Artists and Browsers Paint ArtWalk Festival a Success

Clipboard in hand, Gerd Koch scrutinized the painted collage before him.

Strips of paper--brushed with warm golds and rusts--lay matted inside a plain wooden frame. Other paintings nearby placed simple animal figures, similar to designs from an ancient cave painting, against colored backgrounds.

Koch, an art teacher, pointed to the collage. “I find them somewhat interesting--this against the petroglyphs,” he mused. “It has a nice organic quality, dealing with primitive societies, in the texture and motifs.”

He then moved on to the next booth in the Exxon building’s parking lot in Thousand Oaks. The creator of the collage, Jane Hespenheide of Thousand Oaks, was one of 150 artists whose work was on display Saturday at ArtWalk ’95.

And as a festival judge, Koch, who teaches at Ventura College, had to view them all.

The annual art fair, which started Saturday and will continue from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, drew crowds of art lovers who browsed among the works of local artists. But unlike many other festivals, ArtWalk also gives the artists a chance to compete with each other for recognition.

By day’s end, Koch and two other judges awarded prizes for 10 artistic categories--including oil painting, jewelry and ceramics. The Best of Show award went to Thousand Oaks artist Vance Larson in the drawings and graphics category.

For many artists, the show, which sprawls across the Exxon grounds on Hillcrest Drive, represents an opportunity to make sales and contacts.

Bill Coleman of Simi Valley, who won first place in the craft category, brought several pieces of his custom-made furniture, including a mahogany cabinet graced with twin boars heads carved in teak. The cabinet, and Coleman’s other pieces, had been sold before the show. The point, he said, was to display his wares and possibly generate commissions.

“Somebody sees something they like, I can make something similar,” he said. “Last year at the show, someone told me he wanted a stereo cabinet that looks like the Chrysler building feels. So I made it for him.”

Last year’s ArtWalk provided Coleman with between 40 and 50 potential clients. Of those, 15 commissioned pieces.

The need to make contacts also drew ceramics artist Frank Massarella to the festival. There, he could introduce his candle holders, serving trays and wine decanters to shoppers unaware of his Ojai gallery.

“My exposure’s very good here,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know I have a store.”

In spite of the cool gray weather early Saturday afternoon, Massarella’s business was brisk. In previous years, he sold an average of $1,500 to $2,000 during the two-day festival, he said.

Hespenheide, whose petroglyph paintings had intrigued judge Koch, won first place in the mixed-media category. But she had yet to make a sale by early afternoon. Still, she had fielded plenty of questions about her work.

The animal designs, she said, were taken from rock paintings and chiselings produced by several different Native American cultures, including the local Chumash. She photographs the petroglyphs on location, scans those pictures into a computer, prints the design onto a clear sheet of acetate and then transfers the design onto paper.

“I like to combine the old with the new, the computer with the glyphs that are 8,000 years old,” she said.

Despite the slow start, Hespenheide wasn’t worried about her sales. “Sometimes you don’t sell until Sunday, 4 p.m.” she said.

While many of the non-artists attending seemed content to browse, others picked up earrings or photos or lugged newly acquired paintings across the site’s grassy slope.

Linda and Darryl Easter of Camarillo bought a large watercolor of an old barn by Santa Paula artist Norman Kirk, from whom Darryl Easter takes painting lessons.

“We just knew that we wanted to buy something of his and looked around and found the one we liked,” Linda Easter said. Their new purchase, they said, was bound for their living room wall.

Kim Fontanilla of Oak Park came away with some compact discs and jewelry. She found the outdoor fair more relaxing than a trip to a store. “I prefer shopping in this kind of atmosphere than a mall,” she said.