Hillcrest Festival of Fine Arts to Celebrate 50 Years

The golden anniversary of the Hillcrest Festival of Fine Arts is coming in February!  Fifty years strong, the festival is one of the premier art shows in the West, and it runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, February 26, 27 & 28, 2010 in the city of La Habra Heights.  Hours are 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Friday and Saturday, 11:00 am to 5:00 pm Sunday.  Parking and admission are free.

The festival showcases an extensive variety of art available for purchase at a wide range of prices. Enjoy watercolor and oil paintings, unique handmade jewelry, ceramics, acrylics, pottery, hand-woven clothing, photography, stained and fused glass, metal and wire sculpture, woodworking, and a great selection of handcrafted gifts in the Arts & Crafts Boutique.  There will be many artists demonstrating their skills throughout the weekend.  Free art workshops for children are on Saturday and Sunday, where they can make their own creations.  Festival attendees can browse, shop, enjoy live entertainment, and have lunch or a snack at the Starving Artist Café.

Ernest Lacy, noted watercolor and oil painter, is the Featured Artist for the 2010 festival. Born in Los Angeles, he studied art at Chouinard Art Institute, Kann Art Institute, Otis Art Institute, UCLA, and Universita per Stranieri in Italy. In addition to acquiring scores of solo exhibitions, his prints and paintings have gained inclusion in hundreds of juried exhibitions throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe.  A former longtime instructor at Cal State Los Angeles and past artist-in-residence at Whittier College, Lacy currently lives in Whittier.

Principally concerned with the intricacies of form and the dynamics of saturated color, Lacy injects celebratory passion into his spontaneous and searching use of varied media, confidently deployed in the expression of his personal artistic freedom.  The result is a completely fresh approach to color, a vocabulary of the artist’s own invention, enabling him to portray ordinary life, whether desert landscapes, garden scenes, Central American villages or the nude human form, as if we are seeing it for the first time.  From the controlled spontaneity of his charming watercolors and the studied glazed layers of his masterly oil paintings, to the impulsive sensuality of his intimate monotypes, Lacy transforms everyday subjects into magnificent designs of form and color.

“I feel the need to express the sense of inherent order in the clutter and chaos of the daily world about me” he states.  “I want to report and rejoice in what I see. Beauty is everywhere present.  Color is my tool, the dynamics of my brush, describing the tensions that tie together the disparate threads for a dramatic and satisfying whole.”

Lacy’s work is represented in many public collections, including the Library of Congress, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art and the City of Los Angeles.  His artwork in featured in private collections throughout the United States, Mexico, Italy, England, Germany, Sweden and Finland. 

Started 50 years ago by a former church organist who had the idea to host a free festival that would celebrate the arts with the local community, the festival now attracts art lovers from all over California.  Each year many new artists, as well as long-time favorites, are chosen to participate.  Hillcrest Congregational Church is located near the border of Whittier and La Habra Heights at 2000 West Road.  For more information call (562) 947-3755 or visit http://www.hillcrest-church.org