Laguna art community remembers former festival exhibits director Jack Archer

Jack Archer spent most of his life as a businessman. He was 50 years old when he began to embrace his college minor and become a staple in the Laguna Beach art scene.

“At some point in your life, you have to realize what your passion is, and he [Archer] was fortunate enough to know,” said longtime friend Pat Sparkuhle, a mixed-media artist.

Archer, former exhibits and artists activities director for Laguna’s renowned Festival of Arts, died of throat cancer Aug. 21 at his Laguna Beach home at age 82. He had an “unequivocal impact on the arts community,” Sparkuhle said.

Archer came to the Festival of Arts late in his professional career. He was a business administration major and worked in specialty food merchandising for most of his life.

He minored in art at Glendale City College, and his interest in the subject turned into an obsession after he switched career paths.

He immersed himself in the Laguna Beach arts scene. He found a sales job at a gallery specializing in California artists, attended drawing classes at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and later enrolled at the Art Center School, also in L.A., to study design and composition.

In 1982, at age 50, he got a job as the grounds manager at the Festival of Arts. He was promoted in 1994 to exhibits and artists activities director, managing the annual summer exhibition of artists. He retired in 2010.

Archer prided himself on beautifying the festival grounds. He also implemented the festival’s docent program and art demonstrations and workshops. He was instrumental in growing the event’s permanent collection and creating offsite exhibits. He spearheaded the junior art program and pushed its presence on the festival grounds.

“He was well aware that the future of art has to do with the children,” Sparkuhle said.

Archer frequently would sketch and dabble in watercolors, creating bright open-air paintings of Laguna’s canyons and shores. “But you’d never know he was an accomplished artist because he never brought it out to the public,” Sparkuhle said.

Friends remember Archer as a champion of local artists. A collection of work lined the walls of his small Laguna Beach apartment, which was adjacent to several galleries, taking on the appearance of wallpaper. He only collected works of local artists with whom he was personally connected.

“It was just wonderful,” Sparkuhle said. “Looking at the front room of his little apartment was like looking at the art history of his life.”

Archer frequently arranged showings for local artists at Los Angeles museums and shopped his favorites around town, according to former Laguna Beach Art Assn. registrar Rose Tuttle.

When an out-of-town artist would visit for a showing, Archer, acting as a consultant and liaison, would get on the phone to fit the person in for a show at the Laguna Art Museum, Tuttle said.

Archer — bald, 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds — looked imposing to most, said Sparkuhl, who jokingly referred to him as the Michelin Man or Mr. Clean.

“He seemed to be very stern when you first met him and had kind of a gruff facade,” photographer Bill Agee said of his longtime colleague. “But that was to cover a big heart.”

One time, Archer battled rush-hour traffic from Laguna Beach to Los Angeles to give his then-25-year-old niece a flower. “He was always very thoughtful about his family,” Agee said.

When Agee wanted to shoot an experimental collage of about 25 close-up photographs of Archer’s face, Archer enthusiastically agreed. When he saw his portrait next to one of Agee’s 14-year-old granddaughter, he jokingly referred to it as “Beauty and the Beast.”

“He was always willing to try something for art’s sake,” Agee said.

Archer is survived by his brother, King Archer, and niece, Christy Archer Morris.

Hundreds attended a candlelight memorial for Archer in late August at the Festival of Arts grounds.