Category Archives: Ventura Art Scene

Local Ventura artist selected to join the City of Ventura’s Public Art Program’s Streetscape Mural Project

Home for the summer Kaylie has taken on the task of painting murals.

by Richard Lieberman

The City of Ventura Public Art Program’s Streetscape Mural Project is a sidewalk and street corner showcase for talented local artists and community members to transform traffic signal utility boxes into new public art. Since 2007 artists have painted over 30 boxes with designs that will beautify street corners and aid in minimizing graffiti. Artists, students, schools, and community organizations have made for a better pedestrian experience on Ventura Streets by participating in the City of Ventura’s “Think Outside the Box” program. The program was designed and initiated in 2007 to transform designated street utility boxes into public works of art.

Born and raised in Ventura local artist Kaylie Pendleton is currently a college junior at the Northwest College of Arts in Portland, Oregon. Home for the summer she has taken on the task of painting murals on two traffic signal utility boxes located at the corner of Day Street and Telegraph Roads. Kaylie won the “Mayors Art Award” in 2017 and has worked on the 2019 “Irish Belle” for the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. “I have always been interested in art I love drawing people, flowers, doing magazine illustration, and fashion design,” she said. Painting the murals will take about one or two weeks she added.

Kaylie is a survivor of Retinoblastoma (a cancer affecting the retina which may be caused by genetic mutation though the exact cause is still unknown). In 2019 Kaylie had her mural design selected by Loma Vista Elementary School and installed in 2019, she is also the recipient of the 2021 Ventura County Community Foundation Vivian Klemz Scholarship.

“I have grown up in Ventura, so I have always seen these (traffic signal utility boxes) and saw which ones I liked a lot and since I went to college, we were able to pick our own project and I was able to design this for class and here we are,” Kaylie added. The City of Ventura’s Public Art Program supplies the material to accomplish the task. “I had to fundraise, and Ventura residents were able to donate and get me the supplies I needed, through the cities Public Arts Program,” said Pendleton. “I have been focused on drawing and illustration for around six years now so I am studying illustration and graphic design and I hope people can see that in my work.”

Kaylie is looking forward to returning to Portland this fall as a senior and has also been accepted into a study abroad program this fall in England “I love Portland overall, a great vibe for illustration and graphic design” she said.

Kaylie will graduate with a BA in illustration in May, 2022.

Ventura arts group to debut new gallery

Mixed media collage by Mary Kolada Scott

Buenaventura Art Association will reopen July 2 in a new home, Studio 99 at Bell Arts Factory, 432 N. Ventura Ave., with an exhibition by members of The Collage Lab, Ventura artists who create pictures using paper, photos, fabric and other mixed media.

It’s called “Picking Up the Pieces,” and will present “a selection of recent work reflecting thoughts, ideas, feelings and inspirations that carried the artists through the COVID lockdown,” according to Janet Black, one of the featured artists. The others are Karen Hoffberg, Darlene Roker, Wendy Winet, Janna Valenzuela, Karen L. Brown, Mary Kolada Scott, Joyce Lombard, Virginia Buckle and Tasia Erickson.

Opening reception for the show will be 5-8 p.m. July 2, in conjunction with Ventura’s First Friday gallery crawl. It will be the first in-person exhibition since March 2020 at BAA’s Bell Arts gallery and will run through Aug. 14. Open hours will be noon-4 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

The grassroots Ventura arts group, founded in 1954, also has an outlet at Harbor Village Gallery & Gifts at Ventura Harbor, and artwork displays at SpiceTopia and Very Ventura, downtown shops on Main Street

For more information about BAA and its programs, call the gallery at 805-648-1235 or visit buenaventuraartassociation.org.

Featured artist Laura Jean Jespersen at the al Fresco Art Exhibit

Laura Jean Jespersen was the featured artist at the al Fresco Art Exhibit held at the Olivas Adobe Historical Park held on Mother’s Day May 9. An added feature of the day was the rose garden in full bloom and the owls to be seen in the trees. Breeze staff member and Vice president of Olivas Adobe Historical Interpreters Mary Thompson enjoyed the painting by Laura which was inspired by the second son of Raymundo and Teodora Olivas Jose Nicholas Olivas.

Ojai Eye: Master Photographers

Horace Bristol by Donna Granata

Donna Granata’s portraits of Ojai artists, who have been extensively documented for the Focus on the Masters Arts Archive & Library, are part of a group exhibit at the Ojai Valley Museum. The exhibit was curated by Roger Conrad who said, “Not mere picture takers, they are artists. Their chosen subjects are refined to an essence that transcends banality.”

Museum Hours:
Fridays from 1pm to 7pm
Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 4pm

Vita Art Center presents John Nava and David Kassan “ELEGIES” Paintings – Tapestries – Drawings

Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzales Unique Jacquard Tapestry by John Nava.

Opening Event:  Saturday, June 12 from 4-7pm., Reservations Required
$10 for non-members.  Members free
Exhibit Dates: June 12 – August 14, 2021
Roya Kovensky, Survivor | Unique Jacquard Tapestry | Artist: David Kassan

These artists are holding the world to account. Both by the monumental scale of the tapestries and their exceptional technical prowess, Nava and Kassan command attention to their subject matter whether it be images of people who died while suffering hardships nobody should ever suffer or in the case of Kassan adults who once suffered monstrous hardships yet lived to tell their story; a story held in their bodily stance, a story that speaks of both defiance and dignity.

It is a curious shift in our historical focus that throws these two together. Figurative artworks were once outflanked in importance by a bold new abstraction, but with abstraction the ability to tell stories all but dried up. Instead abstraction often functioned as handy decor for corporations to inoculate their walls and entrances from difficult meanings.

28 West Main Street
Ventura, CA 93001
805-644-9214

Vita Arts Center hosts free art workshops for children

Twelve-year-old Phoebe Hopp’s wide eyes stared hauntingly out at her grandmother from the self-portrait she’d drawn in art class. Lydia Hopps couldn’t see her granddaughter’s expression. Most of her face was covered by a mask, which she and other students had worn to prevent spread of COVID-19 during the class at Vita Art Center.

Thus began an ambitious community art project at Vita Arts Center called “Through Our Eyes,” organized by the center’s founding director, Mary Perez. The project involves a series of free art workshops for children ages 8 to 18, led by professional artists. Instructors guide students to create a self-portrait of themselves wearing a face mask.

Workshops at Vita Arts Center are already underway, and the center plans to hold several more through the end of the year. An on-site and online exhibit of 100 self-portraits is planned for June. The center will also create a printed catalog of the portraits that will be available to the public.

So far, Perez has enough funding to provide workshops for 100 students. She hopes to secure enough funding to offer workshops to a total of 500 children and teens. 

Parents can sign their children up for the workshops online, and registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. Perez is also reaching out to local schools to discuss hosting workshops for their students. 

To sign up for a workshop or to donate to the Through Our Eyes Community Art Project and Exhibit, visit www.VitaArtCenter.com Workshop spaces are limited and pre-registration is a must. Vita Art Center is located at 28 W. Main St.

International Mail Art Exhibition hosted by Joe Cardella’s ARTLIFE Foundation

Ventura artist Carrie Vogi is one of the artists on display.

An International Mail Art Exhibition hosted by Joe Cardella’s ARTLIFE Foundation opened April 15, and runs through May 14, in downtown Ventura.

Entitled the “Post” Pandemic Mail Art Exhibit, it called for artists throughout the world, professional, amateur, or beginners, to mail in 6” x 9” postcard size works of art for an exhibition. The show honors artist Joe Cardella, whose ARTLIFE magazine collected mail art over twenty-five years, totaling over 10,000 pages, and reflects dependence on the “post” for sharing art then, now and after the pandemic.

Artists from 22 countries submitted over 237 pieces of art, from the USA, Greece, Japan, Romania, Russia, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, Uruguay, Hungary, the UK, Denmark, Macedonia, Spain, Turkey, Serbia, Norway, Belgium, Sicily (Italy).

The live actual exhibit will be on display at two downtown Ventura locations, walkers can view the postcard art in the windows at 47 S. Oak St and around the corner at 365 E. Main St. near Oak St.

All works in the actual exhibit are posted virtually on line at the Foundation website:
https://artlifefoundation.org.

The Foundation dedicates itself to position Ventura as one of the world’s major Mail Art centers and strives to develop the recognition of art as an essential human need and to expand communication among artists in our area and throughout the world.