The Sawdust Art Festival began in the mid-1960s as a reaction (or “rebellion,” as one of the participating artists put it) to the more self-important Laguna Beach Arts Festival, home of the long-running living photography exhibition known as the Pageant of the Masters. Today, it is a professionally run event, a place to hang out, drink and dine, as well as explore handmade art.
And in winter, you could say that its hippie touch softens a little more. This is when Santa Claus settles in for five weekends throughout November and December.
Kids explore the gingerbread house in Sawdust Winter Fantasy.
Millie Johnson, 5, and Gunner Johnson, 9, fifth-generation Laguna Beach residents, sit on Santa's lap.
But no matter, if Sawdust is no longer the scrappy little upstart it once was, it's still a home for left-of-center art, anything goes. Most appealing: Entering Sawdust is entering a theme park-like world, with winding paths covered in wood chips, where performers' booths are designed like mini cabins and every corner is full of surprises: psychedelic ceramic mushrooms nest in one bend, a waterfall and a concert stage in another.
Sawdust is a wonderland full of artists, and that's never more evident than during its Winter Fantasy event, which will conclude on December 21. Christmas lights twinkle, a community tree begs to be decorated, and a puppet handler roams the grounds. Artist booths put an emphasis on smaller, gift-ready items (think ornaments, colorful candy dishes, mini plates designed to fit a bottle of wine), but Sawdust's Winter Fantasy stops short of being a full-on holiday party, as it remains an art-driven event where one can join a pop-up pottery class or gather around a table and connect with strangers for a painting session.
“Sawdust is an experience,” says festival president Jay Grant, noting that even today it evokes a different vibe than the cement grounds of the nearby Arts Festival. “You walk in the front door and you're met with paths covered in sawdust. You have a rustic village. You have waterfalls. You have three stages and you have demonstrations going on. It's exciting to watch artists create their art.”
And if you're too shy to channel your inner artist, you can while away the time with mulled wine in the dining room.
The winter edition of Sawdust launched in 1991, although the team had been talking about it since the '70s, says Grant, who has been involved with the festival for 52 years, first as a sales manager but occasionally as a participating artist selling ceramics and wind chimes. As for why it took about two decades for a Christmas event to get off the ground, Grant calls himself a “canyon hippie” and says, “We take it one year at a time.” It's changed over the years: There were striders for a while, and the Sawdust Historic Site notes that there was once a mascot on “Jelf,” part jester, part elf.
Petey the dog looks out as his owners, Erick and Natasha Blaha, not pictured, shop for artwork by artist Tim Hahne.
Jelf didn't stay long and when asked why there is no formal mascot today, Grant laughs. “We have enough characters here just in the artists themselves,” he says. “We don't need to hire any characters. They are some of the most eclectic and interesting ex-hippies.”
Muffin Spencer-Devlin may not be a former hippie, but she is a former professional golfer, who was once an outspoken celebrity on tour. Today, he resides in Laguna Beach and is a full-time glass artist; His work experiments with touches of color trapped in his creations. I met Spencer-Devlin while looking at her little glass angels with multicolored hearts.
Glassware started out as a passion project, but then became a second career for Spencer-Devlin. “I wish it were a hobby,” he says, laughing. “I have to make a living somehow. I didn't save all the money I made, but I've been very good at spending it.”
He has attended Sawdust since the mid-2000s and worked as an apprentice glass artist before beginning to sell his own work around 2009. The event has been a refuge, he says.
“I felt like I'd found my friends,” he says, “the people I resonated with. Every chance I got in those days, I'd talk about glass with someone, and there were all kinds of people to do it with here, so it was an education for me.”
1. Shamus Skoch, a found object artist, displays his work. 2. Gabe Sullivan is a photographer and fine art director. 3. Michelle Burt, an expressive impressionist artist based in Laguna Beach, is at her booth. 4. Artist Lupe Blanton makes ceramic garden art.
Folkloric and whimsical ceramist Lilia Venier has been exhibiting at the Sawdust Winter Festival for 22 years. Sawdust's main summer event allows only Laguna Beach residents to have a booth, but in winter, the festival is open to people from other cities. La Crescenta-based Venier found it welcoming, to the point that Sawdust Winter Fantasy is the most successful show the full-time artist has hosted.
“The people who go there are very loyal,” says Venier, who also teaches at the Creative Arts Group in Sierra Madre. “Every year, people come to me and say, 'What do you have this time?' I have clients in Laguna who have 40 to 50 pieces of mine. That festival is very important. “It's the people who understand what I do.”
Sawdust is about to turn 60, which he will do when he returns to Laguna Beach next summer. It continues to evolve.
“Sawdust was a kind of rebellion of the contest, which was the first. It is very sophisticated and elegant,” says Venier, when asked how the festival has changed in its two decades of presence. “The Sawdust is more slick. When I started, there were a lot of artists who were hippies. They had fun selling surf clothes. You know, hippies on the beach. There aren't many anymore, just a few.”
David Zhang holds his granddaughter Zoey Huang, 5, while watching Santa.
A concern among many artists was the cost of living in Laguna Beach, leaving Grant wondering how to engage younger artists when they can't afford to live within the city limits. As Sawdust approaches its sixth decade, Grant acknowledged they may need to relax some rules for the summer expo, such as allowing non-Laguna residents to show up.
“There are all kinds of ideas,” he says of trying to recruit younger artists.
But there are still no major changes planned for next season. After all these decades, sawdust is still consumed year after year.
