Sawdust Art Festival fights off rain, opens 35th Winter Fantasy show
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Orange County residents have seen their fair share of rain in the past week, so it could qualify for a miracle that the Sawdust Art Festival — booths and all — was ready on Friday for opening day of its 35th Winter Fantasy show.
Fresh sawdust piled higher than the cars in the parking lot along Laguna Canyon Frontage Road was being moved by wheelbarrow into the festival on Tuesday, before another storm impacted preparations in the days to follow.
There is little that can dampen the spirits of those who help put on the festival and the artists in it.
Jay Grant, serving his second term as president of the Sawdust Art Festival, was confident that the festival would rally in spite of the weather. And once the public arrives on their doorstep, he said they will be exposed to “endless” sights, sounds and smells.
“It looks like, ‘Are we going to make it?’” Grant said just three days shy of the start of the winter show. “It looks like this every year, and we rally. The artists rally, the staff rallies, the board rallies. We’ll be open, and it will look great.
“So it’s not just the art. It’s the entire atmosphere, the environment of the entertainment that we have — Santa Claus, our balloon diva, all the restaurants we have, lots of artist demonstrations going on. … We have some of the world’s best glassblowers. Our glassblowing demo is fantastic.”
Grant’s wife, Nikki, a multi-dimensional artist known for her jewelry, is a founding member of the Sawdust Art Festival.
Formerly an exhibitor himself, as a ceramicist, Grant described his connection to the festival as, “It’s in my soul. It’s in my heart.”
That attitude, it would appear, is widespread. Rachel Goberman, a co-chair of Winter Fantasy along with Michelle Burt, observed a personal transformation in exhibiting at the festival for two decades. She became more of an extrovert, she said, by interacting with visitors to her booth.
“You have to commit your life,” said Goberman, a jewelry artist. “You have to be here every day and be ready to be on and be creative and talk to the public. … People are really coming because it’s part of their tradition. … Nobody really needs anything, but it’s an experience. The Sawdust is magic, all of the years, all of the artists that have come before.”
Winter Fantasy, which runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday for five weekends through Dec. 21, will offer the opportunity to do some holiday shopping from 171 artists. The winter show is open to artists who live outside of Laguna Beach, giving newcomers like Kyle Brunke the opportunity to showcase their work.
Brunke, 26, of nearby Aliso Viejo, grew up passing by the Sawdust Art Festival, whether it was to go for a walk on Main Beach or take some swings in the batting cages in the canyon. In his final semester at California State University, Fullerton, he took a glassblowing class as an elective, and a passion was lit for working with glass as a medium.
After graduation, Brunke chanced a call to the Glass Spectrum in Laguna Niguel. It led to an apprenticeship with Greg Atwood, the shop owner, and his artistic awakening.
“He was super stoked to hear from me, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’d love to teach you,’” Brunke said. “I started going to the shop every weekend, and then he taught me basically everything [about] how to make leaded stained-glass windows. I just fell in love with it. I couldn’t get enough. …
“He’s like, ‘You’re an artist.’ When he said that, I’d never heard that before, and that really impacted me to be like, ‘Whoa, it’s real.’ I’ve always kind of felt that way, but I never felt good enough. I never felt like I could do something like that, or be an ‘artist.’ That really kind of motivated me to just keep going as hard as I could at this and just get better and better.”
Brunke said he is looking forward to finding out what people think of his stained-glass creations. He would also like to make connections, and hopefully, secure a commission to make a stained-glass window or front door.
Attendees will find themselves in a faux town square as soon as they walk through the gates, including a redesigned, sage-green house for Santa. A tree-lighting ceremony will take place at 5 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s straight out of the North Pole,” Goberman added of Santa’s house. “Every year, the committee kind of talks about what they want to do different, but we do build that town square in the middle. When you walk in, it’s a real showstopper.
“There’s probably a fair amount of people now, to be honest, that come in to take pictures. They want to do selfies with Santa, they want to take pictures in the sleigh, in front of the Christmas tree. … We live in the Instagram world. That’s definitely a draw.”
