Maybe It’s Time to Get Serious, Laguna : Perhaps there’s a place in the annual festival for the different kinds of artists working in the city.

David Sabaroff has a problem. Sabaroff feels that he has a hard time being taken seriously in his chosen profession, largely because he lives in Laguna Beach, the Orange County beachside community famous nationwide as an artists’ colony.

Because of that reputation, Sabaroff says, he finds that he is disdained, or merely ignored, by professionals in his field, with whom he is striving to build a reputation.

Sabaroff, you see, is an artist.

“If I try to show my work in the L.A. galleries, it’s bad enough saying I’m from Orange County; I don’t dare tell them I’m a Laguna Beach artist or they won’t even look at my work.”

What it all comes down to is this: Sabaroff finds that the Festival of Arts and its companion Pageant of the Masters, while great fodder for the Laguna Chamber of Commerce, don’t command mounds of respect in serious art circles. (Let’s just say, to borrow from Woody Allen, that their names never fail to get a big laugh.)

The ironies are rife for a city that has more art galleries than yogurt stores. (But then, Laguna’s the kind of place where you don’t buy personalized license plates to get noticed--you open an art gallery with your name on it, stocked with your own watercolors.)

Sabaroff, 43, has been exhibiting his black-granite sculptures on and off for about 10 years in the annual Festival of the Arts, which, along with the Pageant and the Sawdust and Art-A-Fair festivals, lure about 200,000 tourists into Laguna Canyon each year.

Hundreds of artists exhibit in the festivals. Many make enough money during the summer to live the rest of the year.

But Sabaroff says he wants more than a few sales. He’s after credibility--which, he says, in drastically short supply when it comes to Laguna’s outdoor art markets. The kind of standards Sabaroff might like to apply probably would rule out 90% of what currently is on view--Laguna seascapes, nature scenarios, cute fuzzy animals and blossoming flowers in decorator colors.

“I know some other artists in the festival who are also serious about their work, and we’d like to change the festival from something just for gawkers and hawkers and make it into a serious arts event. The infrastructure is in place--it could be a wonderful place for artists to show new work and bounce ideas off each other.”

So he is petitioning the festival’s governing board to put more effort into promoting the festival separately from the pageant, an event that may be high on entertainment appeal but, shall we say, low on artistic vision.

The festival board easily could throw the whole thing right back at Sabaroff with one question: “Why fix something that isn’t broken?”

After all, as board member David Young told The Times recently, Laguna Beach “is the only city I know of in the world where art subsidizes the city rather than the city subsidizing art.” The Florence, Paris and London arts scenes notwithstanding, Young’s point will require a hefty comeback if Sabaroff is to counter it effectively.

Sabaroff points to the lowbrow reputation that the festival projects to the world of serious art. He says he’s trying to demonstrate to festival supporters that they have an image problem.

“There is a small percentage of serious artists who show there, but they end up either moving on, or they start to produce for the market and end up not being serious artists any more,” says Sabaroff.

The real dilemma might be that the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters cater to the masses, and the kind of serious art scene Sabaroff seems interested in nurturing definitely isn’t the the kind of thing that would appeal to the masses. It would seem impossible to have one event that could accomplish both tasks.

Therein lies the rub, but also a potential solution.

Perhaps it doesn’t have to be an either-or situation.

To placate Sabaroff and the contingent that would like to submit works for more intense scrutiny, and also lend the festival a modicum of artistic credibility, why couldn’t the board designate a “Serious Art Corner,” one section of the festival grounds devoted to works selected by one or more respected art-world judges?

Everyone wouldn’t have to take part--only those who were interested in holding their works up to higher standards. This would increase the festival’s appeal to the serious-minded artist and provide something more substantial for those art lovers who usually scorn the festival as a negligible sideshow to the kitschy pageant.

It would also be a welcome sign that the festival’s board is not concerned exclusively with selling pageant tickets, or generating more parking revenue for the city coffers, as some critics have charged, but also is sensitive to the concerns of all strata of artists working in their city.

Then, if no one shows up to the Serious Art Corner, or if no Laguna artists make the cut, so be it.

“I’ve made a choice not to move out of Laguna,” says Sabaroff, “and I feel it’s my civic responsibility to try to change something that I see as a manipulation of this environment. There are a lot of talented artists who are being shortchanged.

“My motivation is . . . to bring about some positive change, because I see the potential of having this be a more vibrant art community.”

Laguna: Is it worth one little corner to find out?