West End Celebration loaded with visual arts all over the place.

Artists have traditionally been the first to recognize and confront obsolete ideas, lead the way to progressive and enlightened thinking, and, in a pragmatic way, foretell the future. We might glimpse where Monterey County is heading by visiting tiny Sand City this weekend.

Sand City Juried Art Exhibition at The Independent

5-8pm Fri, Aug. 26, artist opening; all day this Sat-Sun; through Sept. 25 (hours TBD)

Kicking off the celebration, this art exhibition of 86 works of paintings and sculptures to cassette tape inserts and shredded tires – from a pool of more than 700 pieces – is juried, curated and judged by just one person: Gail Enns. There’s cause to be optimistic.

She’s been responsible for good art shows in the past, including the Japan-centric Transcendental Vision (also at The Independent) and at her now-dormant gallery Green Chalk Contemporary.

We’ve seen some of this show’s artists through Enns’ nonprofit Celadon Arts or in her gallery. Sand City Arts Committee chair Craig Hubler says that’s not a conflict because she cannot “profit in any way” from sales in this show (although she will award $3,800 in prize money).

The Sand City Juried Exhibition coincides with the West End Celebration and it leads right into its music fundraiser kick-off, but is not financially sponsored by the festival, and so retains an independent streak.

Bonus art show: As a pre-party to the pre-party, Enns put together a photography show from “pinhole cameras and darkroom alchemy to digital composites” called Independent Presence, at 440 Ortiz Ave., opening 5-8pm Thursday, Aug. 25.

West End Celebration’s Kaleidoscope of Arts throughout Sand City

11am-6pm Sat (Aug. 27) and noon-5pm Sun (Aug. 28)

The WEC proper touts the theme “kaleidoscope of arts,” and it comes from folks and concerns like Holly Temple, Pacific Grove Art Center, Lori Bala, Rory Glass, Michael Schultz, Kenji Art Designs, Urban Arts Collective, Open Ground Studios, Murphy Adams, Maggie and Mel Nelson – more than 100 artist vendors lining the streets around Ortiz Avenue.

The kaleidoscope also turns your attention from the streets to the interiors of Sand City studios for Monterey Sculpture Center, Holly & Ashley Temple, Sylvan Design, Manny Espinoza, Karl Schaefer, Red Door Gallery (a nice walk away from the hoopla) and others. These creative spaces will be open for you to wander into, snoop around and ask questions like Colombo.

The kaleidoscope will also show you things you didn’t expect, like the MTV Chill Room, in celebration of the 35th birthday of the music television channel, and its “ties” to Sand City. Hint: The tie is Michael Nesmith, who has a media studio in Sand City, and started a TV show called PopClips for Nickelodeon, which sold it to Time Warner/Amex in 1980, which spun it into MTV. Ta-da.

“Grand Illusions is going to transform the [Carol Building] into an ’80s club scenario,” says West End media rep Rebecca Riddell. It will be appointed with TVs playing early MTV videos, a small gallery of archival MTV photos, and party people wearing ’80s and ’90s fashion from vintage clothing store Cat’s Meow.

Paper Wing will be front and center with interactive crowd improv comedy and juggling. Interspersed will be periods of open mic invitations for anyone who seeks 15 minutes of performing arts fame.

Community Palette’s Timeless Fashion Show at 440 Ortiz

5:30-midnight Sat, Aug. 27 ($25; $40; $250 VIP tix sold out).

It’s part performance art, fashion show, fundraiser, private party, and freewheeling impulse. It’s organized by CP founder Kierstyn Berlin and its artistic director Domini Anne, and switched directions when the Soberanes fire erupted, re-focusing as a palliative for affected residents and a fundraiser for the Coast Property Owners Association.

They’ve got Jayson Fann creating a spirit nest as a backdrop, Linda Arceo and DJ Hanif Wondir adding music, Folktale Winery and Damien Georis plying the crowd with wine and beer, BiGSuRCuS doing “a ceremony,” a fashion show by local designers including Dawson Engler, Kelly Denee and Molly Daniels, more than 20 artists – nearly all women. It’s going down at the donated live/work spaces of Greg Hawthorne and Don Davis – 6,000 square feet of it.

One of CP’s missions is to get money to local artists – here, a stipend, divided evenly. When they switched to a fundraiser format, the designers agreed to cap the amount they would receive.

Sometimes creative impulses have led local fashion designers, especially in and around Big Sur, into cultural appropriation territory. But Anne says they’ve been vigilant about that: “We’re having that conversation.”

If the litmus test were not just need, but virtue, Jessica Neafsey’s clothes would warrant reward. She creates clothes with animal patterns uncommon in greater fashion, but native to our landscape – the Western scrub jay, plankton, Pismo clams, the Western fence lizard.

“This is one of the most biodiverse places in the country,” Neafsey says. “It’s about promoting a little eco-literacy.”

That sounds like a progressive and enlightened fashion statement.