In The Arts

DeLap on board at LAM

The Laguna Art Museum’s board of trustees voted earlier this month to appoint artist and former UC Irvine art school instructor Tony DeLap as a fellow member, LAM officials announced in a news release.

DeLap, a working artist who lives in Corona del Mar, taught at UC Irvine from 1964 to 1991, where he was first faculty member of UCI’s studio art program, the release said.

He has donated some of his works to the Laguna Art Museum for its annual benefit auction. One of his paintings, “Summer Seance,” sold at auction for $17,000 during this year’s LAM Art Auction on Feb. 4.

“As anyone could guess from his art, Tony is an extraordinarily smart and perceptive person,” Malcolm Warner, the museum’s executive director, said in a prepared statement.

“He has a real feeling for museums. Any museum board is enriched by the participation of a working artist, and we are fortunate to have brought in someone of Tony’s stature,” Warner added.

DeLap joins six other new members appointed to the board during the past six months: Curt Biddulph, Robert Braun, Jane Hanauer, Bob Hayes, Mark Hilbert and Thomas Stiles II.

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Gioia tapped to give keynote speech at Art Stars

The Laguna Beach Alliance for the Arts (LBaa) announced that acclaimed poet and arts advocate Dana Gioia will be the keynote speaker at the sixth annual Art Star Awards at [seven degrees] on April 1.

Gioia is the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, according to a news release from LBaa. In 2010, he was appointed the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at USC.

“For many years Laguna Beach has been rewarded culturally and financially by its devotion to the arts,” Wayne Baglin, the alliance’s chairman, said in a prepared statement. “Mr. Gioia has championed the importance of the arts at the highest level in our country. What an honor it is to have him as the keynote speaker at this year’s Art Star Awards.”

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Laguna pair to start book project on fish

Ret and Karen Talbot, who live in Laguna Beach, will collaborate on a book about the Banggai cardinafish, a species of coral reef fish unique to a remote part of Indonesia’s archipelago, according to a news release.

Karen Talbot, an artist who has exhibited her work at the Sawdust Festival, will serve as the book’s main scientific illustrator, and Ret Talbot, a freelance writer and photographer, will co-write the book.

In May, he will join a scientific expedition that will travel to Indonesia to study the species, the release said.

Their book is to be published at the end of the year by Reef to Rainforest, a Vermont publisher, the release said.

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Photographer’s show to open at Great Park

An opening reception for a new exhibit by Laguna Beach photographer Tom Lamb will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine.

The show, titled “Marks on the Land — The View from Here, Aerial Photography by Tom Lamb,” will be the third in a series of photographic exhibitions at the Great Park’s Palm Courts Arts Complex featuring photographs of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, according to a news release.

Admission and parking are free.

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Festival of Goddesses coming soon

Laura’s House, an Orange County nonprofit that reaches out to families affected by domestic violence, will be a beneficiary of the 2012 Festival of Goddesses, scheduled to take place at the Festival of Arts and its Forum Theater, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 31.

The FOA grounds are at 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. For more information about the festival of Goddesses, go to https://www.festivalofgoddesses.com, and for more about Laura’s House, go to https://www.laurashouse.org.

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In City Hall-related art news...

The city of Laguna Beach and Laguna Beach Seniors Inc. have partnered to open a 55+ Art Exhibit, which will be on display at the Community and Susi Q Senior Center, 380 Third St., from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays until May 11.

Awards will be given out at an artists’ reception at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Gallery Q in the center.

Meanwhile, a reception and awards ceremony for the 10th annual Art That’s Small at City Hall is scheduled for 5 p.m. April 5. City Hall is at 505 Forest Ave..

—Imran Vittachi