If you don't know, Laguna Beach is a special place for Steve and me. Our first date took place there, followed by our wedding a year and a half later. While not the easiest place to return to, from Temecula, we try to visit this memorable seaside town as often as possible.

Like tourists of any era, St. Clair returned home with glowing reports and landscape paintings that led his artist friends to follow him south. It wasn't long before Plein Air artists like William Wendt and California marine artist Frank Cuprien moved to Laguna Beach. Within a few years, Laguna Beach had a permanent population of about 300 people -- half of whom were artists.

In 1918, artist Edgar Payne opened an art gallery that later became the Laguna Art Museum, one of the first art museums in the state.

Rupy Kaloti's Aag Lagni (above) translates to catch fire, to raise fire, to burn, to become costly, to feel intense hunger, to writhe, or to be incensed. It was the nickname her grandmother gave her when she was a child. Because she was raised in two different cultures, social norms were something she contended with, and the nickname was fitting. Rupy's work explores her connection to two vastly different countries, India and America, while she attempts to reconcile opposing cultural ideologies. Fire Raiser is about Rupy's acceptance of the past, her connection to her ancestry, and her hope for the future.

Next genre: Contemporary Art. Judith Vida-Spence and Stuart Spence took interest in Laguna Art Museum, and together became benefactors of cutting-edge Southern California art for decades as well as Laguna Art Museum trustees. For more than thirty years, the Spences formed personal relationships with the contemporary art they lived with in their home in Los Angeles while also lending pieces to exhibitions and making significant donations to art museums—most notably LAM.

Judy and Stuart Spence’s history of giving to Laguna Art Museum now constitutes a significant 119 artworks by California artists and has become an important part of the museum’s collection. These gifts span California Conceptualism, West Coast Pop and Los Angeles’s Lowbrow art movement with works from the 1970s to the present.

The painting above, by Arthur Cahill, is of Moses H. Sherman (1853-1932), an educator and entrepreneur born in rural Vermont. In 1874, he headed west to Arizona to teach school. He evolved from educator to businessman by successfully investing in Arizona railways, mining, cattle and real estate. Sherman moved to Los Angeles in 1890, where he formed the first downtown electric street railway, which he later sold to Henry Huntington. He was involved in the development of the southern half of the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and parts of Culver City, Del Rey, Imperial Valley and the Tejon Ranch.

I'm also a fan of tiles. Pictured is Phil Dike's Spearfisher Women (Corona del Mar, 1954). What an interesting guy Mr. Dike. Born in Redlands (1906-1990), he studied at all the best art schools in LA, NY and France. After returning to California in 1929, he began teaching at the Chouinard Art Institute and was one of the first artists to develop what became known as the California Style of watercolor painting.

In the early 1930s, he continued teaching and painting and took further studies in Paris. His watercolors were being exhibited in museum shows throughout America and he was receiving wide acclaim and numerous awards. By 1935, he was also working at the Walt Disney Studios where he taught art and color theory while working on animated films. Among the many classic films he worked on were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and The Three Caballeros (there is ALWAYS a Disney connection).  There is so much more to know about this talented man.

“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” — Alberto Giacometti