Laguna Beach's Art & Nature Fest Opens At First Thursday Art Walk

LAGUNA BEACH, CA—Laguna Art Museum opened its ninth annual Art & Nature festival at Art Walk on a foggy Thursday evening. Three new exhibitions plus the return of the Art Lab drew people into the museum for some colorful and thoughtful artwork.

Patch saw featured artist Rebeca Méndez pose for a photo, graciously holding a Hollywood Times reporter's dog. Her expansive and luminous "Any-Instant-Whatever" is installed in the museum's largest room, the Steele Gallery. The video is on a 90-minute loop, which represents 12 hours of actual sky time. The artist explains that each band is 15 minutes ahead of the next. The clouds float by, as clouds do, as if in real-time.

Méndez told Patch she's the first to employ a 150-year-old photographic technique called "time slice" into a video.

She is clearly proud of the feat, but she lit up when asked about her next project.

"The Sea Around Us" will be another video-based work. Méndez has been filming underwater all summer, swimming among sea lions and in the kelp forests. In developing "The Sea Around Us," she has gathered marine experts and indigenous elders to advise on the project. "We think the sky will be the sky forever, but it will not," she says. And the same holds for the ocean.

Between the sea and sky, Méndez says, she is "flanking the universe."

"Sky Space-Time Change" is an exhibition inspired by "Any-Instant-Whatever" and includes gems from LAM's permanent collection. Heavy hitters such as Ed Ruscha and Helen Lundeberg's works are always wonderful to see in person.

All the delightful timepieces are assembled on the same wall, some with ticking mechanisms propelling second hands. Don't miss Kim Abeles' "Earth Clock II (20 days of smog and ten days of acid rain)," which is composed of "particulate matter on glass, clock."

"A Fanciful World: Jessie Arms Botke" is of another era entirely, taking us back to the 20th century with flowers that glow and gilded birds that don't disappoint. Museum-goers were rapt by the long mural that once hung in the Coral Spa at the Oaks in Ojai. Botke created it in 1955-56 of oil with gold leaf on canvas.

It was great to see the return of the LAM Lab. Art Walk's project for the festival is a hard-edged watercolor inspired by "Any-Instant-Whatever."

Every space, upstairs and downstairs, and on the main floor, is filled with intriguing work. It's time to plan your visit.

Did you go? Let us know about it in the comments.