Artists Bring the Mountains to the Competition : The juried show’s top 150 works depicting the Santa Monica range are on display at Peter Strauss Ranch

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet,” the poet William Blake wrote. “This is not done by jostling in the street.”

Over the past year or so, hundreds of artists from seven art associations ringing the Santa Monica Mountains have left the bustle of their streets and headed for the hills to produce work for a two-stage juried art competition that culminates this weekend at the Peter Strauss Ranch (Lake Enchanto) in Agoura Hills.

On view at the property--a site in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area that is a Sunday outing’s distance from Los Angeles--are about 150 works celebrating the mountains in all their various guises. The pieces are finalists in the art competition organized last year by an umbrella group formed for that purpose--the Allied Artists of the Santa Monica Mountains.

“We wanted to celebrate the Santa Monica Mountains--to make people aware of what we have,” said Anne Graca, co-chairperson of the Allied Artists, which is made up of the Pacific Palisades Art Assn., the San Fernando Valley Art Club, the Malibu Art Assn., the Thousand Oaks Art Assn., the Beverly Hills Art League, the Westlake Village Art Guild of the Conejo Valley and the Oxnard Art Assn.

The competition was the brainchild of Roy Donley, a retired architect who took up watercolor painting two years ago. “It just came to me as a flash of inspiration when I was sitting here doing nothing,” said Donley, a Pacific Palisades Art Assn. member who served as founding chairman of the umbrella group.

The seven associations held preliminary competitions among their members from January through May, with each picking works to proceed to the final judging this weekend. A total of about 400 works were entered, according to Graca.

“There’s been a mixture of all kinds of efforts--some outstanding and some not so outstanding,” said Donley, who has seen all the preliminary shows. Entries--submitted by both amateur and professional artists--included general scenic views of the mountains, more intimate scenes, and depictions of native flora and fauna, Donley said.

“There even is abstract art,” he added, “which got a little sticky sometimes because the entries are supposed to be depictions of the Santa Monica Mountains.”

Actor Peter Strauss--who donated the Peter Strauss Ranch to the National Park Service--will make the awards presentation for the competition at 3 p.m. today. The winning entries will remain on view at the property’s ranger station during the next two weekends.

The Allied Artists may try to put together a book reproducing a selection of this year’s finalist entries if the funds or an interested publisher can be found. The group--which received some initial funding through the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy--also hopes to be able to mount another competition next year.

“We’ve had quite a struggle raising money for this thing--there is so much going on in the world that’s more important than our art competition,” Donley said.

Still, there may be a larger lesson to be drawn from the Allied Artists’ perspectives on the mountains.

“Some people see the colors, some people see the shapes; some are more interested in the human activities,” Donley observed. “The mountains are in the eyes of the beholder.”

A Celebration of the Santa Monica Mountains 1990-1991, today and Monday at the Peter Strauss Ranch (Lake Enchanto), 30000 Mulholland Highway, Agoura Hills. (818) 597-9192 or 1-800-533-PARK. Exhibition on view from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.