Super Saver
reaching over 200,000 plus local shoppers! DECEMBER 2025
This rebellious arts festival embracing its inner Santa Claus TODD MARTENS
rooms nest around one bend, a waterfall and a concert stage around another. he Sawdust Art Festival Sawdust is an artist-filled wonstarted in the mid-1960s as derland, and never is that more a reaction to – or a “rebelapparent than during its Winter lion,” as one of the Fantasy event, which will wrap participating artists put it – Scan the QR code to Dec. 21. Christmas lights glisten, Laguna Beach’s more uppity visit the Sawdust Art a communal tree beckons to Festival of the Arts, home to the be decorated and a marionette Festival website. long-running living-pictures handler wanders the grounds. show known as the Pageant of the Masters. Artist booths place an emphasis on smaller, Today, it’s a professionally-run affair, a gift-ready items – think ornaments, colorful place to hang and drink and dine as much candy dishes, mini plates designed to nest a as it is to explore handmade art. wine bottle – but Sawdust’s Winter Fantasy And in the winter, its hippie edge is argu- stops just short of going full holiday party, ably softened a little more. For that’s when as this is still an art-driven event where one Santa Claus moves in for five weekends can join a pop-up ceramic class or crowd throughout November and December. around a table and connect with strangers But no matter, if Sawdust is no longer for a painting session. a feisty little upstart it once was, it’s still “Sawdust is an experience,” says the a home for anything-goes, left of center festival’s President Jay Grant, noting that art. More enticing: To step into Sawdust even today it conjures a different vibe than is to wander into a theme park-like world the concrete grounds of the nearby Fesof winding paths covered in wood chips, tival of the Arts. “You walk through the one where artists booths are fashioned front gate and you’ve got sawdust-strewn as mini cottages and every turn is full of surprises – psychedelic ceramic mushSee Arts, Page 4 LOS ANGELES TIMES
T
ALLEN J. SCHABEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS FILE
Children enjoy the occasional fake snow fall next to the Santa meet and greet, at the Sawdust Winter Fantasy Festival in Laguna Beach, Nov. 23.