Coast Highway Artists


Gallery at 284 Main St., Point Arena, CA 95468 - 707-882-3616



aRT talk



This page will present interviews with, or discussions by, individual artists of the Coast Highway Artists Collective, and invited guests. Articles will include selected works of the artist to illustrate current interests, art techniques used, and design goals.



an artist's view of what has worked well in some examples of scotT sewell's travel photography



Scott Sewell, one of our member photographers, has been touring Europe with his wife and has periodically emailed selected images taken along the journey. Any of us on such a trip might be clicking away at random scenes without giving a lot of thought to it, but there is much to notice in how a seasoned photographer selects and composes his views. Lighting will always be a challenge, but selecting the right viewing angle with respect to the direction of natural lighting can produce striking effects, and framing an image that has a good distribution of shapes and values, something a painter might strive to accomplish, can make a huge difference in creating a memorable photograph.


Let's examine Scott's recent set of images we received. Scott starts this sector of his journey in southern Wales, stopping first at a town called llfracombe, a "quaint coastal town. It does have a rather amazing piece of artwork (sculpture) called "Verity" at the entrance to its harbor," says Scott.


The photos in the section below are numbered from L - R. Note in photo 1 how the sunlight comes from beyond Verity, making the sculpture appear as a dark silhouette rising up from the complementary darks of the earth, and enhanced by the mid-values and lights of the overhead clouds. Good composition. Interesting details of this sculpture by Damien Hirst are given in Wikipedia:


The statue depicts a pregnant woman holding aloft a sword while carrying the scales of justice and standing on a pile of law books. Half of the sculpture shows the internal anatomy of the pregnant woman, with the foetus clearly visible. The stance has been described as a reference to Little Dancer of Fourteen Years by Edgar Degas, a c. 1880 work that previously inspired Hirst when he created Virgin Mother, another massive sculpture of a pregnant woman with her foetus exposed.


Photograph 2 was taken in Dartmoor National Park. "If you wonder what a moor is (Sherlockian’s take note), here is a panorama of the moorland we crossed through. The yellow flowers are “Gorse” – a prickly plant that is one of the main plant types found in English moors. The ground and plants here retain large amounts of water and many areas are swampy and dangerous." The moors are framed as a large scene to get a sense of the loneliness. The balance and distribution of mid-range lights and darks are good, and the central image of the almost brush covered creek draws the eye through the image.


Next, Scott stayed nearby in "Exeter, one of the oldest cities in England. It originally was a walled Roman settlement. It has one of the largest cathedrals in the country and the largest open roof span of any church in the world." In Photograph 3, the commanding passageway of the massive, vaulted ceiling focuses the eye deeper into the image, toward the darkened altar area at the far end. No detail is visible there, but we may imagine statues or paintings, gold candlesticks, lavish tilework, as an area of ancient ritual. Again, the image has a full, balanced range of lights and darks and any intricate details are subsumed by the overarching presence of the mesmerizing, vaulted ceiling.


Before starting on his trip north to Cardiff in Wales, Scott stopped in Greenway, England to visit "Agatha Christie’s house on the Dart River. This was an interesting and informative stop, particularly if you are a fan of her books (all 66 of them)." Notice in Photograph 4 that Scott chose his direction for photographing the house so that the right wall of the house and porch area seem to emerge from a dark background area of trees and shrubs, (the template cropped some background) from the wider, landscape view of the original photograph) to unify the composition of the image. Again, a complete range of distributed dark, middle and light value areas.


After his long trip to Wales, Scott visited Cardiff Castle. Note in Photograph 5 the somber, powerful view of the castle, made so much more dramatic by a subdued lighting against the projecting planar surfaces. Perhaps in this case it might have been artificial lighting, but the angle of the photograph was well chosen to add the drama of a massive hulk of a fortress sitting on strategic, raised ground. Values range from the lit forward stone walls, to the mid-value ultramarine blue sky, to the darkened castle sidewalls and earthen banks beneath the castle. Good composition achieved.


J. O'Rourke





Verity, a sculpture by Damien Hirst, in llifacomber, Wales



Moor, in Dartmoor Park, England



Cathedral in Exeter, England



Agathe Christie House, in Greenway, England



Castle in Cardiff, Wales



out of africa - a photographer's focus on helping save the world's wildlife



In this Art Talk, photographer and avid traveler, Cindy Morey, of Manchester, CA shares her many photographs of wild animals from the heart of Africa. Some photographs are astonishingly up close and intimate. During her first visit, she had planned to photograph the Gorillas in Uganda. However, due to tribal warfare on the border of Rwanda, she had to settle for climbing the 19,341-foot peak of Mount Kilimanjaro! Subsequent trips to Kenya, Tanzania, Cape Town/South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Egypt and Morocco exposed her to more wonders of the world, including our companion wildlife.


She volunteered for organizations that were working with the local tribes to save animals from poachers and in-breeding. One of these organizations was researching and moving cheetahs from various parts of Africa to strengthen the gene pool. Cindy got to pet a female cheetah and play with three 4-month-old cheetah cubs. These and other amazing photographs are shown below.


Cindy is also a scuba diver and helped create a flyer to protect the coral reefs from tourists. Additionally, she photographed the illegal trade of fishing for aquariums. Another organization Cindy volunteered for was protecting the rain forest and educating people on its impacts on the environment and wildlife.


She also did a shark dive in South Africa with a research company studying their movements and travel habits. Africa is a very spiritual place for Cindy. Being around all animals has been one of the highlights of her life.


Additionally, Cindy loves to take photographs of landscapes, intimate details of flowers, abstracts, and more.



Rhinos



Hippo



Zebra eye



Baboon grooming



Penguin buddies



Baby Cheetah



Baby Cheetah in Tree



Cindy with full grown cheetah



Elephant family



Elephant Eye closeup



barbara fast - basketry & god's eye



I am not a professional artist. I enjoy working with many different materials to satisfy my need for creativity. I particularly like to work with materials that reflect the world around us.

In my ribbed basket I used reed, coiled sea grass and an antler shed by one of our local deer. A traditional ribbed basket starts with a hoop to which ribs are added. The middle and strongest rib is attached to the hoop by a God’s Eye of woven reed. Additional ribs of smaller round reed are inserted into the God’s Eye. The hardest part of making the basket is keeping the ribs in place until enough weaving has been done to hold them in place. They tend to “pop out” and have to be re-inserted over and over again. The contour of the basket is created by adjusting the length of additional ribs until a rounded bottom has been achieved. Many different materials can be used to weave around the ribs. In this basket the weavers are coiled sea grass. A handle can be added to a finished basket. Driftwood is often used but in this case an antler is used. Antlers make perfect handles, but they can be challenging because antlers weigh so much more than the basket that they must be balanced perfectly so they don’t tip the basket over. Antlers by themselves are beautiful but they can be embellished by wrapping them with leather or yarn and adding shells or stones.



AN ARTIST BY ANY OTHER NAME - ROZANN GRUNIG



It’s my ever-circulating question – what makes an artist an artist? Where is that fine line we cross to seriously call ourselves an “artist” instead of a “painter” or a “photographer”? The answers are elusive and seem relevant one day, not so much the next.


I was never what you’d call an artsy kid growing up. I was too serious and responsible to allow myself the luxury of pursuing something tha​t didn’t have defined boundaries, specific goals and quantifiable rewards. And then I moved to Sea Ranch.


Walking the trails through the redwoods, hiking through old growth forests, the feel and smell of salt water on my skin as I walked along the shoreline – it all changed me. It burrowed into my soul and opened up windows into a world I never knew existed. I chucked the corporate me right out those windows and allowed myself to see and feel and experience the world around me as it was in that moment. I put aside my preconceived notions of how things should be and just let what was flow over me.


I began taking photographs of the immense beauty all around me, mainly because there was so much and I have a really terrible memory. I wanted to capture the sites, but I also found I was capturing the feelings and sensations that went along with it. That sense of completeness – the visual and the sensory, is what makes my photographs so special. I hope you, as the viewer, feel my photographs as well as experience the beauty that is the Mendonoma Coast.


Today, I express my artistic sense in a different way. My husband and I moved to Seattle in 2017 to be closer to our grandchildren. My son had opened a bakery, and I decided to go back to school (in my 60s) and earn a degree in culinary arts. I spent two years learning, absorbing, practicing and tasting, and now I feel confident to call myself a pastry chef. I still put all that creative energy I gathered on the coast into my creations. I love pairing flavors and textures in my pastries and get tremendous satisfaction when I see a customer enjoying my work, this time by eating it instead of just viewing it!





PASTRY CREATIONS



Photography to please the eye and pastries to delight the taste



How do you look at abstract art? - chris hagie, a chac gallery visiting artist



This question seems to be in the minds of art viewers when they look at abstract art. A lot of people ask me what is on my mind when I paint and create mixed media pieces that are abstract. Some who view abstract art- work that is truly non-representational- try to identify something recognizable in the work. "I think I see a bird", or "look, there is a car on the water" kind of statements. I notice that they are squinting their eyes to pull out something identifiable in my most abstract work. Others comment on the colors and shapes and sometimes lines or marks, which is how I view abstract art. Still others like the title of a piece, more than the piece, it seems. There is certainly no right or wrong way to "see" abstract art.


When I start a new abstract piece, my interest is in color, shapes, value and lines and how these things interact with each other in the piece. I literally start with the colors that I want to use, and their variations, and also a basic composition foundation. I paint, then look at the piece for a while, then add something, and so forth. I also love textures and sometimes add collage, netting, string, found objects and copies of photographs or papers. I can't explain in words and don't seem to have the language to express what I am looking for, or the end point. Except to say it is when my eyeballs smile. Not my heart smiling, or my brain smiling, but my eyeballs. It is not that the piece conveys a political or social message, other than that of satisfaction. It is simply visual and makes my eyeballs smile. Does that make sense to anyone else?


Other times when I start a piece, I have visual images in my mind of the huge Redwood trees in my yard or garden plants, the beautiful ocean nearby or the shapes and energy of a city like San Francisco. These images seem to show up in the new artwork, but typically in an abstracted version. The degree to which one's eyeballs smile comes from within the person, it seems to me. The art viewer brings something very unique to the experience of looking, and perhaps that accounts for why we each like something different. How do you view abstract art?


You can see some of my work in Edgewater Gallery in Fort Bragg, CA, open every day from 11am to 5pm.



Love of My Life



Global Interference



empowerment through accessories - siobhan



Siobhan has been a local, Point Arena, guest artist at CHAC. Her art media is painting on silk, and this 'Art Talk' is to make our viewers aware of her inspiring efforts to use art to promote an inner, psychic healing effect in cancer victims. Siobhan calls her process 'Empowerment Through Accessories.' We've taken some excerpts from her website at: https://www.siobhansilks.com/empowerment-thru-accessories/ to give some background and describe the process.


"In my late teens I watched the strongest woman I knew, my mother, cry as her hair fell out in reaction to the chemotherapy coursing through her veins. Empowerment arrived with her girlfriends and their array of entertaining headwear, but nothing made my mom feel beautiful."


Later, "In my mid thirties I watched, and felt, the power that came with a simple gesture given by strangers to my cancer ravished husband. He had been included in a prayer circle, not because we shared a faith or a friendship, just because we were struggling with life and death. The empowerment experienced by this gesture from strangers was profound for both of us, the patient and the significant caregiver. This history has fermented into “Empowerment thru Accessories,” my mission to put silk scarves on the heads of women experiencing challenges such as chemotherapy. It seems to be one of life’s ironies, just when a woman is facing the gravity of what IS her life, something as trivial as an accessory becomes critical to warmth, if not fulfilling the basic need to feel feminine."


The development process ultimately culminated in Siobhan's realization of how to involve the patient in the Empowerment healing steps: "Recently, at the height of her battle with cancer, a friend came to my studio to help video tape my painting of large silk panels for a show in Colorado. Witnessing the cancers hold on her emotions that day, I handed her a paintbrush and asked her to work on the panel with me. The work was beautiful, as was the change in her. “Empowerment” morphed before my eyes, the realization that the act of painting the silk held transformational powers of its own. The vision became clear, women painting scarves for other women, empowering themselves with the act of creation, coupled with the feelings of empowerment you experience when sharing your creation with someone in need. Women gathering to learn, creating community, while supporting each other."


Siobhan's website (click on the link above) provides a PDF download, with step-by-step instructions for making and painting a scarf and with a source for materials.





WELCOME



SIOBHAN SILKS



David Yager Photography



FOCUS ON LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY - scott sewell



As I concentrated on Landscape photography over the last five years, I developed a number of practices to achieve the kind of images I was looking for. Early on, it became clear that repetitive visits to the same areas and locations would pay off in better photography than casting a wider geographical net. Getting to know the land, the light and the seasons directly in my chosen locations -- the Mendocino Coast and the High Sierra -- would make the difference between “average” photographs and a “great” ones. Some days I have gotten lucky, as in the Half Dome image.
One visit, great conditions and light, one iconic photo. But it doesn’t go that way most of the time. Even though I limit the scope of my photographic wanderings, on the Mendocino Coast, there are days of hazy, overcast or rainy weather and, in the Sierra, bright cloudless days. Neither condition is good for photography but there is always time to “find the frame” on these kinds of days, evaluate the images and shoot later under different conditions. Since I am already working with a subset of the landscape, it is easy to return to the same place over and over. If I’ve already “found the frame”, I can tell at a glance if conditions are right. Visualization is important here too. How do I want this image to look under ideal conditions? Sometimes the “finding the frame” leads to the to the visualization. Sometimes, the visualization leads to “finding the frame” Sometimes it’s a combination.


As an example, I am presently working on two overviews of the town of Bridgeport in the Eastern Sierra. Locals want me to take these shots. One is going to be to be a Black and White, reasonably close up, with the buildings in the near foreground and the local geographic “superstar” Sawtooth Ridge in the background the other is to be a color image from a more distant point emphasizing the enormous scale of the Bridgeport Valley with both the town and the Sawtooth Ridge in an epic-sized frame.


After hours of driving and hiking around on a recent trip and a day of shooting, the results are shown in Bridgeport Valley 1, and Bridgeport Valley 2. These are not bad but they could be better. The B&W could be improved if I could get higher – avoiding the telephone wires and cluttered foreground and taking in more of the town. It would also help if Sawtooth Ridge were directly behind the buildings. It so happens that there is a long hill behind this shooting location which is about ¼ mile further away and about 100 feet higher where I might be able to achieve both. I’ll shoot from there at the next visit. The color image has a different problem. It too could be improved by being at a higher location allowing more of the lake in the shot and better separation of the town from the forest in the foreground. I also need to wait till later in the day to get the sun to light the latter. The geography, however, won’t allow me to align the town and the Ridge as with the B&W. The town in the lower left will have to balance the peaks on the upper right. Hence the need for more distance between the trees and the town. More problematic is the vegetation. This is the Valley’s winter coat – brown empty pastures and a half empty reservoir. So, with this photo, the solution is seeking a position to solve the “frame” problem by moving my shooting location but waiting until later in the spring to solve the second. I guess the message is that patience and method are virtues in landscape photography.


To illustrate, consider the image, Garcia River runs to the Sea. .I have always liked this image and it has been in my catalog for several years but the clear skies and flat light have invited me to wonder if it could be improved. The location is a sugarloaf on the Stornetta Ranch near the Lighthouse, which requires ½ mile walk through mud and cow pies. Twice it was so windy at the top of the hill, I could barely stand up much less shoot from a tripod. Due to the often-gray skies on the Point, quite often, the intent to reshoot had to be put on hold. But on a spectacular day after a storm passed through this April, I got clear air and a cloud-filled horizon with no wind. I set up in the exact same spot as three years before and about an hour before sunset. I call the new photograph, Message to Garcia, taken under completely different conditions: The clouds are spectacular and the late afternoon light creates contrasting shadows across the marshland and a glow on the banks and water of the river. There is no question that this is the better shot but it took three years and a dozen trips to get it. Visit. Shoot. Repeat. It works for me!



Half Dome



Bridgeport Valley 1



Bridgeport Valley 2



Garcia River runs to the sea



Message to Garcia



chris grassano, our chac oils painter, tells us how it's done in black and white



"I have been a member of the Coast Highway Art Collective since 2016, and I'mglad to have gotten the opportunity to know so many talented folks from the Point Arena area. It has been my inspiration to integrate the special North Coast environments into my work.


During the year of Pandemic, I have been keeping busy with a series of smaller paintings of the plants that bloomed in Spring and Summer of 2020, as well as other subjects.


I am currently working on a triptych commission for friends who recently purchased a new home. This is part of my black and white series. With the black and white technique, I start with gesso boards and black oil paint. I create the images with a series of different tools including brushes, pallet knives, and other implements such as Q-Tips. Then I scratch out details in the paint using single-edge razors and other scraping tools. I continue to add paint and scratch until the objects come to life and the painting is complete. Here's my painting of Owl Thoughts, oil on 24-in. x 24-in. board."



Other b & w examples



Deer at Pond



Fishing Boat



Raptor Feather



Mates



ling-yen's new, masked jewelry - optimism for our times



I enjoy creating my Asian-like faces jewelry and making pieces that symbolize the uniqueness of faces in all times. My art talk today is about my new Unmentionables mask series. My inspiration was in how we all must now wear masks as a way of protecting ourselves, and how the masks may come to serve in some resilient way as part of our new identification.


The Unmentionable’s face has a removable mask, symbolizing our way of keeping oneself and others safe from spreading COVID. This idea came to me as a way to remind myself and others of our difficult times in a gentle and real way. I make the piece in a hollowform construction and add ornamented pins that simulate earrings and provide a way to put the mask onto the piece. The mask is removable and the necklace with the face may be worn with or without the sterling silver mask. It is a comment and a reflection on how we have been wearing masks and might necessarily continue to do so.



unmentionables with masks



LY - 1



LY - 2



LY -3