Abridged by pandemic last year, a more familiar Sawdust Art Festival reopens in Laguna Beach
With the benefit of an outdoor marketplace, the Sawdust Art Festival didn’t shut down last summer, but the pandemic limited it to weekends.
This year’s event, which opened Friday, feels more like it once did, especially with the nearby Festival of the Arts and Pageant of the Masters reopening as well.
“I’ve been here 38 summers, I think, and to me, it just feels like home again,” artist Ora Sterling said. “It’s like we had a little forced vacation, and I was excited to get my booth set up, and opening day, as soon as I heard the music playing, it was like, ‘Oh, we’re back!’ It felt good. It felt really good.”
Sterling’s space featured heart-shaped clay rocks attached to driftwood. It is a project that Sterling won’t soon forget because of the company with whom she shares it: her mother, Willoughby Chamberlain, who turns 100 in August. (Chamberlain, incidentally, performed in the first Pageant of the Masters in 1933.)
“I take the projects up, and my mother helps me roll balls of clay, and we work together on it,” Sterling said.
Hedy Buzan, a second-generation Laguna artist, grew up visiting the grounds along Laguna Canyon Road, where her father, Boris, used to show his work.
She first exhibited in the mid-1980s, and celebrates the freedom the festival affords participants.
“The great thing about the Sawdust is it’s not juried, so you can just make anything you want,” said Buzan, who brought to her booth an acrylic, minimalist, abstract painting, various monotypes and “almost cartoon-like” images of Eve.
Buzan also showed her appreciation for a donor who wished to remain anonymous.
“I had a client send me two $500 checks, and they said, ‘We do not want any artwork. Just keep working,’” Buzan said. “It was very nice.”
Now in its 55th year, Sawdust is also noted for its emphasis on local artists and crafters. The event space, which is truly lined with sawdust, has an only-in-Laguna feel.
“It’s just a very different and unique vibe, compared to the other art festivals, and I think that’s one of things that really distinguishes us is just the look and feel and the overall vibe of the Sawdust,” Monica Prado, president of the festival’s board of directors, said. “It’s hard to find anything to compare it to, and I think that people really wanted to experience that again, and they are, and it shows in the joyfulness of the artists, as well, and their creations.”
Throughout the grounds on Independence Day, patrons enjoyed live music, shopping and watching artists, including painters and glassblowers, at work.
“We wanted to go to the Sawdust Festival, come out on the Fourth of July, celebrate the holiday and enjoy an open-air festival with family,” Kayla Linson of Los Angeles said.
The festival is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 5.
Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and $5 for children 6 to 12. Children under 5 years are free.
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