LAGUNA’S SUMMER GALAS : With Festivals and Pageantry, the Artists’ Haven Salutes Tradition and ‘the Beyond’

It’s 8 a.m., and already Laguna Beach locals are dashing around the town’s quaint business district to shop for groceries, gas up the car or stop by the dry cleaners. The scene is repeated every Saturday morning in July and August.

That’s because residents of this scenic community know two things: It’s festival time, and the tourists are coming.

That means that getting errands and chores done early is a matter of survival for Laguna’s 24,500 residents.

“During the arts festivals,” explained Police Chief Neil Purcell, “28,000 to 32,000 cars travel the coast highway daily through Laguna, and we can expect about 10,000 visitors a day.”

Four Attractions This Summer

The attractions--four of them this summer--are the Festival of Arts & Pageant of the Masters, the Sawdust Festival, Art-A-Fair, and a newcomer, the Starfair Visionary Arts Expo, a New Age art event. All begin this weekend or next and continue through Aug. 28 on a stretch of Laguna Canyon Road.

The city’s festival tradition began in 1932, a direct result of the Depression. With sales stagnating, a group of artists organized the first Festival of Arts to promote their work. The next year, a “side show” was added--a re-creation of the painting “Whistler’s Mother” featuring a live model.

“They charged 10 cents to see it, and the pageant was born,” said Sally Reeve, the show’s public relations director for 21 years.

Today, the Pageant of the Masters is the granddaddy of the events, with its re-creations of great works of art in tableaux vivants (living pictures) using live models and technical lighting effects. For a half century, it has attracted millions of visitors from all over the world.

Laguna’s reputation as an artists colony began at the turn of the century. Many artists sought inspiration in the bit of paradise nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the San Joaquin Mountains but were slow to settle in the area because of a lack of drinking water and accessible roads.

After a few homesteaders moved in, completion of Laguna Canyon Road in 1914 opened the door for others. Newcomers joined residents, like watercolorist Norman St. Clair, who by then had painted many of Laguna’s beautiful vistas. By World War I, the city had become an artists’ mecca.

A Citywide Project

Today, the Pageant of the Masters and its accompanying art festivals have evolved into a citywide project, with the pageant alone involving nearly 500 volunteers. For many of them, the events are more than tools for boosting art sales or funding scholarships and grants in the arts.

“To me,” said Glen Eytchison, 33, pageant director for 10 years, “the pageant is a place where people reach deep inside to give a lot of themselves. I consider the pageant my home and those people my family.”

Staged nightly beginning Friday at the Irvine Bowl, the Pageant of the Masters has captured worldwide attention for its technical accuracy.

Tableaux vivants were first presented in churches in medieval Europe to depict religious scenes. Later they were staged in the streets and public squares on special occasions, or to welcome and impress visiting royalty. Although the general practice was to freeze in position and remain silent, those posing sometimes spoke or sang.

“Before I became involved, a pageant director tried allowing more movement,” Reeve said. “For instance, a woman posing as a harpist suddenly began to play the instrument, but it wasn’t very popular. The audiences didn’t like it.”

Over the years, the event has grown around its audiences, and the directors have been more than willing to oblige them. Recently, however, some critics have taken a few jabs at the pageant’s seriousness and what they perceive as an unwillingness to stretch its creative limits.

“Actually, they don’t criticize the production itself, but mainly the concept and its tendency to be safe,” Eytchison said. “One critic said we should do more challenging pieces and recommended a particular painting, which happened to be a distorted, abstract-like portrait.”

Though he appreciates these suggestions, Eytchison said they are often made without an understanding of the technical aspects of the show.

“Not only would that portrait be difficult to reproduce using a live subject, but how would someone in the back row even see something that small?” he asked.

Even with a large body of work, such as Norman Rockwell’s, there are only so many paintings that translate well onto the stage, Eytchison explained.

“In paintings where there is extreme perspective, with someone very far away and someone very close, or where people are half on and half off the canvas, we are limited.”

In response to criticism that the pageant has always ended on a serious note with Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” he said: “We do it because it reminds everyone in the pageant of the commitment to retain the traditions that were established by those who came before us.”

Narration, Music

This year’s 25-part program, with tableaux ranging from a 1300 BC shrine to a well-known Huntington Beach surfing sculpture, will once again be narrated by Thurl Ravenscroft, best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger. The two-hour event will be complemented by a 27-piece orchestra under the direction of Richard Henn, who writes music to match the moods of the art works. Forty-year pageant veteran Carl Callaway is technical director.

The annual Festival of Arts also opens next Friday on the grounds of the 6-acre Irvine Bowl Park. Besides exhibits by 160 Laguna-area artists and crafts people, there will be a junior art exhibit by 150 Orange County schoolchildren, a puppet show, a free children’s art workshop and Sunday afternoon entertainment by Ballet Pacifica.

The Festival of Arts & Pageant of the Masters are at Irvine Bowl Park, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, from Friday through Aug. 28. Festival hours are 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. daily, and the pageant is at 8:30 nightly. General admission to the pageant is $2; children 12 and under free if accompanied by an adult; senior citizens, $1. Admission also is free to those attending the pageant on the same day.

Pageant tickets may be purchased at the box office on the grounds. Advance tickets may be purchased until Friday, after which they may only be purchased the day of the show on a first-come, first-served basis. All seats are reserved and range in price from $9 to $35.

If the Pageant of the Masters looks to the past for inspiration, Laguna’s newest festival, the Starfair Visionary Arts Expo, promises to give visitors a “glimpse of the beyond.”

Launching the festival season, which began Friday, Starfair aims to lift the spirit, according to expo creator Yamini Redewill.

“Our motto is ‘The Last Frontier Is the Space Between Us,’ ” said Redewill, who owns Moonwater Enterprises, which packages New Age-related products.

Twenty-five artists are exhibiting visionary (prophetic and mystical) art and sculpture, as well as hand-painted clothing and kinetic art. New Age features include Kirlian photography (which purportedly captures auras and human energy), a pyramid for experiencing heightened energy, a synchro-energizer to include a “profound state of tranquility” and a star chamber for a “glimpse of the beyond,” Redewill said.

“It’s different than other festivals,” she said. “People will sense the difference when they open the door. We have New Age music, a soothing waterfall and lighting effects. The ambiance is soft and peaceful and loving.”

New Age books, tapes and ancient artifacts also are available.

“We’re bringing the spiritual arts into the mainstream, giving the general public a taste of the metaphysical as it relates to art.

A Look at ‘Inner Lives’

“The time is right. A lot of people are waking up to the spiritual aspects of their inner lives. They’re discovering that life is more than dollars-and-cents survival.”

Redewill, who plans to take her visionary arts expo around the country beginning in the fall, will donate part of the Starfair profits to the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, Save Our Shores and the Innersilence Foundation, a network of philosophical and religious groups.

Starfair Visionary Arts Expo, 793 Laguna Canyon Road, is between the Sawdust Festival and the Art-A-Fair. It continues through Aug. 28. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with a $1 admission fee. Information: (714) 497-9710, or (714) 497-9444.

The popular Sawdust Festival, which opens today, is the only Laguna festival that selects its 200 exhibitors by a lottery rather than a jury system.

Now in its 22nd year, the festival is noted for the creative and often ingenious booths designed and built by the artists and vendors.

There are demonstration booths as well, a children’s booth offering free arts and crafts lessons, food ranging from pasta to Mexican fare and strolling entertainers.

The Sawdust Festival, at 935 Laguna Canyon Road, opens today and continues through Aug. 28. Hours are 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. An exception is Monday, the Fourth of July, when the festival will close at 7 p.m. General admission is $3; children 12 and under free when accompanied by an adult; senior citizens, $2. Information: (714) 494-3030.

Art-A-Fair, billed as the “heart of the festivals” this year because of its new central location, also opens today. Boasting an all-new facade and landscaping, designed by the show’s general manager-contractor Rick Archbold, the exhibition features a sculpture garden where artwork can be viewed from all angles.

From its humble beginnings in 1967 at Park Avenue and Glenneyre Street, the Art-A-Fair has grown to involve 180 artists exhibiting in a wide variety of media, some of them experimental.

Sketchers, Foundry on Hand

Quick-sketch portrait artists are on hand, and there will also be art demonstrations and mask making. A working foundry will be on the grounds July 30-31, giving visitors a chance to participate in the creation of bronze casting using the lost wax process. There will be a small fee to cover materials.

Unlike the Festival of Arts, Art-A-Fair does not have a residency rule barring artists from outside the Laguna area. As a result, it has attracted exhibitors from as far away as Soldotna, Alaska.

Food booths dot the grounds, and entertainment ranges from street theater to improvisational groups.

Art-A-Fair’s new location is 777 Laguna Canyon Road, between the Festival of Arts and the Sawdust Festival. It opens today and continues through Aug. 28. Hours are 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday-Thursday; 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays. General admission is $3.50; children 12 and under free when accompanied by an adult; senior citizens, $2.50. Information: (714) 494-4514.

Directions and Parking

To get to any of the festivals, take the Laguna Freeway (California 133, which becomes Laguna Canyon Road) from the San Diego or Santa Ana Freeway. Or take Coast Highway to Laguna Beach. Turn onto Broadway, which becomes Laguna Canyon Road.

Visitors can park for free in a vacant lot across from the McCormick Mortuary on the north side of Laguna Canyon Road and take a tram to the festivals, to the beach or through downtown.

Other parking includes metered spaces, designated private lots and spaces in front of businesses. Parking is also available on weekends at the Art Institute of Southern California, 2222 Laguna Canyon Road.

Trams stop at all bus stops and where designated. They run continuously from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. at 50 cents one way, or $1.50 for an all-day pass.

Information: (714) 494-1145.