In Laguna Art Museum’s 10 years of mounting its annual Art & Nature installations, a consistent theme has been the preservation of our planet. In this year’s version, the museum celebrates the beauty of nature while artfully addressing environmentalism and conservancy.

Commencing the installation, Dr. Sylvia Earle, award-winning National Geographic explorer-in-residence, oceanographer, author and lecturer, addressed museumgoers on the importance of preserving our oceans. She explained that these bodies of water are our “built-in life support system,” that “our polar ice is shrinking and it is happening on our watch,” and “it is the ocean that makes our climate what it is.” After citing statistics about our planet’s and its life forms’ ongoing devastation, she explained that artists take knowledge of the ocean today. and then reimagine a better future for all of us.

Taking Earle’s notion to heart, L.A. artist Rebeca Méndez created for Art & Nature the 360-degree, six-channel video, The Sea Around Us. Installed in the museum’s large central gallery, it examines humankind’s misdeeds regarding our oceans, while extolling their beauty. The 45-minute film with sound from an Acjachemen (Indigenous) song takes viewers into the depths of Pacific Ocean, revealing flourishing plant life, abalone fish shells and people diving. Amidst the grandeur of the ocean, there are numerous barrels that were dumped into the ocean in the mid 20^th century, all containing the pesticide DDT, which still affects plant and animal life, and the overall health of our planet. Yet the video’s larger message conveys our oceans as being all-encompassing, interconnected bodies of water that are able to self-cleanse, if we are courageous enough to stop exploiting them.

Rebeca Méndez, The Sea Around Us, 2022. Courtesy of Laguna Art Museum.

In an adjacent gallery, the 15-foot wide acrylic and mixed media painting The Big One (1971-1978) by Laguna Beach artist, avid scuba diver Robert Young (1936-2012) reflects in theme and majesty our expansive oceans. The painting, created with pointillist techniques, is a dense, colorful oceanscape, featuring a plethora of sea life and ocean plants. It is also a reflection of the artist’s love of the ocean, as he spent hundreds of hours throughout his life exploring the sea and its creatures.

Five Summer Stories: The Exhibition celebrates the 50^th anniversary of Five Summer Stories by Laguna Beach filmmakers Jim Freeman and Greg MacGillivray. The installation describes in words and images the film, which explores the pure joy of surfing, the surf lifestyle, environmentalism and corporate greed affecting our oceans.

Stationed like a sentry at the museum’s entrance, a pyramid by L.A. based artist Kelly Berg is one of seven pyramids of different sizes that the artist created for her installation, Pyramidion. She placed six of the seven pyramids around the area surrounding Laguna Art Museum, from Main Beach to Heisler Park, from November 4 to 6. With some reflecting the magnificent rocky landscape and others contrasting with it, the pyramids provided artistic and spiritual nourishment for visitors on three sunny days.