Pageant proceeds support art scholarships for high school students, and grants for local arts nonprofits. The all-volunteer pageanteers may pose as sculptures, California orange-crate labels, hair combs, even postage stamps.Īll for a good cause. There, 50 times larger than life, is an uncanny version of the real thing. Together theyve created one amazing, giant piece of living art with deep. The house goes dark, stage lights flick on-and the audience gasps. From the jump, Laguna Beach has been a melting pot of indigenous culture. The pageant’s “living pictures” are large-scale sleight of hand or trompe l’oeil, literally, “fooling the eye.” Whether the oversized artwork is da Vinci’s The Last Supper or Monet’s Women in the Garden, on cue costumed participants sneak onto the shadowy stage and freeze into the background frieze. It’s unlike anything you’ll see anywhere else on earth-a living, breathing tribute to the art world’s old masters since the 1930s. And, since the 1960s, an “alternative,” the Sawdust Festival of artists and makers, featuring the work of Laguna Beach residents only.įlickr If looking for a place to stay in Orange County, consider the restored “cabins” at nearby Crystal Cove State Park, available for rent.ĭon’t miss the pageant. The festival’s arts and crafts are fine, be they handmade musical instruments, sculpture, or scrimshaw-and all local, meaning, made by artists and craftspeople living along the OC coast. Thus the Laguna Beach Art Museum, which still “collects California art and only California art.” Including an impressive collection of impressionists.īy the 1930s big-screen stars fleeing celebrity, the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Bette Davis, joined a galaxy of lesser-known artists to populate tiny Laguna Beach-close enough to LA for convenience yet far from prying eyes.Ĭome see how creatively Laguna Beach carries its history forward, starting with the annual Pageant of the Masters and simultaneous Festival of the Arts, both held in July and August. The legacy of local plein-air artists, including William Wendt, Joseph Kleitsch, William Griffith, and Frank Cuprien, has been lasting. Scores of American artists arrived to paint in the open air (en plein air), like the French impressionists and Hudson River School. To keep you occupied in your downtime, Laguna Beach houses an impressive artistic community, with almost 100 art galleries across the town showcasing local and international pieces. Soon one of the West’s most important arts communities, Laguna Beach became a center for California impressionism. In the 1920s half the population of Laguna Beach were artists, drawn by the area’s undisturbed beauty. The Artists are now the Laguna Beach Breakers, which at least honors the subject matter of much local art. The high school football team, for example, was known until 2002 as the Laguna Beach Artists-not near enough to strike fear into the hearts of opponents. Kind of like Laguna Beach, which goes its own way, period. This odd, oddly compelling presentation of tableaux vivants, or living pictures, allows life to imitate art imitating life. Still exploring the Orange County coast, the next city south of Newport Beach is Laguna Beach, once a low-key artists’ enclave, known today for high-rent real estate and a highly unusual ode to the arts, the annual Pageant of the Masters.
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