Laguna Beach High students to install pop-up floral art mural at Promenade on Forest

A community known for its art galleries will see some of its younger citizens try their hand at public art next week.

Laguna Beach High students will install a pop-up floral mural on the Promenade on Forest in time for next month’s First Thursday Art Walk. It will be on view to the public May 4 through 6.

“I’ve been teaching art for about 32 years now, and one of my main goals and the reason I stay in education is because I just think it’s so important to teach real world life skills to students,” Laguna Beach art teacher Jamie Kough said. “I teach high school and university level, and it seems like we’re getting further and further away from education pouring into life. They seem to be separate, and I think the kids really see them as separate.

“My intention in the classroom is to bring the classroom outdoors. … I want the students to understand that … if you want to be an artist, that doesn’t mean that the only thing to do is go do gallery work. There’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of opportunities that you can have as a creative, and so collaboration is one of the best assets and really opens up a lot of doors. So I wanted to bring a collaborative project onto the campus.”

Details of the floral pop-up art project that will be presented on the Promenade.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Kough said it was on her to-do list to have a community art project shown in the downtown area. She worked with the city to get it permitted, and she sees it as a chance to give back to a town that has been supportive of the school. The public will be able to take flowers from the artwork at the end of the show.

Other partnerships for the project included Terra Verde Industries, an Irvine-based recycling center, and PoppyHill Flowers.

The artwork was put together with found objects. Kough said the materials used include a kitchen sink, old doors and rain barrels, among others. The resulting structure was painted black and white, and there will be flowers placed in blocks of color.

“After [the] initial attraction to it, I’m hoping that people can see the relationship between nature and man-made materials,” Kough said. “Laguna is really good about being environmentally aware. … I hope that people are kind of left with that idea of how we consume, and how we consume at a rate that nature cannot keep up with.”

Details of the floral pop-up art project that will be installed at the Promenade on Forest from May 4 through 6.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Students have also had the chance to hear from Adam Schwerner, an artist with experience in using recycled materials, including for his exhibit “Your (Un)Natural Garden” that opened this month at Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge.

Schwerner said as a younger artist, he felt the process had to lead toward an already determined result. He is now encouraging the students not to box themselves in.

“What I have instead come to understand is that sometimes it is the process that tells you what it wants to be,” Schwerner said. “I think just doing that with this student group might give a little bit of permission for artists who are beginning to understand what kind of artists they want to be, give them permission to make some mistakes, do some trial and error, and then come to a place of not knowing.

“I think that is also how Jamie is working this project. It’s very much about the process and about what comes from the process, which I find really great. I find that very liberating and exciting.”

There are about 60 students participating in the creation of the floral mural, a team that includes students from digital media, ceramics, art production, advanced placement art and photography. The project is being partially funded through a grant from SchoolPower, a nonprofit education foundation.

The floral mural will serve as a backdrop for performers on the main stage on the Promenade on Forest, Sian Poeschl, a staff liaison to the Laguna Beach Arts Commission, said.

Brighton Hope, a freshman at Laguna Beach High, said she was intrigued by the idea of creating art without a narrative.

“I’m really excited because it is more evidence that you can make art out of anything,” Hope said of the project. “Art doesn’t have to be on a canvas, and that’s one thing I really like about it. I’m super excited to see what comes out of it … because it’s cool not necessarily knowing how the outcome is going to be.

“Maybe if I’m like, ‘This isn’t what I thought it was going to be,’ I’m still excited that that’s going to happen. I’m excited that it’ll be surprising. I love suspenseful type of art. You don’t know what’s coming.”