Newport Beach’s first art in public places...

Newport Beach’s first art in public places project, at Inspiration Point in Corona del Mar, will be dedicated Thursday at 3:30 p.m. The coastal bluff on Ocean Boulevard was re-landscaped by Cunningham Design Inc. of Santa Barbara, winner of an open competition for the project.

Driven for cover by the rain, the jurying for this summer’s Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts took place in a number of sites on Saturday: The 253 artists vying for the 20 to 25 available spaces showed their work in the Forum Theatre, under the theater, on the Irvine Bowl stage, in the artists’ lounge and even in the men’s room, according to festival publicist Sally Reeve. “It was kind of ‘hunt the art’ as far as the jurors were concerned,” she said. Scores fro each artist, many of whom showed more that one medium, will be posted today, but the final choices will not be made until after April 3.