Laguna Plein Air Invitational – 2021

On Sunday, we took the afternoon off (pronounced somewhere no doubt as “offternoon off”) and drove down to Laguna Beach to see our friends Jim McVicker and Terry Oats. On Sunday afternoon the art festival is free and open to the public, so we had a chance not only to see Jim’s work, but to meet other artists, including Ryan Jensen, who has been working up in Humboldt County for the past couple of years. One of Jensen’s paintings was of McVicker painting, and I was tempted to buy it, though it was a bit out of my price range.

We had last seen Jim and Terry in Laguna Beach two years ago, just a few month before the pandemic launched itself around the globe. After visiting the exhibition, we went and had dinner together and talked about art, politics, and movies. I delivered the portrait that Jim had painted of Cathay Gleeson, my first wife, to him so that he could work on cleaning and restoring it. Jim and Terry will be down in Southern California in early November, by which time he hopes to have the painting back in something close to its original condition. I was surprised at the date of the painting. I had remembered it being done in the late 1980s, but it was dated in the early 1980s, and had been done when Jim was just returning for his year-long sojourn to Wyoming and stayed with us for a couple days in our apartment in Ocean Park.

In addition to McVicker’s and Jensen’s work, here are the four paintings that particularly made me pause and absorb their accomplishment:

Suzi Baker – “Sycamore Sun & Shadow”

Debra Huse – “Historic Shpyard”

Don Demers – “Laguna Awakens”

Daniel Marshall – “Fading Light”

Some other paintings that I took note of were by Calvin Liang, Michael Obermeyer, Jed Dorsey, Terry Miura, Wendy Wirth, Jane Hunt, Carl Bretzke, and Richard Boyer.

In a certain way, the Laguna Plein Air Invitational is like the Community of Writers project that meets in the Sierra Nevada every summer. In both case, the task of the artist or writer is to produce work on site. One is not allowed to bring work done prior to showing up at the gathering. On the whole, the level of technical skill is far higher at the Laguna Plein Air Invitational, and one can only wish that writers worked harder at mastering the basic techniques of their craft.

For some reason, visiting art shows ends up with one returning to one’s car about an hour before dusk begins. Here is some parking lot shadow choreography from two different recent occasions.

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