Luminosity

So we spent a weekend in Laguna a couple weeks back. We went to the Festival of the Arts and Pageant of the Masters on Friday night. Then followed it up with Coldplay at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Irvine, on Saturday night.

The Pageant was amazing as usual. I realize that it's all lighting and makeup but WOW!!!! They really do look like the paintings. And how they manage to stay still for that long is a mystery to me.

But the big excitement for us was the art festival. Local artists, from Laguna Beach, are showcased in the the area outside of the amphitheatre where the have the Pageant of the Masters. When we went a couple of years ago, there was one artist that we really admired but were just too poor to afford. In the back of my head, I was hoping that maybe we could afford something this year. But now, the guy is untouchable to peons like me. One painting was going for $20,000 and the other was going for $30,000! Just for comparison, his paintings two years ago were going for $5,000.

So this year when we found a painting we loved, we bought it! The artist's name is Carolyn Reynolds. The painting we chose is just luminous. She applied gold leaf to canvas and then used oil paints over the gold leaf. Stunning, isn't it? But the picture doesn't do it much justice so you'll just have to come and see for yourselves.

Coldplay was good. The show was too short but they got most of the songs that I like. They closed with "Fix You". And I was near to tears. Even Craig enjoyed the show and he's not one for loud music. I'm dragging him to U2 with me in the fall. But I'm sure he'll be loving that show too.