The Museum focuses on the cultural heritage of our huge, diverse and powerful state, and on the unique history and accomplishments of Laguna Beach, a community of the American West located on the shore of southern California, about fifty miles below the city of Los Angeles. As cultural theorists often enjoy pointing out, southern California, with its motion picture, television, and aerospace industries, is the mecca of artificial culture. In this “here-today-gone tomorrow” culture, our history has traditionally been trivialized and discarded, leaving a great deal of the past for us to excavate. Laguna Beach and the Laguna Art Museum have stood at the center of another sort of culture. From the turn of the century through the 1930s, Laguna Beach was home to one of the most significant artists’ colony on the Pacific Coast. The Laguna Art Museum has not only been the focal point of this art colony but, instrumental in uncovering its history as well. Along with its counterpart, the Oakland Museum of California Art in northern California, it has been at the forefront of a trend among California museums to focus on regional art history.

As I’m writing this message new bamboo flooring is being installed in the Museum’s two largest exhibition spaces, the Steele and California Galleries. This is the biggest upgrade to the exhibition spaces at Laguna Art Museum since the renovation twenty-two years ago.  The new exhibition flooring in these galleries is made possible through the bequest of Mary L. Trumble, a member of the Museum and resident of San Clemente. 

The flooring is gorgeous and I encourage you to come to see it first hand. We would like to replace all the carpeting in the exhibition areas with bamboo and if you are interested in making a contribution towards this improvement, or other capital needs, please contact us.

2008 is the 90th Anniversary of the founding of the Laguna Beach Art Association—the oldest cultural institution in Orange County. This auspicious anniversary sets in motion planning for the next 90 years of Laguna Art Museum. 
 
Of course the focus of the Museum’s plans for the next decade are on changing the facility to meet its future needs—something the Museum has been working toward for the last two years.  As part of this process the Museum has developed a Future Planning document which I’m pleased to say we are sharing with the membership by publishing it in this Annual Newsletter. 

While not a plan for specific growth, Future Planning has been developed to describe the current state of the Museum and the changing needs of its community, as well as its vision for the future.  As this is a key document that will guide the Museum forward into the future any feedback on it from you would be greatly appreciated and you can contact me by email at director@lagunaartmuseum.org or by telephone at (949) 494-8971, ext. 202. 

The exhibitions and events we have planned for 2008 culminate in the William Wendt retrospective guest curated by Dr. Will South with major support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

Bolton Colburn
Director