Laguna Canyon Project
[1] The project, created by photographic artists Jerry Burchfield and Mark Chamberlain, was a response to explosive growth in south Orange County and especially to the threats of development within their hometown of Laguna Beach, California.
It empowered local artists and concerned citizens to get actively involved in the fate of the Canyon, while informing the greater Orange County, California about the environmental issues.
The project reached its high point in 1989 when, in celebration of the Orange County Centennial and the Sesquicentennial of the discovery of photography, the art partners erected a giant photographic mural in a critical location of the Canyon.
In September 1983, Chamberlain and Burchfield executed Phase V, "Primary Light Documentation,” requiring 65 designated participants (plus backup) obtained 13 vehicles and a 30,000-watt generator, towed by a 40-foot flatbed truck.
In response to these expected developments, Burchfield and Chamberlain began extensive lobbying to execute their next phase, which was to build a giant photographic mural in the canyon, directly in the path of the toll road, and across the highway from the proposed new city.
On May 1, 1989, after three years of planning and months of fundraising, the art partners, along with a growing army of environmentalists, began constructing an outdoor photographic mural called The Tell.
Since 1989 was the Centennial of Orange County, CA and the 150th anniversary of the discovery of photography, they decided that the project would be composed of photographs contributed by local residents and by people from all over the country.
More than 2,500 people attended the August 19 dedication of The Tell, erected in Laguna's Sycamore Hills area, including scores of environmental groups from all across the county.
All that remains at the site today are 88 barely visible postholes filled with pea gravel rhythmically spaced on the hillside for future explorers to discover.
Laguna’s artistic legacy stretches back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when people from across this country and Europe, many steeped in French Impressionism, moved to this area.
Artists, including Frank Cuprien, Joseph Kleitsch and William Wendt, settled here, formed an art colony and used Canyon landscapes as subjects of their paintings.
They employed the broad-brush strokes and pure, bright colors of their earlier French counterparts to capture the canyons; their artistic style came to be called California Impressionism.
