Declare your independence this year by enjoying one-of-a-kind artwork at the Coast Highway Art Collective. On Sunday, July 3, the collective hosts an opening reception for three local artists, Brenda Phillips, ceramics Bea Acosta, pottery and Barbara Poole, printmaker. The community is invited to stop in right after the Independence Day parade in Point Arena ends after winding its way down Main Street. The parade begins at noon.

Phillips began taking pottery lessons around 2002 after retiring in 1995 from teaching at Manchester Elementary and as a resource specialist at Point Arena High School. She has studied under Paul Stein and taken classes at Brandybuck with Kaye Like and at the Mendocino Art Center. Phillips is showing some new work at this show, including large footed oval bowls and globes. She says “It’s a challenge for me to make new shapes that I haven’t tried before. I love it when a lump of clay can become so many different shapes and forms. Glazing is still fun especially when different colors are layered onto a single piece. I love to challenge myself by mixing my own glazes, then brushing, dipping, pouring, or spraying them for so many different effects.”

Acosta says “My Native American/ Mexican roots have emerged in my pottery. The joy I feel as my hands create with the clay must have connections to my ancestors. I am enamored with the piece as it unfolds and I rarely know how it will look until the final moment when it emerges from the kiln, the firepit or the raku kiln. It evolves as the clay and I create together.” Acosta has experimented with a variety of methods to finish her pottery masks and vessels, which are all hand built, using the slab and coil method. Spontaneity is inherent in all her creations because of the way she works, the material she uses and the process she employs. For Acosta, experimenting with various techniques, burnishing, terra sigillata, sagger firings, raku, horsehair and smolder firings, is an organic experience. Combining the elements of fire and earth (the clay itself) appeals to Acosta’s Native American and Mexican heritage. The influence is obvious in the finished products. Both her masks and her vases suggest the primal and spiritual qualities of indigenous people.

Poole says her art is often experimental and based on what she sees and feels. “I notice that I am always documenting, whether it be the passage of time or my surroundings,” observes Poole. Primarily she is a printmaker, but she often makes a series based on the same idea in oil, watercolor and sometimes taking it to 3-dimensions. “I’ve been influenced by other artists, usually printmakers who do unusual techniques, and by my childhood in rural Pennsylvania. My goal is to learn new skills and develop different art methods every year which has led to challenges and many surprises. Since the pandemic my art has become more about the experience of looking at the world and myself in a different way.”