Laguna Art Festivals

How can you improve on an artist colony near the beach in Southern California? Throw in a few art festivals during the summer and you’ve got my perfect birthday outing. I used to hate having a July birthday when I was a kid because I never got to celebrate with my classmates in school but the Laguna Art Festivals give me a reason to look forward to birthdays now that I’m at that age where I’d rather ignore them. Since birthdays mean I get to shamelessly torture my husband for 24 hours, I get him up early so we’ll be assured a parking spot. We exit the 5 freeway onto the 133/Laguna Canyon Road (be careful not to veer onto the Toll Road!) that winds through endangered pastoral land developers salivate over, but that’s another article altogether… A few miles down, we hang a right into the Act V dirt and gravel parking lot. Depending on the year, it’s been free and you pay for the trolley that takes you into town or, like this year (2005), we paid $5 to park and the trolley was free. I sure don’t want to think about the politics that go into those pricing decisions each year… Anyway, the trolleys run every 10 minutes or so to the festival grounds and also into downtown Laguna, which makes getting around this typically parking-challenged beach town pleasantly convenient. There are three major art festivals in the summer: The Sawdust Festival, Art-A-Fair and Festival of Arts-all along Laguna Canyon Road within walking distance of each other. The first two celebrate their 39th anniversaries this year and the Grande Dame, Festival of Arts, observes it’s 73rd summer. I advise logging onto the websites of the Festivals to see what kinds of discounts are being offered for admissions. This year, we got a two for one deal with my Bowers Museum membership card for the Sawdust and a half off coupon for Art-A-Fair. If you live close by and plan to visit more than once, most have seasonal passes. And every discount helps--and leaves you more to spend on art! We usually start at The Sawdust, not out of any particular design, just habit. After a visit to their well-maintained ladies room, I’m ready to stroll and gaze and sigh. All of these shows are well juried so there’s no junk here. I want one of everything! Of the three festivals, I think The Sawdust aims to give a total experience to their patrons. Not only do they have good art, you’ll find glass blowers, constant entertainment on a lushly shaded deck, lots of different food choices and art classes for the kids. Their atmosphere is casual (there really is sawdust on the ground), all artists are in individual booths and the art ranges from $2 cards to artwork in the hundreds, with lots of potters, jewelers and even my favorite toe ring booth (this year’s theme-The Toe-night Show with Johnny Carson). And the layout allows for gentle breezes even on the warmest days. We get our hands stamped and move on. Next, on the same side of the street, sits Art-A-Fair. More wonderful art of every description, a tad more serious than The Sawdust, more of a gallery setting as opposed to booths, though most of the artists sell greeting card versions of their work. Some of my favorite painters exhibit here and it’s like visiting old friends. It seems to me that more photography and sculpture find their way to Art-A-Fair and the layout is wide open and inviting. There’s a lovely sit-down restaurant at the far end of the gallery and children’s classes are held in the center of the complex. My husband’s one complaint the whole day (yes, he’s a saint…) was that the tarps stretched above the gallery kept out the sun but they also kept out the breezes. We didn’t have as much time in Laguna this year as usual because we had other Birthday Commitments so we went back to The Sawdust to pick up birthday loot. Something I learned this year is that, if possible, buy your art from the artist if they’re around. When the artists aren’t at their booths, you can pay for your purchases at the Sales Counter run by The Sawdust itself. I had picked up a print, some cards and a gorgeous, colorfully swirly, sparkly paperweight at booths without artists on our first pass and left them with our friend Kathy at the toe ring booth. When we came back, the artists happened to be present at their spaces so I paid them directly. One girl thanked me for paying her because, she whispered, The Sawdust takes a commission when they take payments. From a business point of view that makes sense… But as a creative person myself, I know I like to keep as much of my profits as I can. Since we didn’t get to the Festival of Arts this year, let me tell you about our experience when we took the community tour from our hometown to see the Pageant of the Masters, which everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. Most cities in Orange County offer the tour bus excursion to experience the art show and Pageant, which again makes it very convenient if you don’t have to deal with the raised blood pressure of finding a parking space in Laguna… in the summer… The Festival of Arts show itself rates to me as the most upscale of the Big Three. The pieces are expensive, sometimes bigger than life size and of utmost quality. For John Lennon’s jewelry rattlin’ patrons it’s a buying opportunity, but for the likes of me, it’s a museum where I walk with my hands behind my back and admire the precious items from a safe, non-breakable distance. The karat gold, handmade jewelry is found here and the elaborately framed pieces that belong in teak lined libraries. If I sound like a reverse snob, well, I’m just jealous. A walk through the Festival of Arts makes me long for fine things that I can’t afford. But it’s a rich experience humbled by a section of the work of talented school children. Throughout the summer, many classes and theme days attract families and art lovers. On our tour, we strolled around the Festival, ate dinner at a Ruby’s dinette outside the theatre, then found our seats for the Pageant of the Masters. Basically, the Pageant is artwork brought to life. All year, the hundreds of participants practice their crafts--costuming, lighting, standing very, very, very still… Paintings and sculptures recreated by actors fill the stage and spaces around the amphitheatre, narrated with stories of the art and artists. And you sit, fidgeting, wondering how they can stand with their arms outstretched or squatting like that for sooooo long. Several times during the evening, they put together an artwork piece by piece, bringing in the frame, setting the props, spotting the actors, so you can see how the effect is created. It’s not until the lighting clicks in, though, that the oohh’s and aahh’s echo in the bowl of the theatre. My husband, the actor, explains it this way: “In theatre, you light to create dimension. Here, you’re lighting to eliminate dimension.” You leave the theatre with an appreciation for all the time and effort this purely Californian art form requires. Just a little trivia and some resources before I must go and frame my art treasures from this year’s birthday spree. The Sawdust Festival accepts artists only from Laguna Beach, Art-A-Fair is a Co-op and run by the artists themselves and Festival of Arts admits artists from a limited number of cities in the area. Here are some website must-clicks: www.sawdustartfestival.org www.foapom.com www.art-a-fair.com www.lagunabeachinfo.org Wear good walking shoes, apply your sunscreen and bring your checkbook!

<i>1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die</i> a Must-Read for Film Buffs

Cinema is an art form that's over 100 years old. Hundreds of thousands of films have been produced of all shapes and sizes and of all genres all over the world. As lovers of cinema, we are often confused and dumbfounded as to which films to watch. As an answer, Stephen Jay Schneider and a group of film critics and theorists around the world put together this compilation of 1,001 culturally, technologically, artistically and historically significant films.

Arranged in chronological order and covering over 100 years worth of history in film, from the early 1902 Georges Milies science-fiction film "A Voyage to the Moon" to last year's Oscar Best Picture winner "Million Dollar Baby", the book covers a very wide range of forms and genres of film: From huge Hollywood epic spectacles like "Gone with the Wind" and "Spartacus" to gritty independent pictures like John Cassavetes's "Faces" and Samuel Fuller's "Shock Corridor"; from famous mainstream blockbuster features like "Titanic" and "Jurassic Park" to obscure, daring short films like "Blonde Cobra" and Luis Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou"; from kid-friendly "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" to disturbing, daring films like "Salo" and "In the Realm of the Senses". Significant effort was made by the editors and the contributing writers to represent nearly every genre of film out there. In addition to featuring the well-known, highly regarded classics of horror, drama, comedy, science fiction, fantasy, etc. sub-genres as varied as Chinese kung fu movies ("Shaolin Master Killer"), blaxploitation ("Sweet Sweetbacks Baaadaassssssss Song") and mockumentaries ("This Is Spinal Tap") are also represented. Also impressive in this book is that it took the effort to feature significant films from all over the world even in countries which are not primarily known for their film industry like Senegal, Egypt and Jamaica. All in an apparent effort to cover as wide a range of the art of film as possible.

All the great directors, both of the past and of contemporary times, have several of their films on this book: John Ford, Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder, Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Luis Bunuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodovar, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman etc. among others. Alfred Hitchcock has the distinction of having the most films with 15 from his oeuvre profiled. Each film is given an essay written by the various contributors detailing the film's significance, it's history and various interesting tidbits of trivia as well as a critique of the film in an intelligent non-pretentious or overly scholarly manner. Though the book is by no means perfect, the questionable inclusion of "Meet the Parents" is one of the more glaring of its flaws and arguments can be made for the inclusion and exclusion of several other movies, this book probably comes the closest to being the most definitive list available that's accessible even to the average film goer. Quite a number of films featured in this book are not currently available on video or DVD. Perhaps their inclusion in this book would help them get released on DVD and thus finding a wider audience.

Whether you are a budding teenage film buff or a veteran film scholar, there is plenty to love about this book which gives a straight-forward, non-snobbish take on film history that would make the art of watching movies truly enjoyable. This is the book all lovers of film should have on their bookshelves.

Photography Insights and Techniques

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One might ask what photography is. What is the purpose of taking a photograph? For some, just a simple snap shot will do but, for others, there is more of a destiny to experience in the photograph. Photography captures a split second in time or, simply put, a moment captured in a blink of an eye. Photographers create illusions of realism which resembles the existent world with content and form that are inseparable. In effect, the photographer has generated a story all their own. 

Photography is made from anything perceived. Seeing is believing when the moment is captured on film regardless of the subject matter. No matter how many pictures are taken of the same subject by different individuals, the photographs will never be the same “style” because the subject is in the eye of the beholder. For example, you may like that shiny red 57’ Chevy in the front of the coffee shop, so you take a photograph. Your friend loves the seat in front of the coffee shop window with the reflection of the 57’ Chevy in the glass. There are two distinctly separate shots of the same subject but, emotionally, they are very different images. No two artists are identical and different viewers will never see the same photograph in the same manner. Photographs generate a mood that creates an emotion and they can be background or landscapes or nothing but a mere rust spot with texture. 

Photography not only captures that instantaneous moment in time but also captures a visual reality. Photography, when it was first invented, was used to represent the world accurately with little room or depiction of artistic ability. Thus, the photographer could have been anyone in the crowd, and that person brought forth the way things looked at the time—showing the world what is to be perceived. 

This is not the ways of photography in the 20th century. Photography is now a truly unique art form, and a photograph can hold two and three dimensional space, as well as a one point perspective. Photography gives us the opportunity for aestheticism our everyday world. Our attention is focused on what we would normally dismiss our attention focuses on seeing beyond the believable giving a visual sensation to our minds. A photograph can be captured in one-sixtieth of a second by the shutters of the camera. In effect, art happens in the “blink of an eye”. 

Since Kodak introduced the first hand held camera in 1888, giving photography a new mission and meaning, the world has never been the same. However, the technological advances have affected photography. It has strengthened the use of a camera and allowed the photographer far more precise subjective perceptions of the subject matter. According the book The World of Art, Life Magazine started publication in 1936, and American photography used photography as their tool of disclosure. “Pictures can be beautiful, but must tell facts too,” reveals the text. Photographers must include real life recognition with lines and rhythms of the surface because, without this, the photograph would be unresponsive. As an interesting insight, a horizontal photograph is peaceful; a photograph with less foreground brings dramatization and a photograph with more foreground shows nature connected with unity. 

Photography is different than other art medium, yet the classical compositions brought together by the artists of yesteryears are still used. Photography has many techniques and art forms that differ greatly. For instance, there is black and white photography that the photographer can develop easily in even a small amount of space. According to photographer and Professor of Art Mike Wonser, a dark room can be set up in a bathroom. The light must be blocked out, but the photographs can be developed in the bath tub! So, you do not need much space to work and it is magic to watch the photograph appear. Another simple technique was shared by George Jolokai. He stated “a photographer can carry a bottle of water to add shininess or reflections on the subject matter”. The magic of photography is endless. 

Another tool used in photography is the use of slow or fast shutter speeds. Slow shutter speeds can blur water, but the use of slow shutter speeds requires a tri-pod to prevent blurring the entire photograph. The water will blur because water is in constant motion but the background or other subject matter in the photograph remains still. 

Another form of photography is that of color photography. Color brings depth and musical rhythm and is a very powerful tool to the human senses. Color photography creates a complex interplay between form and content that can create dynamic color contrasts. The photograph process takes time because critical technical decisions must come from the photographer before the release of shutter that results in the capturing of an essence of time and mood on film. 

The basic elements of style, composition, and technique are the photographer’s tools for structure; it is the photographer’s imagination that leaves an impression embedded the minds of the viewer.

References 

Joloki, George (2004, Spring). Lecture Art 101, Central Oregon Community College, Bend< Oregon 

Sayre, Henry M. (2004) A World of Art (4th ed.) Pearson Prentice Hall. 

Wonser, M. (2004, Spring). Art History 203, Central Oregon Community College, Bend< Oregon