The Malaga Cove art show and sale is here for spring and summer
Perhaps it’s the fountain and the weathered statue of Neptune, located a few dozen yards away, but there’s something slightly mythological about the 30 or so artists emerging each spring to exhibit their wares on the green lawn in front of Malaga Cove Plaza.
Mythological because, like Persephone, compelled to spend six months of every year with Pluto in the Underworld, these artists vanish from the plaza after September and then only reappear with the spring leaves, six months later.
Well, the spring leaves are back, and this weekend – as they will do on five other weekends over the next few months – artists and artisans are hoisting their tents, unrolling their magic carpets, and offering new work for sale.
Long time standing
Jan Napolitano, a noted ceramicist (or potter) who lives in Palos Verdes Estates, has been participating in the outdoor lawn shows for quite a while. How long?
“About 35 years,” she replies with a laugh. “And I’m still standing.”
Few others up here can claim such artistic longevity, other than Neptune, standing younder with his trident at the ready. A two-thirds size replica of La Fontana del Nettuno in Bologna, Italy, the sea god has been holding court since 1930.
Napolitano has lived in the Estates since 1969 – weren’t there still grizzlies in the hills back then? – and has been honing her craft for over 40 years. She’s seen it all, and then some.
Plus she has this wonderful little anecdote that perhaps dates to the very beginning of those 35 years and somehow resonates all the way up to the present:
“The first person who ever bought anything (of mine) still comes by. She didn’t know that she had been my first customer down at Malaga Cove until I told her about a year ago. I said, ‘Did you know you made my day?’” She laughs fondly at the memory.
It’s been called the Malaga Cove Art Show and Sale for quite some time, but now it’s being referred to as Art at the Plaza, which at least has the benefit of being more concise.
Are most of the artists also members of the Palos Verdes Art Center?
“Every one of them,” Napolitano says. PVAC has seven artist groups (Artists Open Group, Pacific Arts Group, Paletteers, Palos Verdes Painters, Peninsula Artists, Photographic and Digital Artists, and Third Dimension) under its umbrella – although years ago we might have been talking parasols rather than umbrellas. The Malaga Cove Plaza enclave dates back to the 1920s, and also, just up the street, on Via Campesina, is the Malaga Cove Library – with its lower level art gallery – that was begun in 1926 and then finished four years later. As for the evolution of the outdoor displays, there was an artists’ group called the Rembrandt Crew, Napolitano says, “And the ladies would have parasol shows. They would have their parasols, and they dressed up quite well, and have their artwork under the trees. That was in the early ‘50s, and that’s how they started the Malaga Cove shows.”
So it’s quite a tradition, some 60 years and counting.
The parasols have gone, replaced by booths.
Asked what makes these lawn shows so special, Napolitano doesn’t need to hunt for words:
“It is a nice draw for the community, something free, and it showcases local artists – which is very nice.”
Nice for the people who stop by, looking for original work.
“We get a lot of drive-by traffic, traffic that is coming and going from LAX,” Napolitano says, “and also from the two resorts (Trump and Terranea) that we have. So you get to see people and talk with people who are from all over the world, (who) think that this is really quite special if they have the time to stop.” Plus, she adds, “We get all the Sunday drivers and people from the beach.
“We’ve had tour buses stop; and we get to watch the wedding photographs at Malaga Cove because many people come down and are photographed with the older buildings and with King Neptune. So we have as much fun as our customers do, seeing the world go by and seeing the world happen.”
In their own backyard
One of the key aspects of the lawn show that Napolitano often circles back to is the fact of it being a community event, where residents and others can meet up with friends old and new, and then take the time to socialize.
“So it’s a little bit more than just looking at the artwork and talking with the artists. The artists have to be there themselves, and everything is a one of a kind item.
“It is,” she adds, “a beautiful show; the artists are seasoned artists and have been artists for a very long time. Many of them teach, and so there is a professionalism.”
The most recent press release for Art at the Plaza names a few of them, such as Sandra Chu, Marlene Delugish, Bernard Fallon, Richard Gould, Val Simon, Karen Wickham, and David Wolfram. Many of these artists have shown locally elsewhere, whether at the Manhattan Beach art Center, Destination Art, or in the PV Art Center itself.
Organized art events in Palos Verdes go back decades, 85 years plus, which at one time were under the banner of Friends of Art and later the Palos Verdes Community Arts Association. The Palos Verdes Art Center, with its recently renovated galleries atop Crenshaw in Rancho Palos Verdes, is the current evolutionary pinnacle of this now-venerable tradition.
The Malaga Cove lawn shows begin the 2015 season this Saturday and Sunday, April 11 and 12, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Future dates extending through summer include May 16 and 17, June 20 and 21, July 18 and 19, August 15 and 16, and September 19 and 20. After that it’s back to the Underworld! Malaga Cove Plaza is located at the entrance of Palos Verdes Estates, on Palos Verdes Drive West between Via Chico and Via Corta. Information, Bernard Fallon at (310) 920-2184.
