DECORATIVE ARTS : Developing a Flair for Whimsical Wares

Noooo budget. That’s pretty close to what Pat Gomez had to work with to stock the Huntington Beach Art Center gift store.

With so little to spend--only $600--Gomez had to take much of the merchandise on consignment for the Store Gallery’s opening last spring. That meant dealing with artists directly, rather than ordering from wholesale catalogues or buying expensive, mass-produced art books.

No problem. Gomez had hoped to amass a distinctive collection anyway.

The store is anything but plain wrap: 95% of the items are one-of-a-kind, functional or decorative goods.

“I wanted everything to be unusual,” says Gomez, a longtime arts administrator who has coordinated arts festivals and other events for Southern California institutions. “My background is working with artists, so that would have been my natural inclination” even with a hefty start-up budget.

White walls and a high ceiling help the 550-square-foot store live up to its “Gallery” name. So do small, changing exhibitions of paintings, drawings or sculpture--for viewing, not purchase--by well-known and emerging artists.

“I wanted to give artists an opportunity to show their more serious artwork,” Gomez says.

Most of the store’s inventory consists of jewelry, mainstream and underground art magazines and ‘zines, greeting cards and artists books--handmade books by fine artists that are meant to be read and displayed. About a third of the items are for the home.

Trimmed in glitzy plastic gems, plastic grapes and hot pink and green fur, Jason Savall’s campy wall clocks exemplify the boutique’s spunky approach. One has a baby doll head for a face. Another, with a nautical theme, has a sea star in the center. The clocks cost $225.

Greg Weber’s whimsically macabre furniture brings the movie “Beetlejuice” to mind. “Minotaur,” an angular, black end table, doubles as an uncommon vase: The idea is to fill with flowers--”dead or alive” the artist quips--the hollow, upside-down animal antler that pierces through the table’s surface. “Tarantula Baby,” another black table, has spiny legs and a baby’s head, lit from within like a lamp.

A Halloween theme doesn’t fit your decor?

Lushly colored wooden cabinets, suitable for knickknacks, might be more apt. Barry Morse has painted reproductions of Picasso’s anguished “weeping women,” the females the Spaniard knew and loved, onto hinged doors. Morse strives “to get them as close to the originals as he can,” Gomez says.

Among the store’s most affordable items are washable place mats ($10) and napkins ($6) by Patois, a Laguna Beach artist. Using earth tones, she hand paints or batik dyes each piece, basing her designs on those of traditional African tribal textiles.

Erik Dahl provides kitchenware with a completely different look. By embedding chicken wire and rusty nails into graceful light green glass, he creates bowls, plates and ashtrays that have an industrial yet lyrical flair.

Keeping with a functional theme, there are skateboards that have been turned into paintings by four artists with disparate visions. The skateboards can be mounted with wheels and taken to the streets.

“I really like that lack of ego,” Gomez says. “The artists just want people to enjoy them.”

The Huntington Beach Art Center opened in March with a mission to show cutting-edge, contemporary art by living local, national and international artists. The building occupies the city’s renovated Southern California Edison building, where lectures, films, performance art, music, films and arts education programs also are offered.

The center is at 538 Main St., Huntington Beach. Hours: Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, noon to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. (714) 374-1650.

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Decorative arts made by artists and artisans can also be found at:

* Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., to 9 p.m. on Thursday. (714) 567-3600.

* Laguna Art Museum, South Coast Plaza satellite, 3333 S. Bristol St., Costa Mesa. Monday through Friday, noon to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (714) 662-3366.

* The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store, South Coast Plaza, 3333 S. Bristol St., Costa Mesa. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (714) 435-9160.

* Newport Harbor Art Museum, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Fridays to 7 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. (714) 759-1122.