IRVINE MUSEUM OF ART and more.

On Saturday, we decided to head down to Irvine to see the museum that holds only California Impressionist Art.  We were surprised to find the museum on the ground floor of a very tall office building where they lease space for their exhibits and a bookstore.  The

exhibit that was currently on display was California Impressionism, Then and Now, which included many of the original artists such as Granville Redmond, Edgar Payne, Guy Rose, and William Wendt, but also contemporary artists such as Camille Przewodek and Kim Lordier.   The photo is Sunrise in San Carlos by Kim Lordier  and was the only pastel painting in the whole exhibit.  Kim's eucalyptus trees bring to mind another great California Impressionist, Marian Wachtel.  Although the exhibit was small, we were glad to have the time to look closely at the original art works and we left with three new art books from the book store, all of them on California Impressionism.

On Sunday, we drove down to Laguna Beach to see the Festival of Arts.  We started at the Sawdust Festival which is only Laguna Beach Artists.  As you can see from the photo, there is plenty of sawdust to walk on around the exhibits.  Then we walked down the street to the Art-A-Fair which is all commercial

artists and then we walked across the street to the Laguna Arts Exhibit which is all original works by artists from near and far.  We only saw two pastel artists the entire day.  And although we saw some interesting craft art, we saw very little in the paintings that could compete with the quality of work done by our own APAA group.  But the day was beautiful, we were surrounded by art, and we had a wonderful lunch at the Lumberyard.  Life is good.