The 2012 Santa Ynez Valley Studio Tour was sponsored by the Wildling Art Museum on Oct. 27-28, following a Friday evening kick-off reception where participants had the opportunity to meet the artists and see examples of their work. With so many participating, the reception provides the chance to make the difficult choice between which artists to visit. Even with studios open for 12 hours over the course of two days, it simply isn’t possible to visit them all. Touting the simple truth that the Valley – in addition to being the heart of the Santa Barbara County wine country – is home to a diverse population of talented artisans, the museum works to lure in art enthusiasts from near and far. But the tradition has been a long time favorite of locals as well.
Like a scavenger hunt, following the bright yellow signs, participants wound their way through the area’s small country roads, up hills and down through vales as they passed by a landscape, dotted with creatures both domestic and wild, that has inspired so many.
What follows is an abbreviated look into the work of four participating artists: Rebecca Gomez, Suzanne Huska, Joanne McClure and Judi Stauffer.
Gomez’s work is all about the “bigger picture.” She wants her paintings to be more than a simple snapshot of a particular time and place. Just as life evolves over time with the ebbs and flow of the seasons, so also does Gomez’s work. As an avid gardener, it comes as no surprise that her paintings are inspired by nature.
As she stands next to a completed work, she points out how the image shows the subject’s development through the span of a growing year. She also draws attention to a small region within the work, which has become the subject for another painting.
In fact, for each painting in her most recent series, Gomez selects a small area of a completed or almost completed painting. She then takes a digital image of the spot and enlarges it quadruple-fold or more, and prints it out on quality paper. The new image becomes the base for the next painting, as she adds to and embellishes the print with layers of paint. What results are images that resonate with color, texture and movement. But Gomez is only one of a number of painters on the tour, each with their own distinct style and personal influences.
Suzanne Huska spent 30 years living in Mexico and there developed a love of painting native women. But a move to the Valley required a modification in her subject matter if she hoped to sell her pieces, she says, of her beginnings as a landscape artist.
And while her works sold, it didn’t take too long before Huska became bored with her new subject matter. Finding herself less and less able to stray from her women, she began to incorporate them into her landscapes. Sometimes the feminine images are readily apparent, and sometimes they are cleverly hidden in trees, stonewalls or a fence post here or there. “You can date my paintings by how elaborate my ladies are,” she says. At one time there were always at least three per painting, in honor of her three daughters. Her paintings aren’t just inspired by feminine imagery, but also by spirituality – the sense of Mother Earth, if you will.
“I’ve always been committed to the earth,” she says. Then, shaking her head gently, she adds, “My kids laugh at me and say ‘Mom went off the deep end.’’’ Huska doesn’t always make the effort to point out her hidden imagery to buyers, though she acknowledges at this point most people in the Valley already know her humorous secret.
Perhaps less known is the number of other local artists, like Huska, who are also inspired by the imagery and faith of our South American neighbors. “Since 2000, I have been a protégé of indigenous medicine people living in the high Andean mountains of Peru,” says Judi Stauffer.
Since the 1980s, Stauffer and Rick Hubbard, who recently passed away, have made functional sculpture inspired by “the magical creative realm of the unconscious,” or what they dub “Primitive Western Funk” art. Stauffer, after retiring, embraced a new direction, blurring the line between sacred and secular.
Diagnosed with leukemia, Stauffer’s art and life then took to the dual paths of modern Western medicine and time-tried Andean traditions.
Most recently she has begun making digital photographic assemblages celebrating the Incas and the four-fold path of consciousness. But Stauffer is not the only Valley artist to blur the lines between art and faith.
Joanne McClure is also inspired by ancient traditions, though her inspiration is usually expressed in 3-D form. The daughter of an artist and an architect, building sculptural imagery to express a cultural message just seemed to come naturally to her. She didn’t realize she was interested in art until attending a summer camp at age 15 at the Institute of Chicago – a place with a strong family connections. Handed a block of plaster with iron-oxide added to give it a marbleized look, she experienced her first foray into the realm of art. “Can you believe a high school with no art classes?” she inquires.
Her formal education in the arts had to wait until college, where she majored in sculpture at Cornell University. Now retired from a life of teaching, McClure has the honor of helping to raise her granddaughter. Working from her home studio, she continues to inspire through her imagery, whether it is her actual pieces or 2-D renderings thereof.
“I like to do pieces with a message,” she says. And like the tour, part of that message is that the arts are important for more than just our enjoyment.
Other artists participating in the tour were Donna Anderegg, Wesley Anderegg, Carol Carbine, Gwen Cates, Sarah Chamberlin, James Cleland, Virginia Cooper, Michelle Griffoul, Ron Guthrie, Suzan Hamilton Todd, Chris Hansen, Rick Hubbard, Gene Inglis-Ward, Joseph Knowles, Mike Magrill, Jamie McConnell, Teresa McNeil MacLean, Marianne Muldowney-Hofmann, Larry R. Rankin, Jane Schwarzwalter, Bud Tullis, Marietta Warkentin, C. Wood and Pamela Zwehl-Burke. struax@syvjournal.com