Art Exhibits Orange County

Jose Lozano began designing paper dolls six years ago at the request of Vanessa, Amelia and Ileana, his preteen nieces who coveted the cutouts they saw at Sav-On. "They wanted Madonna, so I did that," the Fullerton artist said. "I'd spend hours with them, drawing them stuff." But soon, toys became art. Lozano turned to family, friends and the Latino community he lives in to create "sociological portraits."

A world of larger-than-life indoor murals leaps out from the gallery walls at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. Nine artists have transformed its ho-hum white interiors into a kaleidoscope of colors and pictures. Most are participating in the massive L.A. International Biennial Art Invitational, a collaboration of 60 galleries and artists from 25 countries July 18.

It turns out that "A Journey Through Chinese Hell," which opens Saturday at Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, has nothing to do with either soggy egg rolls or the Cultural Revolution. Think of it more as Dante's "Inferno," Chinese style. The focus of the show is two sets of 10 Taiwanese "Hell Scrolls," each depicting the stages in which souls of the deceased atone for their transgressions before reincarnation.

The air of mystique surrounding the Cuban culture seems to have extended to the promotion of the art show. Weeks before the opening, hundreds of English and Spanish-language fliers distributed throughout Santa Ana announcing "Tiempo," have almost entirely disappeared, even from the Santora Building's display cases. Maybe it's because the fliers, produced by Stone, bear an image of Latin American revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who fought to establish a Communist government in Cuba.

Tina Mion's story sounds like every fledgling artist's dream--to leap from utter obscurity, from rarely showing your paintings to anyone, to a one-woman show at a Santa Monica gallery. And when you factor in Mion's lack of so much as a bachelor's degree or art school diploma, the story takes on fairy-tale dimensions. A cynic might point out that in a sluggish art market, gimmicks sell--and Mion has a card trick up her sleeve.

The word "crafts" conjures up images of outdoor festivals and stalls filled with macrame wall hangings, calico-covered photo albums, birch-bark birdhouses, wooden foot loungers and beaded jewelry. The Orange County Museum of Art has a higher order of artisan work in mind with its Pacific Craft Show opening this weekend and believed to be the first of its kind this side of the Mississippi.

The air of mystique surrounding the Cuban culture seems to have extended to the promotion of the art show. Weeks before the opening, hundreds of English and Spanish-language fliers distributed throughout Santa Ana announcing "Tiempo," have almost entirely disappeared, even from the Santora Building's display cases. Maybe it's because the fliers, produced by Stone, bear an image of Latin American revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who fought to establish a Communist government in Cuba.

Self-published Costa Mesa poet Dennis Askew is constantly searching for venues to expose his work to the public. His latest angle? Becoming an artist. His current exhibit, "Message of Love," is on display at Borders Books, Cafe & Music in Costa Mesa and showcases his poetry on a dozen ink and watercolor paintings. It's an expansion of a three-volume series of poems he wrote during the last 10 years called "The Big World Of Love."

Hamburger Heaven patrons in the 1930s had no idea that they were eating off plates that one day would be considered art. Decades later, what was once standard equipment at local diners is part of a nostalgic exhibit at Rancho Santa Margarita Library. "Signs of Our Times: The Art of Popular American Culture" was put together by Carolyn Gregory of the facility's Friends of the Library group.

The city's Art Commission this morning will discuss an oil painting that was abruptly removed from a City Hall exhibit Wednesday after an employee complained that it was offensive. The painting, one of 30 put on display this week at the city's gallery, depicts a family in the 1930s sitting on a beach and eating watermelon. City Manager Kevin Murphy said he removed the painting after a city worker complained that it was stereotypical and demeaning to blacks.

The United Nations canceled an upcoming exhibit of art from around the world after the show's Laguna Beach organizers enlisted the Dalai Lama and his movement-in-exile in arranging the participation of a Tibetan artist, the art foundation behind the show said.

Self-published Costa Mesa poet Dennis Askew is constantly searching for venues to expose his work to the public. His latest angle? Becoming an artist. His current exhibit, "Message of Love," is on display at Borders Books, Cafe & Music in Costa Mesa and showcases his poetry on a dozen ink and watercolor paintings. It's an expansion of a three-volume series of poems he wrote during the last 10 years called "The Big World Of Love."

"The Human Form and Beyond, the Workshop Experience," a new exhibit at the Anaheim Museum, is a study of human emotion. Portraits from 38 local artists stare from the walls of the museum's two galleries. The faces are proud, contemplative, defiant, triumphant, weary, vain or shy. The styles of the drawings and paintings on display are as varied as the personalities they project. Some of the portraits show colorful, fine detail. Others are broad outlines.

It's difficult to predict what would interest a 12-year-old boy in an exhibition of ancient Chinese imperial treasures. Matt Morrissey liked the emperors' and empresses' robes. "There was a different robe for everything the emperor did," said Matt, a Chinese history buff and seventh-grader at Canyon Hills Junior High School in Chino Hills.

Only hours before the grand opening of an unprecedented exhibit of treasures from China's Imperial Palace at the Bowers Museum, work crews struggled to remove several large heavy wooden crates. The smell of sawdust lingered over the mess strewn throughout the Santa Ana cultural center, where a replica of the gate to the Forbidden City remained shrouded in masking tape and packing material.

Mission San Juan Capistrano is showcasing Orange County artwork and artifacts from 1820 to 1900 in its first major exhibition in more than 10 years. The Celebrating Cultural Connections exhibition, which opened Saturday, features a collection that includes paintings, musical instruments, clothing, maps, journals, photographs, fans, trunks and a piano.

It's not surprising that collage, pieced together with bits of paper from diverse sources, is Michael McManus' preferred medium. At 45, he has spent a chunk of his life in a rambling, quixotic search for meaning and purpose. Not that he would put it that way--unless he added a lopsided grin and a twinkle of embarrassment for sounding so highfalutin.

While a reported encounter between an Indian peasant and the Virgin Mary inspired the religious art now on display at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, visitors Saturday also had culture, homeland and marriage on their minds. "We made a promise to ourselves that--because our families were against the marriage--if we got married, it would be at the basilica," said Hortencia R. Cervantes, who was married almost 47 years ago to the day in Mexico City's prominent Basilica de Guadalupe.

Usually, Laguna Beach is known as a place to shop for works by local artists. But this month, one gallery has decided to bring in some of the biggest names in early 20th century art. An exhibit titled "Modern Masters" features pieces by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Joan Miro and Henri Matisse on display and for sale at the Fingerhut Gallery. Owner Allan Fingerhut spent almost three years putting the show together.

The word "crafts" conjures up images of outdoor festivals and stalls filled with macrame wall hangings, calico-covered photo albums, birch-bark birdhouses, wooden foot loungers and beaded jewelry. The Orange County Museum of Art has a higher order of artisan work in mind with its Pacific Craft Show opening this weekend and believed to be the first of its kind this side of the Mississippi.