Well friends, after a haitus, it looks like our friends at The OC Art Blog are back.

Now, I’ve had my disagreements with the blog and its founder over the years, but it’s generally a good source for new exhibits, reviews, local art news and other tidbits.

Apparently the blog has some new writers too. Krystal Glasman is a Cal State Fullerton graduate, and she’s completing her master’s degree in exhibition design while working at the Grand Central Art Center.

Johnny Sampson is director and curator at The Box gallery in Costa Mesa. He’s also a children’s book writer, exhibition designer, preparator and curatorial researcher.

Joanna Grasso will join The OC Art Blog this month. She’s apparently traveling abroad. She has worked as a writer, curator, artist and studio director.

Welcome, new O.C. art bloggers.

In the meantime, check this site out. It’s artbabble.org, and it features cool videos about art, artists, collectors, museums, and other interesting stuff.

Enjoy.

Greetings, gang.

So we’re at the start of another week … but I bet you’re already looking toward the long holiday weekend.

Yet, before we get there, let’s look at Thursday (7/02). It’s First Thursdays Art Walk in Laguna Beach, and more than 40 galleries will showcase their latest artists’ creations from 6-9 p.m. The city of Laguna Beach will offer a free shuttle service from downtown to South Coast and North Coast highways for the festive, monthly occasion.

In particular, Mandarin Fine Art Gallery on 1294 S. Coast Highway, Suite C, will feature contemporary Chinese art and the ancient music of China, performed by Lily Yuan (pictured, left) and Xian Fei Lin. Yuan plays the zither and the Chinese dulcimer. She teaches music in Mission Viejo, and has performed for President Jimmy Carter and at Carnegie Hall in New York. You can click the gallery’s Web site for more information.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pageant of the Masters sculptor Lyle Brooks, a beloved man who cherished history, art and bad jokes, died June 18 from an apparent heart attack. He was 49.

Brooks worked backstage at the Pageant of the Masters since 1995. He re-created dozens of sculptures for the show, from ornamental to monumental, usually out of expanded polystyrene. He collapsed during a Thursday morning production meeting backstage at the Laguna Beach pageant.

“I haven’t even begun to accept or comprehend the loss of our dear comrade Lyle,” pageant director Diane Challis Davy said in a statement. “We are all in shock. He was an extremely talented person: sculptor, painter, actor, photographer, calligrapher, bon vivant, chef, humorist and philosopher. That’s just a partial list.”

Challis Davy continued: “Lyle’s sculptural work for the pageant was impeccable. He contributed so much fine work for the show. There are many wonderful examples of it in our workshops and on stage.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This is what the Orange Lounge looks like now — closed. Photo by Richard Chang/The Register.

So I swung by what used to be the Orange County Museum of Art’s Orange Lounge at South Coast Plaza yesterday, and all I saw was a pastel-colored wood wall bordering up the site. There was an oddly appropriate quote on the wall that reads, “Nothing happens… but first a dream…” attributed to Carl Sandberg.

Now, I heard back in March about the Orange Lounge closing around mid-June. The museum’s director of communications Chivan Wang confirmed the closure, saying OCMA will concentrate its efforts on its new building, anticipated to break ground in Costa Mesa by 2013 and open by 2016.

But when I called OCMA director Dennis Szakacs, he was not as forthright. “We have nothing to confirm about the closing of the Orange Lounge,” he said at the time. “Nothing has been determined yet. The Orange Lounge is open and will remain open. If there’s any change in status, youll hear about it from us.”

Well, frankly, I didn’t hear a thing, and my calls and e-mails about the closure went unanswered. So I had to see for myself.

Indeed, the lounge is dead. When it opened in July 2004, it was touted as the first museum space on the West Coast devoted exclusively to digital and video art, as well as the only venue of its kind located in a major retail complex.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Silver and Gold” by Granville Redmond. This painting was recently sold by the O.C. Museum of Art to an anonymous private collector.

Local museum directors are responding to the Orange County Museum of Art’s recent sale of 18 California Impressionist paintings to a private collector, and the directors are not pleased.

First, a little background. In March, OCMA sold 18 of its 20 paintings from the early 1900s for $963,000 to an anonymous collector, without making them available to the public or other nonprofits via auction or public announcement. (That approach would be consistent with American Assoc. of Museums guidelines.)

The result: Hardly anyone knows who has these important works of art, and the museum sold them for far less than what they could have garnered via a competitive auction.

Two of the paintings in question are “Spring in the Canyon” by William Wendt and “Silver and Gold” by Granville Redmond. Both are considered masterworks in California Impressionist painting.

“The real problem is: What’s the secret? Why try to hide it?” said Jean Stern, director of the Irvine Museum, which specializes in California Impressionist art. “I’m at a loss to know why they would do something so secret. I’m anxious to see what they’re hiding. To paraphrase Will Rogers, I never suspected anything wrong until they tried to hide it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The exhibition, “WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon” opened this past weekend at the Laguna Art Museum. The show features artwork from Blizzard Entertainment’s “World of Warcraft” game, which is the most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer role-playing game in the world.

Here’s a look at some images from the show. The last image is © Blizzard Entertainment (which is based in Irvine, by the way).

I’m going to attempt to post some more images once my computer decides to handle large-sized files.

Incidentally, a feature and/or review of the show is coming later this week. Stay tuned.

The Orange County Museum of Art has recently sold 18 of its 20 California Impressionist paintings to an undisclosed private collector, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

The sale has prompted criticisms from two local museum directors, Bolton Colburn of the Laguna Art Museum and Jean Stern of the Irvine Museum, who say the secrecy violated the public interest.

Two of the paintings were “Spring in the Canyon” by William Wendt and “Silver and Gold” by Granville Redmond. “Spring in the Canyon” was recently exhibited at the Laguna Art Museum’s retrospective on Wendt.

Read the rest of this entry »