Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center Oct. 29 fundraising event will celebrate Day of the Dead
The Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center will hold its annual fall fundraising event on the beautiful Moss Point Estates tennis court on Oct. 29 from 6 to 9 p.m. Its theme is the Day of the Dead. Guests are invited to stroll among altar displays dedicated to departed Laguna Beach artists who contributed to its creative spirit. Painter and arts advocate Anna Hills, Laguna Greenbelt originator Jim Dilley, ballet dancer and choreographer Barbara Stuart, poet John Gardiner, and photographers and BC Space founders Mark Chamberlain and Jerry Burchfield will be among those memorialized. Guests are encouraged to honor their own departed loved ones by bringing photos, mementos, favorite foods, and beverages to place on altars. Attire for the event is Day of the Dead-inspired costumes and traditional catrina/catrin make-up, used throughout Mexico during Dia de los Muertos celebrations. A costume parade and contest will be held. The band Mesomash, led by musical polymath Arte Hernandez, is guaranteed to get the crowd dancing. Tickets are $150 each. A table for 10 is $1,300. All proceeds go to supporting the Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to harnessing the power of the arts to benefit the community. Tickets: https://bit.ly/3CksNbR
Limited neighborhood parking is free, but guests are encouraged to carpool, walk, or use the trolley, Uber, Lyft, or the free Laguna Beach Local ride service.
In addition, on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 2 pm and 5 pm, the Center will screen “Coco,” Pixar’s 2017 award-winning animated family film. In the film, aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family’s ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer. Note: The 2 pm screening is a free event for families with young children. The 5 pm show is $10 per ticket.
Laguna Craft Guild show this Sunday
The Laguna Craft Guild will be having a show this Sunday Oct. 9 from 9 a.m. until dusk on the cobblestones at Main Beach.
Laguna Residents First Measure Q Mixer Oct. 11
Laguna Residents First will feature ten speakers at their mixer Tuesday, Oct. 11, from 7 to 8 p.m., at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 429 Cypress Drive. Each speaker will discuss an aspect of Measure Q–the ballot initiative giving residents the right to vote on projects that exceed set standards—for three minutes. Among the speakers will be Dr. Susan Skinner, who helped pass the Greenlight initiative in Newport Beach 22 years ago and City Council member George Weiss, founder emeritus of Laguna Residents First. Afterward, LRF board members will be available to answer questions about Measure Q, which will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot. Wine and snacks will be offered at this fun, free event. Bring a friend – all are invited to attend. For more information, please visit LagunaResidentsFirst.org or email [email protected].
Laguna Beach Residents Change Lives Overseas through Operation Christmas Child
Operation Christmas Child, a project of international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, delivers gift-filled shoeboxes to millions of children in need each year. For nine years, Laguna Beach families have packed shoebox gifts for boys and girls around the world. One of these gifts reached Aroma Nawaz and Saba Nawaz when they were young girls. The sisters are now visiting Laguna Beach residents to share how the simple gift had a life-changing impact.
Aroma Nawaz and Saba Nawaz will be telling their story to local groups and churches. They want to encourage residents as they kick off the upcoming collection season to fill more than 47,300 shoeboxes with fun toys, school supplies and hygiene items—contributing to the global goal of reaching 11 million children in Jesus’ Name.
Growing up, Aroma Nawaz and her sister, Saba, were used to financial struggles, prejudice and persecution in a country where Christians are a minority. Their parents were faithful church leaders and their mother worked as a nurse to help make ends meet. Saba, the younger of the two, wore her older sister’s hand-me-downs, which did not quite fit because she was taller. When the girls each received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift at school, they ran home and danced around their house with joy. Since then, they have been able to share with a new generation of shoebox recipients how they could also experience the great joy of God.
During Operation Christmas Child’s National Collection Week on Nov. 14 – 21, Laguna Beach residents can bring gift-filled shoeboxes to multiple drop-off locations to be announced in late October.
For more information, interested parties may call (714) 432-7030, or visit samaritanspurse.org/occ. Participants can donate $10 per shoebox gift online through “Follow Your Box” and receive a tracking label to discover its destination. Those who prefer the convenience of online shopping can browse samaritanspurse.org/buildonline to select gifts matched to a child’s specific age and gender, then finish packing the virtual shoebox by adding a photo and personal note of encouragement. Boxes built online go to hard-to-reach countries.
Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan’s Purse, seeks to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to children in need around the world and, together with the local church worldwide, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has collected and delivered more than 198 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in more than 170 countries and territories. This year, Operation Christmas Child will collect its 200-millionth shoebox.
Laguna Art Museum Dives into The Sea Around Us During 10th Annual Art & Nature Festival
Laguna Art Museum (LAM) will present its 10th annual Art & Nature, a multidisciplinary exploration and celebration of art’s various engagements with the natural world, beginning Nov. 3. The multi-faceted event is the museum’s largest public program of the year, bringing together thousands of participants to foster a love of nature, raise environmental awareness, and discover cross-sections between science and the arts.
“This year’s 10th annual Art & Nature Festival will once again bring the community together to appreciate the intimate connection between art and nature,” said Julie Perlin Lee, Executive Director of Laguna Art Museum. “The festival celebrates the museum’s long-standing history as a cultural center, offering in-depth programming and impactful exhibitions that honor the rich history of California art.”
Rebeca Méndez returns to Art & Nature as the featured artist with her newest project, The Sea Around Us, which will debut in the museum’s historic Steele Gallery on Nov. 5. Creating an immersive 360-degree video art installation, The Sea Around Us will transport viewers to an area of the Pacific Ocean located 30 miles from the Laguna Beach Coast, portraying the ocean as a fully animated body as well as a place of deep interconnectedness for all living things. Using scientific footage, the video shifts to thousands of oozing barrels of DDT on the seafloor being sampled by robotic arms. This hidden ecological calamity is revealed in conjunction with imagery that inspires awe and strengthens the bond between sea and viewer, inspiring the courage to face environmental wrongdoing, take restorative action, and avoid repeating transgressions against our natural resources.
Presenting the first outdoor exhibition since 2020, LAM will bring Kelly Berg’s Pyramidion to the City of Laguna Beach from Nov. 3 to 6. Pyramidion is an interactive sculptural experience inviting contemplation of the layered history and unique geology of Laguna Beach. Beginning at the museum, participants will journey to several sites through the local park and beaches, encountering pyramids of various sizes and colors that reflect the ever-shifting nature of the landscape. The temporality of the installation parallels much of the earth’s landscapes that shift and change due to weather, geology, and the effects of climate change.
On display in the California Gallery starting Nov. 3 will be Robert Young’s The Big One, which is thought to still hold the record as the largest painting ever created in Laguna Beach. As a resident of Laguna Beach, Young began his 9-by-15-foot painting in 1971 and continued to work on the piece throughout his life.
Additional Art & Nature festival programming includes the First Thursdays Art Walk, a keynote lecture from National Geographic Society Explorer in Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle, and the annual free Family Festival.
