I just got back from the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters (and Festival of Arts). Once you enter, there are a ton of displays of paintings, sculptures and photographs from regional artists. I found two paintings that were maybe 16x20ish and had sold for $30,000 and $20,000 each. Wow. That was my first shock. There were some good photographers there - but none that really displayed anything that I wouldn't expect many DPCers would be capable of producing. Most were selling (or listed, anyways) between $200-$500 (sometimes slightly more) for a framed 11x14 or 16x20 or so.
The Pageant itself is also very interesting. For those who don't know (which included me until about a week ago when my girlfriend's cousin invited us to join him), they "reenact" famous paintings,sculptures and even photographs. They create a background, a platform-like foreground and use real people to place into the paintings. The amazing thing is that they look so real - some of them are extremely difficult to tell that real people are being used. Some of my favorites of the night were reenactments of a few works by Edward Hopper.
I don't know if tickets are still available for any of the rest of the summer, but would recommend the show to anybody that thinks this sounds interesting. If you do go, make sure to take some binoculars (or you can rent them there, but the line to return them afterwards is horrendous) so that you can look as closely as possible at the people.
edit to add: No, cameras are not allowed.
Message edited by author 2005-07-18 04:56:22.
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