Marlo Bartels

With all the gala openings of art museums in Los Angeles, it seemed the time to take a break and drive down the coast to Laguna Beach. The idyllic, sun-baked ocean-front enclave is always a pleasure to visit, especially after the summer crowds have gone. Laguna also had a new attraction: What else but an art museum?

What could have been an affecting story based on the life of Camarena turned out to be a caricature of what is supposed to be life in Mexico under the influence of drug lords and corrupted officials. The series was full of the usual stereotypical and one-dimensional characters we've come to know in American television and movies. The Latin characters are all buffoons, crooks or both.

What could have been an affecting story based on the life of Camarena turned out to be a caricature of what is supposed to be life in Mexico under the influence of drug lords and corrupted officials. The series was full of the usual stereotypical and one-dimensional characters we've come to know in American television and movies. The Latin characters are all buffoons, crooks or both.

With all the gala openings of art museums in Los Angeles, it seemed the time to take a break and drive down the coast to Laguna Beach. The idyllic, sun-baked ocean-front enclave is always a pleasure to visit, especially after the summer crowds have gone. Laguna also had a new attraction: What else but an art museum?

Friends and family of the late Roy Holm will hold a birdbath dedication for the one-time City Council member at 6 p.m. Saturday in Main Beach Park. The colorful, ceramic-mosaic birdbath was designed and constructed by Laguna Beach artist Marlo Bartels. The piece is Bartels' second functional artwork installed at Main Beach Park; his first is a chessboard and seats at the park's southern end. Main Beach Park was created during Holm's tenure--from 1968 to 1976.

City officials this week approved the first project to meet the 1986 Art in Public Places requirement. The project, a tile composition by artist Marlo Bartels for the wall facing Laguna Canyon Road at the corner of the Sawdust Festival grounds, was proposed by the Sawdust Festival Board to satisfy requirements for the recent festival remodeling.

The Laguna Beach Architectural Guild has announced winners of the 1995 design competition, juried by Pasadena architect Don Hensman, Santa Monica landscape architect Pamela Burton and designer Gere Kavanaugh, also of Santa Monica. Honor awards--the top commendations--were bestowed in four categories to Laguna Beach-based design firms, largely for buildings in Laguna.

The Laguna Art Museum was a culinary-cultural Utopia on Saturday night, thanks to its Feast on Art fund-raiser. The pretty-in-pink museum, usually library-quiet, was abuzz with the chatter of 350 guests sitting at dinner tables that were either artworks themselves or adorned with stunning creations by 40 Orange and Los Angeles county artists. Organized by the museum's Exhibitionist Council, the sold-out, $175 per-person party grossed about $60,000, which will benefit museum exhibitions.

The diversity of style in California homes and offices will be highlighted in the 24th Art and Architecture Tour, which will be conducted April 27 by the Art Museum Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Proceeds of the tour, which will feature four Westside homes and the Executive Life Building in West Los Angeles, will benefit the council's museum acquisitions fund. The tour, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Artworks glistened and gleamed at "Reflections and Illusions," the Laguna Art Museum Junior Council's annual art auction and exhibition. More than 100 California artists responded to the council's invitation to create a reflective motif, many using a sheet of Mylar mailed to them by the council. Among the 300 art lovers to view the exhibit Saturday night were exuberant bidders who did some reflecting of their own, with comments such as, "Which work shall I bid on?" and "How high shall I go?"

Art isn't just for museums, galleries and private collections. It belongs in the public place, from a government building to a grocery store or car dealership. "It should be in all neighborhoods, a part of one's daily life," said Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs. "We [would be] enriched with beauty and creativity." In recent years, public art has become more prevalent in Los Angeles, thanks primarily to the city's 1991 "percent for art" ordinance.