Paintings color Crystal Cove nearly $38,000 richer

Paul Clinton

CRYSTAL COVE -- Paintings inspired by Crystal Cove raised about

$38,000 for the restoration of the very place they depicted.

The money will be used to restore the 46 cottages in the cove’s

historic district, said Joan Irvine Smith, who sponsored the paint-off.

About 20 members of the Laguna Beach Plein Air Painters Assn.

submitted oil and watercolor paintings to be judged and sold for the

fund-raiser.

“We will hold that money until {California State] Parks has their

plan” for the future of the district, Smith said.

The sale of 43 paintings raised about $76,630 during the two-week

exhibit at Joan Irvine Smith Fine Arts in Laguna Beach, gallery director

Pam Ludwig said.

Half of the total proceeds will be given to the artists themselves,

Ludwig said.

The ongoing political saga of the cove and its former residents -- who

left the cove for the final time Sunday, when it was turned over to the

state parks department -- brought huge crowds into the gallery for the

exhibit.

“It brought awareness,” Ludwig said. “They came in because they were

interested in what’s happening in Crystal Cove.”

The paintings are part of “Images of Crystal Cove,” a contest

organized by the Irvine. Co. heiress, who founded the Crystal Cove

Conservancy earlier this year.

The exhibit ended Sunday. In early June, Smith handed out $10,000 in

prize money to three top paintings. Anita Hampton, of Los Osos on the

central coastline, won the contest with “Gray Day at Crystal Cove.”

Hampton’s painting, in the plein-air style, captured the mood of the

cove, Ludwig said.

“It was just an excellent example of that kind of painting,” Ludwig

said. “It just really captured the atmosphere of the place.”