While many people took to the beaches of Southern California, West Coast Artists used the long Memorial Day Weekend to bring fine arts to Long Beach.
This year marks the inaugural year for the Long Beach Fine Art Festival. However, the event organizers are veterans in the fine arts festivals. West Coast Artists was founded in 1983 by Ronda Mills. Mills says that she has been producing festivals for 30 to 31 years. During the course of the last 30 years, West Coast Artists produced shows in Palm Springs, Burbank, Toluca Lake, Channel Islands Harbor, Cathedral City, and Pasadena.
The event organizers boasted of having 70 artists from around the region, including glass blowers, steel workers, painters, photographers, and jewelry designers. Each of these types presented original artwork at the festival.
Joel Tesch, of Acrylic Expressions, showcased vibrant and vivid colors on canvas and in print. Many of his images use contrasting colors to show the beauty in natural environments.
Another artist at the festival, Brian Kaupke, showed visitors his perspective on life. His artwork is made of hand crafted steel and maintained a beach and ocean inspired theme, with colorful oceans, palm trees, and a large dolphin. Kaupke’s work as an artist stems from a motorcycle accident, which changed his perspective, or opened his eyes about life. Kaupke stated that his artwork was created to bring happiness.
The was slated to be the Long Beach Fine Arts & Wine Festival. However, several factors contributed to the lack of wine at the event. Most importantly, the vineyards were all booked for the weekend. Despite this setback, the event had a fair number of people in attendance. Because Mills plans to make this the first event of many, she hopes to book vineyards for the wine, instead of recommending people to local establishments, such as the Yard House.
This event is an example of “Life In Long Beach.”