VENTURA : Art From Woman’s Yard Graces Gallery

Beatrice Wyatt’s front yard in Ventura is a gallery of sorts. Now part of her front yard is in a gallery.

At the Ventura College art show that opened last week in conjunction with Black History Month, Wyatt, 88, created a representation of her ornate yard.

For about five years, Wyatt has collected all sorts of objects--rocks from the beach, colorful hunks of plastic, scraps of carpet--and painted and decorated them. Then she assembled the pieces into a colorful patchwork at 223 Olive St.

Richard Peterson, curator of the college gallery, drove by Wyatt’s creation many times and admired her work, so he asked her to put together a display.

“They say it’s art,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s just things that are pretty to my eyes. I like to make things pretty.”

A reception was held last week and the exhibit, “Beatrice Wyatt: A Tribute,” will be on display at the New Media Gallery until Feb. 28. A second exhibit, by Los Angeles artist Richard Wyatt (no relation to Beatrice Wyatt), will be at the college’s Gallery 2.

Using children’s toys, silk flowers, blue Pepsi-Cola crates and McDonald’s cups, Wyatt has put together a 10-foot by 10-foot assemblage on the gallery floor. Hanging on the walls are 30 photographs by college students showing Wyatt in her colorful yard.

Peterson tried to talk her into including in the display a few of the hats she has made. But Wyatt, who likes to wear a different hat each day, couldn’t bring herself to limit her outfit options.

“I learned how to make hats, and how to paint, everything I learned by myself with the help of God,” said Wyatt. She began sewing and assembling her yard art as a way of keeping herself “busy and not worrying and crying after my husband and little child died.”

Peterson said the exhibit “doesn’t have the impact her yard does, but it does give people an idea of who she is.”

To give people an even broader view, a 10-minute film segment about Wyatt from “Videolog,” a show about Southern California people and life aired on PBS, is being played repeatedly on a gallery television. A “Videolog” special including the story about Wyatt will be aired on KCET-Channel 10 at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 27.

“People were stopping me on the street saying, ‘Gosh, I loved that show you did on the lady artist in Ventura,” said Huell Howser, producer and host of “Videolog.”