BRIEFLY IN ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Senior center art contest has highest honorarium

The deadline for proposals for Art in Public Places elements at the Laguna Beach Community and Senior Center, 380 Third St., is 4 p.m. Dec. 14.

The competition is open to artists and artist teams who live, work or exhibit in Laguna Beach.

A $190,000 honorarium has been announced for three installations on the property: a mural, a sculpture and artist-designed seating that will be signature pieces for the city.

The honorarium is the largest ever offered to an artist or artist team by the city. The installations must be visible to vehicles from Third Street and be interesting and friendly to pedestrians.

The installations should be figurative and/or representational in nature, and be appropriate to the diversity of age groups who will utilize the facility.

The 19,000-square-foot building, located within the Civic Arts District, will be used for recreation, art classes and senior activities. Parking for the facility will be on street level, with class and conference rooms above.

For competition information, visit www.lagunabeachcity.net or call (949) 497-0722.

Festival plans ‘monster’ Halloween events

The Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters will revive the Pageant of the Monsters “Night of the Living Art” this year. The interactive, backstage haunted house event will be from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Oct. 26, 27, 28 and 31 at the Festival of Arts, 650 Laguna Canyon Road.

In addition, the Festival of Arts is hosting a Monsters’ Masquerade Ball fundraising event from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Oct. 28.

This event includes a costume competition, cocktail hour, dinner at Tivoli Terrace and the Pageant of the Monsters interactive Haunted House.

“Eighty bewitched Pageant of the Masters volunteers will transform into the phantoms of long dead actors, dancers and singers in spectacular settings backstage at the enchanted theater,” Pageant artistic director Dianne Challis Davy said.

“Eerie theatrical spectacles that graced the stage in days gone by are recreated by malevolent spirits and mischievous poltergeists. It will be a little scary and spooky, but lots of fun for the whole family.”

Admission for adults is $15, and children 12 and under get in for $10. The event is not recommended for children younger than 5. Monsters’ Masquerade Ball tickets are $100; guests must be 21 or older.

Order tickets at www.pageanttickets.com or call (800) 487-3378.

College mausoleum show approaches

Laguna College of Art & Design and Fairhaven Memorial Park will present “Capturing the Force of Stillness,” which will feature more than fifty pieces of realistic and representational artworks by college master’s of fine arts students and alumni.

The exhibition and special events run Nov. 8 to 11 at the Fairhaven Mausoleum, in the Fairhaven Memorial Park at 1702 Fairhaven Ave., Santa Ana.

Exhibition hours are Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Admission and parking are free.

The century-old memorial park, which borders the cities of Santa Ana, Orange and Tustin, will present the exhibition in its stone and marble Greek revival mausoleum, approximately 20,000 square feet in space within the park’s lush green grove of 100-year-old twisted Monterey Cypress trees.

Built in 1916, the Mausoleum is included in the National Register of Historic Places and listed with the Historical Preservation Society and has 30-foot ceilings, marbled walls and floors, as well as poetically themed stained glass windows.

The exhibition kicks off with an artist opening from 6-9 p.m. Nov. 8, where artwork will be viewed by candlelight, as it was in Europe centuries ago.

For more information, visit lagunacollege.edu.

LOCA plans annual members meeting

Laguna Outreach for Community Arts will hold its annual members meeting at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 16 at Mandarin Fine Art Gallery, 1294 S. Coast Highway, Ste. C.

The evening will begin with a members meeting from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by a program from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

The nonprofit’s mission is to provide educational opportunities for artistic enrichment through outreach to the community and schools while promoting local artists.

Miriam Smith of Art Resource Group will return to speak at the meeting on the latest developments in public sculpture, and what it means to be green in the art world.

She will discuss a diverse selection of public works by local, regional and international artists who are exploring the relation between humankind and the environment.

In addition, Kellie Abbott from Art Resource Group will present a sequel to her presentation from last year by moderating a discussion based on Visual Thinking Strategies, a visual literacy method used in major museums and public schools around the country.

There will also be a Chinese auction, entertainment, wine and cheese.

Admission will be free to members and $15 for nonmembers, who are welcome.

For more information or to RSVP, call (949) 376-8970 or visit www.locaarts.org.

Palette competition deadline today

Submissions for the city’s holiday Palette Competition must be received by 5 p.m. today at the Cultural Arts Department in City Hall.

The competition is open to Laguna Beach residents, artists having a studio in Laguna Beach or showing in a Laguna Beach gallery, students attending Laguna Beach schools or the Laguna College of Art & Design or artists exhibiting in the Sawdust Art Festival, Art-a-Fair or Festival of Arts. Proof will be required.

Designs should be submitted on 8½ x 11 paper, in color, within the border of a palette outline. The design must have a horizontal orientation, with the palette indent included as integral to the design.

The seven members of the City of Laguna Beach Arts Commission will judge the designs based on creativity and appropriateness.

A $300 honorarium will be given for each selected design.

The related children’s competition deadline is Nov. 19; see this paper’s education briefs on A6 for details.

For more information, call city Cultural Arts Manager Sian Poeschl at (949) 497-0722 or visit www.lagunabeachcity.net.

Pastel show announces contest winners

The United Society of Pastel Artists held a reception for its second annual exhibition on Sept. 22 at the Esther Wells Collection, where more than $4,000 in awards was given away.

Winners in three categories — still life, figurative and landscape — divided 16 awards.

Juror Debra Huse, an award winning artist, gallery owner and signature member of the Pastel Society of America, selected the winners from 40 pastel paintings by 30 area artists.

First-place winners were Mary Aslin (landscape) for “Montage Morning,” Arleen Kaller (figurative) for “Strutting Her Stuff,” and Lyndelle Stonick for still life “Lemon Zest.”

Stonick, a Festival of Arts exhibitor and the founder of the pastel society, also won of Best of Show for “Exposed Passion,” a 12 x 18 still life of a divided pomegranate made by painting the pastel with gamsol on sandpaper, then drawing over it when dry.

For more information, visit www.uspapastelartists.org.

Situ to visit his gallery

Mian Situ will make a personal appearance at his Situ Art Gallery, 1294 S. Coast Highway, No. A, from 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 11.

Trained in China, Situ chronicles the Chinese-American immigrant experience. He will be on hand to discuss his work as well as to sign limited editions.

Situ’s work includes historical Chinese-American and Western themed art as well as portraits of fishing villages and farming communities in his native China.

Situ was born in 1953 in China’s Siyi region, the primary source of the Chinese railroad and mining workers who immigrated to America in the 19th century.

Dance gala tickets available at $50 each

A limited number of performance-only seats for the Laguna Dance Festival’s gala performance Saturday night have been released at $50 each.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.lagunadancefestival.org.

Bar Foundation hosts four-course fundraiser

The Orange County Bar Foundation will have its second 2007 Food & Wine Society fundraiser with a four-course dinner with hors d’oeuvres, champagne and expertly paired wine selections at 6 p.m. ?Oct. 15, at Five Feet, 328 Glenneyre St., Laguna Beach.

The Food & Wine Society dinners are in the spring and fall for its members. Membership is $2,500 to join, which comprises the $1,500 membership fee and $1,000 contribution to the society wine cellar. Memberships are renewed at $1,500 a year.

The Orange County Bar Foundation’s Food & Wine Society was created by Ygal and Sheila Sonenshine in 1996 as a fundraiser to benefit OCBF’s juvenile diversion and law-related education programs.

For more information, contact Nancy Garcia, Associate Director, at (714) 480-1925, ext. 108, or via e-mail at ngarcia@ocbarfoundation.org, or visit the website, www.ocbarfoundation.org/?foodandwine.html.

College begins free game art lectures

Laguna College of Art & Design will host the first in a free series of lectures supporting the college’s newest major, Game Art, at 5:50 p.m. Oct. 15 at [seven-degrees], 891 Laguna Canyon Road.

Supervising Animator for Disney Feature Films Ruben Aquino, who has worked on films including “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast,” will focus on the animation planning and pre-visualization process for both 2-Ddimensional and 3-Dimensional works, with an emphasis on thumbnail sketches.

Due to limited space, reservations are required. Those interested in attending are encouraged to RSVP online at www.evite.com/r?iid=EPIZJACXSYBDYEGJBWBI&Ii;=iq&src;=email.

The next lecture in the series on Nov. 5 will feature Zach Schlappi, Aartistic Ddirector for Electronic Arts?.