Artists Organize Auction to Aid Laguna Fire Victims

LAGUNA BEACH —  The Art Institute of Southern California resumed operations Monday, and local artists were organizing an art auction to benefit fellow artists who lost their homes or studios in last week’s Laguna Beach fire.

The auction, scheduled for Saturday at Club Post Nuclear on Laguna Canyon Road, will consist of several hundred works donated by artists whose homes escaped the fire and who participate in Laguna’s annual summer arts and crafts Sawdust Festival, Festival of Arts or Art-A-Fair, said Roark Gourley of Artists in Action, a Laguna Beach-based networking group that is organizing the auction.

In addition, the Laguna Art Museum, which was untouched by the fire, is creating a Laguna Artists Fire Relief Fund to give grants between $500 and $2,000 to artists affected by the fire. Museum officials also said 25% of the proceeds from the museum’s annual art auction on Nov. 20 will be directed to the fund.

Works to be auctioned Saturday will go on view at Club Post Nuclear at 10 a.m., and the auction will begin at noon. Anyone who donates art or purchases work may opt to have sale proceeds sent directly to an artist or to such relief organizations as the Red Cross, Gourley said.

Food donated by local restaurants will be served at Saturday’s affair, and a concert by area bands will be held, although the site for the concert has not been finalized.

Artists may take works to be auctioned to the Art-A-Fair or Sawdust Festival grounds Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Among Sawdust Festival artists, roughly 10 living in Laguna Canyon lost their homes or studios, said Chris Krach, festival president. Money from an artists’ trust fund held by the festival is already being sent to some of those artists, Krach said.

The festival’s annual Winter Fantasy art fair will be held as scheduled on three consecutive weekends beginning Nov. 18, she added.

Only five Art-A-Fair artists live in Laguna Beach--although none are in the canyon and none lost property to the fire, said president Varnette Gilbert. The Art-A-Fair grounds also survived the blazes.

Festival of Arts officials said of their 153 exhibiting artists, only three lost their homes.

At the art institute, Orange County’s only private art college, all classes resumed Monday and its current exhibit, “Dark Suburban Fantasies,” reopened. The institute, closed last week because of the fire, was not damaged by flames, although its roof may have suffered some water damage from firefighting efforts, an official said.

For information on the auction or concert, call Artists in Action at (714) 499-4229, or the Sawdust Festival at (714) 494-3030.