Each week, Arts Orange County and Culture OC deliver you this look at the stories and events happening in our arts and cultural community.

Sawdust Winter Fantasy

Laguna Beach's arts-and-crafts marketplace gets its annual wonderful winter makeover with holiday food and carolers accompanying festive offerings by over 180 artists and creators MORE

New Era, New Energy: Fullerton Museum Center Reopens After Major Renovation

2025 has seen the museum’s most successful exhibition in its history and its most significant upgrades, thanks to a long-awaited $4.5 million state grant for capital improvements.

“It’s great having this grant and this is all about modernizing the center while also acknowledging the building’s past,” Rubalcava said. “But we also want to make sure that we walk away from this taking every opportunity to use (the money) wisely to help prepare for the future.”

The museum’s public rooms will be introduced to visitors for the first time Saturday, with three separate openings and one one-day opening. In the main gallery is a retrospective of prolific graphic designer John Van Hamersveld, whose imprint on pop culture ranges from the iconic poster for the surfing film “Endless Summer” to album covers like The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” and psychedelic images of Jimi Hendrix.

Hi-Tech & History: Anaheim and Orange Metrolink Stations Exhibit Vastly Different Vibes

Both Anaheim and Orange share passenger rail histories that stretch back to the county’s earliest days. But other than that historical link, their contemporary Metrolink stations couldn’t be more different. Anaheim’s is part of a transit hub encircling a sleek, towering architectural marvel, but with very little inside or surrounding it – for now. Orange’s features a nearly 100-year-old depot that isn’t even used by the train and borders one of the county’s oldest and most well-preserved downtowns.

Gold Leaf on Trash: How an Artist Returns Humanity to the Unhoused

Showcasing the holiness in the overlooked, Jason Leith, 35, connects with Southern California’s homeless population by painting their portraits.

His love for people, his Christian faith and his inspiration from socially engaged art in the 1960s conceived his mission, Sacred Streets. Leith has painted people on Skid Row, the streets of Oceanside, and now those at The HUB Resource Center (HRC) in Orange.

He takes his time sketching each person to learn more about their story, which is then incorporated into artwork made from recycled materials.

“You don’t find many artists walking the streets of Skid Row for inspiration,” said Joseph Gorra in Christianity Today. “But Jason Leith has done just this, rendering its beauty in ways that marry artistic excellence with social responsibility.”

Each week, we recommend a variety of events and experiences from the listings at SparkOC.com, our free website for Orange County's arts and cultural community.

Heartache and Catharsis

The acclaimed and one-of-a-kind string ensemble the Hutchins Consort opens their new season in Newport Beach with a program featuring Rossini’s William Tell Overture, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, and more MORE

Inspired - Opening Reception

The 11th annual edition of this group exhibition features artists from the Huntington Beach Art Center community, the best and brightest of up-and-coming local talent MORE

Tiny Tim's Christmas Carol

This stage play at Mission Viejo's Saddleback College refocuses the story of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" onto the youngest member of the Cratchit family, and his hope to see his father home for Christmas MORE

Night Of Shyamalan 3

The Frida Cinema throws their third-annual secret double feature which presents two unannounced films from M. Night Shyamalan, master of supernatural dread and surprise endings since his breakthrough "The Sixth Sense" MORE