Auction items are going, going and soon to be gone

Saturday's auction at Laguna Art Museum will have plenty of happy and aggresive bidders.

The Laguna Art Museum is counting down the hours to Saturday night’s “Art Auction 2012: California Art Lounge,” the museum’s annual benefit auction to raise funds for its educational and exhibit programming.

For this year’s auction, the Laguna Beach museum is partnering with more than 20 art galleries, including local ones, to auction off 106 art pieces by contemporary California artists working in many different genres.

Twenty-five of the 106 artists live in Laguna Beach. Eighty-five of the pieces will be sold off via a silent auction, which is already underway and closes for bids on Saturday night.

The remaining 21 pieces will be sold at a live auction in the museum’s Steele Gallery later on. It will follow the closing of silent auctions in four of the other galleries at 7:30, 7:40, 7:50 and 8 p.m. Saturday, said Sarah Strozza, the museum’s special events director. An after-party will follow at 9 p.m.

–Imran Vittachi, @ImranVittachi, Coastline Pilot

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Taking plunge from art to surf

Former Laguna Art Museum Director Bolton Colburn, seen here in 2008, is now executive director of the Surfing Heritage Foundation. (FILE PHOTO)

Former longtime Laguna Art Museum executive director Bolton Colburn hasn’t traded his business attire for Hawaiian shirts just yet, but he is poised to make a splash in the world of surf culture.

Colburn has been hired as executive director by the Surfing Heritage Foundation with an ambitious goal to take the 11-year-old organization from a San Clemente industrial park to an urban coastal center and significantly raise its profile locally and internationally.

“It’s my dream job,” said Colburn, a former competitive surfer who was a U.S. amateur surfing champion in the late 1970s.

Colburn, 56, left the Laguna museum in May after 23 years and a number of upheavals. He was in the thick of the battle over the museum’s ill-fated merger with the Orange County Art Museum in the mid-1990s.

Around 2005, he proposed the Laguna Art Museum move from its longtime location on Cliff Drive to the city’s “arts district” near the Laguna Playhouse, Festival of Arts and Sawdust Art Festival, an idea that ultimately foundered.

With the Surfing Heritage Foundation, Colburn holds the reins of an organization that has been mostly devoted to collecting and archiving its considerable holdings, including some 500 surfboards, 250,000 photographs, and other materials including film, literature, clothing and other artifacts.

–Cindy Frazier, @CindyFrazier1, Coastline Pilot

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A wall of ‘wonder’

Le Dillen, Alex Eng, Cheryl Kook, Jenna Morgera, Matthew Nishi, Mia Tavonatti, Sen. Curren Price, Mayor Jane Egly and LCAD President Jonathan Burke at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Power of Words mural project Saturday. (Photo by Jenny Lynn)

It’s been nearly a year since the vibrant Laguna College of Art & Design mural along Laguna Canyon Road was painted gray by the building’s tenant.

Since then, LCAD mural instructor Mia Tavanotti has been hard at work, brainstorming and creating the Power of Words Project, which allowed residents to vote on a word that would be the inspiration for a new mural.

On Saturday, Tavanotti stood alongside students, Mayor Jane Egly and State Sen. Curren Price (D-Los Angeles) during a ribbon-cutting ceremony that revealed the winning word: “wonder.” The word was drawn in chalk on the wall where the mural will be.

Tavanotti said the word took her by surprise, and her students are excited about the opportunities it brings.

“It’s an incredibly visual word,” she said. “They’re already coming up with great concepts for it.”

–Joanna Clay, @joannaclay, Coastline Pilot

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A day of snow and sun

Attendees enjoy sledding down the hill at Grand Park in Aliso Viejo for Snow Fest on Saturday. (Photo by Kelly Tokarski)

While it felt like summer in most of Orange County this weekend, Aliso Viejo was a winter wonderland.

The city’s Snow Fest 2012 on Saturday drew people from all ages to enjoy about 52 tons of snow trucked in for the event.

Families came to the Grand Park in Aliso Town Center to take rides down “Grand Mountain” and the “Bunny Slope,” and the young ones enjoyed the “Snow Man Park” play area.

—Kelly Parker, @kellyparkertcn, Coastline Pilot

Seeking ‘mystery couple’ from beach proposal

A couple appears to get engaged in the background of photos captured at Aliso Creek Beach on Jan. 22.

Editor’s Note: The following is a letter written to the Coastline Pilot by Mission Viejo resident Barryn Vaughn. She and her family were at Aliso Creek Beach around 1:30 p.m. Jan. 22 taking pictures and enjoying the day. Later, they noticed what appears to be a young man proposing to his girlfriend in the background of some of the photos. Vaughn is hoping to find out who this mystery couple is so she can surprise them with candid photos of their special moment. If you have any information, please pass it along to coastlinepilot@latimes.com.

*

There was an amazing moment captured by accident as we (my daughter Jessica, her husband and my granddaughter, Makena) spent the day at Aliso Creek Beach Jan. 22.

Jessica had brought along with her a digital camera and was busily shooting photos throughout our beach walk. It wasn’t until she got home and was able to look at the pictures blown up on her computer that she realized what she had accidentally captured as Makena was simply trying to climb up on the rocks and sit next to her grandpa.

About 10 minutes before the three photos were taken, I had observed a young couple and thought to myself, “Aren’t they a cute couple? They’re kissing and in love.”

Of course, Grandpa and Makena were supposed to be the focus of the shots, but now I guess it’s pretty obvious that a marriage proposal was in the making and the three sequential photos tell the whole story.

What’s that they say? A picture is worth a thousand words! Well, here’s three.

Sadly, we have no idea at all who or where this couple is and or where they might be now, but I’m sure they’re probably somewhere in the beginning processes of planning their beachfront wedding!

I would simply like to find and surprise the couple with the photo of what hopefully will be a lifelong commitment.

Barryn Vaughn

Mission Viejo

Cartoonist was ‘infinitely talented person’

John Lara, former cartoonist for the Coastline Pilot, died Jan. 15. (Couresy Lori Lara)

John Lara, whose irreverent cartoons appeared in Laguna Beach, Orange County and national newspapers, died Jan. 15 of complications from lupus. He was 57.

A memorial service will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Little Church by the Sea, 468 Legion St.

John’s political and social commentaries in cartoon form appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, Copley News Service, the Orange County Register, the Laguna News Post and the Coastline Pilot. His first job was with the now-defunct Newport Ensign.

“We worked together at the Ensign,” said best-selling author T. Jefferson Parker. “It was our first job, and we became friends.

“He was so talented, so full of life and energy he was a pleasure to be around.

“John saw other people’s foibles without seeing himself as better than they were,” Parker said.

John exhibited at the Sawdust Festival, where his Thurston Middle School art teacher, Ron Rodecker, also showed.

Rodecker said John’s talent was already obvious when he attended Thurston.

–Barbara Diamond, @coastlinepilot, Coastline Pilot

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Whalen joins Laguna council race

Robert Whalen

Planning Commissioner Robert J. Whalen announced on Monday his candidacy for Laguna Beach City Council.

An active community volunteer and practicing attorney with expertise in municipal financing, Whalen joins Mayor Jane Egly, Mayor Pro Tem Verna Rollinger, former Councilman Steven Dicterow and Kathryn Doe as candidates in the November municipal election.

“I am excited by the opportunity to run for City Council and believe that my community volunteer work, my career as a public finance lawyer, and my prior experience as a twice-elected School Board member provide me with the knowledge, skill, and expertise to be an effective council member,” said Whalen, a resident of Laguna for 27 years.

–Barbara Diamond, @coastlinepilot, Coastline Pilot

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Pipeline repairs cause traffic to trickle

Courtesy the Laguna Beach County Water District

Traffic in downtown was tied up Wednesday due to a water pipeline that required emergency repairs.

Renae Hinchey, general manager at the Laguna Beach County Water District, said that crews went in about 8 p.m. Tuesday night to look at a fire hydrant that wasn’t working properly on South Coast Highway at Forest Avenue.

During the excavation, workers realized that a flange, the lip at the end of a pipe, was leaking water. The flange was connected to the main water line.

They also discovered a smaller leak on a lateral pipeline that was connected to the hydrant.

Hinchey said what started out as a planned repair turned into an emergency operation.

The northbound lane of South Coast Highway was closed off during repairs, which affected traffic. A traffic signal also went out, and Laguna Beach police assisted in directing traffic, she said.

Hinchey said that the Water District tries to do all repairs at night in an effort to not impact traffic, but a negative outcome outweighed that concern Wednesday.

If not repaired, she said, the main line could break, causing flooding, mud and debris to enter the roadway.

All work was projected to be completed by Thursday.

–Joanna Clay, @joannaclay, Coastline Pilot

City reaches understanding with police employees

New employees in the Laguna Beach Police Department will pay more toward retirement benefits than veteran employees under terms of a memo of understanding approved Tuesday by the City Council.

The directive calls for new hires to contribute the full 9% toward the city’s share of retirement costs, which will pay the employees 3% of their highest salary at age 55 for every year worked.

Current employees were contributing nothing but will begin to pay 2% toward the city’s 9% share starting Jan. 6, 2013.

But they can retire at age 50, instead of 55, as it is for new hires.

“We will save $65,000 in the next fiscal year and $130,000 annually after that,” said City Manager John Pietig.

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Woman uninjured after car flips, slides

A driver walked away uninjured after her car flipped on its roof and slid across Coast Highway on Sunday evening.