At 103, Beatrice Wood Is Still Making Art

The drawings on the wall of the Ojai Art Center on Sunday evening showed figures and faces drawn in a strong and steady hand.

The artist, Ojai resident Beatrice Wood, celebrated her 103rd birthday Sunday. But as some of the more than 100 guests at the center noted, her work has lost none of its power.

“The only sign of her age is her physical body, but her mind is still sharp, and so is her art,” said Patricia Garcia-Gomez, a photographer and friend of Wood who came from New York for the occasion.

The center chose Wood’s birthday to open a show of more than 50 of her recent drawings, ceramics and jewelry. Wood herself made a brief appearance before leaving the guests to wander the center and view her art.

Although Wood is best known for her ceramics, the show, which continues through March 27, focuses on her drawings. Many show human or cat faces, or both, drawn with simple lines and colored with paint or pencil.

Francis M. Naumann organized the first museum exhibit of Wood’s drawings, held in 1978 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He first learned of her drawings when she mentioned them in conversation.

“She said, ‘I have a whole pile of them in the back of my closet--take a look,’ ” he recalled. Many had prices--of 25 or 50 cents--scribbled on the back, reminders of a time when they had been on display in her ceramics shop.

Many of the drawings on display at the center range from $2,000 to $3,000--too steep for Whitney Abbott of Carpinteria. But Abbott, a painter, nevertheless spent the evening enjoying Wood’s works.

When she was about 10 years old, Abbott said, she met Wood and saw her studio--a memory that has stayed with her since. “She said she knew I was an artist,” Abbott smiled.

Of the works on display Sunday, Abbott said she had no particular favorites. “They’re all very powerful,” she said.