In The Arts

21 groups to split Festival grant money

The Festival of Arts Foundation will disburse $116,000 in grants to 21 Laguna Beach nonprofits, FoA Foundation officials announced this week.

The groups that will split the money are: ART4KIDS Inc., the Laguna College of Art & Design, five programs at Laguna Beach High School — art, band boosters, ceramics, dance and performing arts — Laguna Beach Schools Performing Arts Boosters, the Laguna Beach Chorale, Laguna Beach Live!, Laguna Beach Seniors, the Laguna Dance Festival, the Laguna Plein Air Painters Assn., LagunaTunes Inc., No Square Theatre, the Festival of Arts, the Laguna Outreach for Community Arts, the Boys & Girls Club of Laguna Beach, the Laguna Community Concert Band, the Laguna Playhouse and the Top of the World PTA, according to the news release.

“The Festival of Arts Foundation feels that art appreciation and the development of one’s artistic skills should start at an early age,” FoA Foundation President Scott Moore said in a prepared statement. “The majority of the foundation’s grants are focused on the youth of our community, and it is the foundation’s hope that we are seeding programs that will begin to nourish these young minds.”

Laguna Beach Seniors announced separately that the FoA Foundation awarded it $2,000 to support its Susi Q arts program.

“We are so pleased to partner with the Festival of Arts Foundation to encourage the work of our town’s many gifted artists and grateful for this important show of support,” Nadia Babayi, the nonprofit’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “Shows include work by talented amateur artists and may also include work by well-known and experienced professional artists from Laguna Beach and south Orange County.”

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Calling all poets

It’s National Poetry Month, and the Laguna Beach Library is taking entries for its 14th annual Poetry Contest through April 30.

Entrants may submit up to three poems. Email poems as Word document attachments to lagunalibrarypoetry@yahoo.com and include a name, address, phone number, grade level or age.

Prospective contestants can also come to the library, 363 Glenneyre St., to fill out entry forms and submit their entries. The contest, broken into categories ranging from pre-kindergarten to adult, will culminate in an awards ceremony in June.

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Artist documentary to screen Wednesday

On Wednesday night, Laguna Canyon Studios will present a special screening of a documentary film on artist Will Barnet, the 100-year-old 2011 National Medal of Arts recipient, followed by a panel discussion.

Doors to the studio in the Laguna Canyon Artists Complex, 3251 Laguna Canyon Road, Studio F3, will open at 6:30 p.m. The screening of the 32-minute film, “Will Barnet: Tracing the Soul of the Work,” will start at 7:15 p.m. The panel will consist of Dale Schierholt, the film’s director; Timothy J. Clark, an artist, educator and friend of Barnet; and Gene Cooper, an art historian who lives in Laguna Beach.

The cost is $5.

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Museum council is Pasadena-bound

On April 14, the Laguna Art Museum’s Contemporary Collectors Council will visit the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Grace Kook-Anderson, LAM’s curator of exhibitions, will lead the group on a tour of an exhibit at the Pasadena museum, “L.A. Raw: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles, 1945-1980, From Rico Lebrun to Paul McCarthy.”

The daylong visit to Pasadena will include a visit to the Offramp Gallery and a meeting with John White, an exhibiting artist, and artist Susan Sironi’s studio.

Tickets for the Pasadena trip cost $120 for CCC members and $145 for non-members. To book a ticket, go to https://www.lagunartmuseum.org/ccc-trip.

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Art notes

The Laguna Outreach for Community Arts (LOCA) will offer an Art and Sea Lions program, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday, at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, 20612 Laguna Canyon Road.

After a docent-led tour of the center, Olivia Batchelder will lead an acrylic on canvas class, in which students will paint a sea lion portrait.

The cost is $20 for adults and $15 for children 6 and older. Advanced registration is required by going to https://www.LOCAarts.org, emailing LOCAarts@yahoo.com or calling (949) 363-4700.

In other news, “Grapes for Grads VII,” a wine tasting event to raise funds for student scholarships at the Laguna College of Art & Design, will be from noon to 4 p.m. April 29 at Tivoli Too!, 777 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach.

Attendees must be 21 or older to attend the event, which is $35 per person. For more information on how to obtain the tax-deductible tickets, call Jeffrey Redeker at (949) 371-7595, or visit https://www.GrapesForGrads.com.

—Imran Vittachi