Artist’s Poster Dances With the Spirit of the County’s Centennial Celebration

Unlike some artists, Ken Auster isn’t put off when his work is described as “commercial.” When not doing his paintings, serigraphs and montages, the Laguna Beach artist has regularly taken on assignments to create designs for businesses from Ocean Pacific Sunwear and Hang Ten to the Chart House restaurant chain.

“I’m not into that abstract or bohemian artist thing; I see myself as a fine artist whose art can be used in a commercial sense,” Auster, 36, said. “I don’t just throw something on the canvas. I want people to get what I’m doing. I want it to be able to relate to their experiences, to be accessible.”

It is that accessibility that helped Auster win a $2,000 commission to produce a poster for the yearlong Orange County Centennial program. Looking for a design that would reflect the many threads of county life while presenting an appealing face to the public, Centennial organizers settled on Auster’s montage of a dark-haired dancer swirling about while fireworks cascade behind her.

The fabric of the dancer’s dress incorporates scenes representative of county life, including mountains, beaches, surfers, orange groves and sailors, Auster said.

“The guidelines were basically to create a celebration, the celebration of the spirit of the county, and I feel I’ve done that with the dancer and other imagery,” he said.

The poster, which should be available by the end of September, originally featured a dancer who was clearly a Latino woman. But Auster said Centennial organizers decided that the image was too racially specific, so they asked Auster to make the woman more generic in appearance.

“They told me they wanted it less ethnic so none of the (county’s) other ethnic groups would be alienated,” Auster explained. “I could see their point. They’re trying to reach the general audience. I prefer my original idea, but this didn’t really bother me that much.”

The poster criteria provided by organizers stressed that the work “should be appealing to diverse cultural groups.” Furthermore, the poster should not “portray any persona, although historical types are acceptable.” The rules also asked artists to avoid placing “slogans or wording” on their pieces.

The organizers originally planned to sell the poster during upcoming festivities, but they recently decided to give the poster free to nonprofit groups and events associated with the program, said Mary Ann Waters, Centennial vice president of marketing. About 5,000 posters will be printed.

“We’ll try to make them available everywhere--malls, county offices--anywhere anyone wants to put them up,” she said. Waters added that many of the posters will have a blank portion at the bottom to promote individual events and sponsors.