Art Walk Parties & Performances Coming On October 7

LAGUNA BEACH, CA— This Thursday's Art Walk on October 7 will feature two outdoor live events. At Woods Cove Studio & Gallery, the ska band Party Foul will be playing from 6-9 p.m. in the parking lot under the gallery's newly installed sign. At 6:30 p.m., Laguna Dance Festival presents solos and a duet at Dawson Cole Fine Art.

Woods Cove Studio & Gallery features works in a wide variety of styles and mediums and boasts a workspace where visiting artists demonstrate their creative methods. Weekly classes in drawing and clay sculpture are ongoing.

Artists currently on view are Ellie Polk, Mark Smoot and Gabrielle Dunayski.

Woods Cove Studio & Gallery opened in October of 2020, so this Art Walk celebrates not only its featured artists but a first anniversary as well.

Who knows, Party Foul may inspire some spontaneous dancing—ska is a mighty danceable genre.

There will definitely be contemporary dance performances at Dawson Cole Fine Art’s sculpture garden. Laguna Dance Festival returns for a second consecutive month of bringing USC/Kaufman dance-department alumni to perform live at Art Walk. Last month’s performances at Laguna Art Museum featured Justin Pham, Tea Devereaux and Chryssa Hadjis.

This month, Mark Daftari and Jacqueline Schiffner will join Devereaux and Hadjis amidst the exuberant figurative work of sculptor Richard MacDonald. His pieces freeze circus performers, athletes and dancers in peak action, striving to convey a glimpse of the human psyche through the body.

Expect the dancers to infiltrate the spaces in and around MacDonald’s work. They will “dazzle with their athleticism,” promises Jodie Gates, founder/artistic director of Laguna Dance Festival.

Watercolorist Nancy Swan will appear at Artist Eye Gallery during Art Walk. As a fifth-generation Californian, she has been documenting our changing coast in ink, copperplate etchings and watercolor since the 1970s.

At the gallery will be an array of her watercolors, including a trio of abstract waves exuding the sea’s constant motion, and a Plein-air rendering of Heisler Park that puts you right into that exceptional landscape.

“Love of place provides endless inspiration for my work,” says Swan. “I seek to preserve bits of the familiar, snatching scenes from a local landscape and lifestyle that is constantly reinventing itself.”

First Thursdays gets underway in October, starting at 6 until 9 p.m.

• Woods Cove Gallery is located at 1926 S. Coast Highway.
• Artist Eye can be found at 1294-A S. Coast Highway.
• Dawson Cole Fine Art Laguna is downtown, at 326 Glenneyre.

Galleries! Give Patch a heads up about your November Art Walk plans.