333 www.nosquare.org

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Casey McQuillen showed off what he called “stupid doodles” but that were charming line drawings that might live in a kid’s inner comic book. His buddy Jonathan Jucaban meanwhile manipulated an outsized marking pen that made him look like a kid with a with a new toy. “We’re here for the first time and are just having fun,” said McQuillen, a Laguna Hills resident. A graphic designer, Jucaban noted that he was also screen printer and a registered nurse. The latter might have come in useful at this monthly First Thursday Art Walk where revelers tend to consume notable amounts of wine offered by participating galleries.

On the block between Brooks and Oak Streets, merchants included the Logan Bros. Barbershop, Aviator Nation, Lala Boutique and the Spice Merchant.

Organized by Artists Republic gallery owner Torrey Cook, they had allowed artists to turn their front sidewalks into a mini street fair by setting up easels and stands.

Laguna College of Art and Design graduate Grigoriy Peppo showed off superior classical drawing skills depicting characters ranging from European grandees to the eminently drawable Albert Einstein. “I am in part color blind, so I rely on earth colors that are applied in thin layers until I achieve desired effects,” he explained.

Others were not quite as lofty in their ambitions offering printed teeshirts, cards and embellished skateboards which sold for roughly $250.

“Over the past year, I have invited artists to live draw and paint on the sidewalk. Allowing the artists to draw and paint outdoors gives the area an ambience found in other metropolises of the world,” said Cook.

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