Shedding Light on Artistic Resources

Those of us who live out here on the edge of Megalangeles tend to harbor deep cultural insecurities.

We brag about our open spaces, our clean air and our syringe-free beaches, but the truth is, we suspect we are rubes because we don’t have a professional theater or a museum of modern art.

We envy our neighbors to the north and south because we believe they have better treasures than we have, and bigger boxes to keep them in.

Ironically, our obsession with our perceived shortcomings causes us to overlook our own precious resources, ones coveted by others. Gifted artists are all around us. But like wildflowers among the oaks, they often get overshadowed.

And while we ignore our assets, the neighbors are climbing the fence and trampling through the yard to get to them.

Take Ventura’s Joe Cardella, for instance. He is the founder and publisher of Art/Life, a monthly publication filled with original poetry and contemporary art. Artists from around the world contribute works in a variety of media--painting and drawing, collage and assemblage, as well as laser and computer printing.

Several local artists--Douglas Spaulding, Jane McKinney, MB Hanrahan, Steve Knauff--are regular contributors, as is poetry editor Phil Taggert, who also lives in the area.

Yet, the publication is available at only one shop in the county, Natalie’s Fine Threads in Ventura, a combination gallery and women’s apparel store, of all things. (Cardella also sells back issues through his Art/Life studio in Ventura.)

“Here, there is not a wide acceptance of the medium, and I can’t just put it where it will be on a newsstand with $5 magazines,” Cardella said.

As a result, most of his sales are outside the county and by subscription.

“Museum bookstores subscribe, primarily in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Paris, and, of course, MOCA in L.A.,” he said. The publication also goes to the Getty, the Art and Architecture Library at Yale, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the New York Public Library.

“More than 99% of Art/Life publications leave the county because there is no market for them here,” said Cardella, sounding more sad than bitter.

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Cardella has been publishing his books of art 11 months of the year for 19 years. Each is a limited edition of 150 numbered copies, each priced at $50. In March, Cardella will publish his 200th issue, to be commemorated with a small show at Natalie’s. He hopes the show will attract a good local turnout.

Coinciding with the 200th issue, Cardella also is opening a virtual museum on the World Wide Web.

He admits that local recognition would be welcome.

“We all would like to be known and appreciated where we live,” he said. “It is, I feel, important for people in the community to realize what is here.”

Several miles away, 83-year-old Otto Heino, the county’s much venerated ceramist, has much in common with Cardella. He, too, can be reached in cyberspace and has an international reputation, with a large market outside the county.

“People come here from all over--from Santa Barbara, San Francisco, all over the state,” said Heino. “And I sell a lot in Japan.”

Visiting Heino at his Ojai home is like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole. Built at the juncture of suburbia and the wilderness, the house is an artist’s and a gardener’s paradise. Heino and his wife, Vivika, bought the house (which includes a studio and gallery) in the early ‘70s from the renowned potter Beatrice Wood, one of their oldest friends and an early student. The Heinos lived and worked together there for more than 25 years, until Vivika died of liver cancer in 1995 at the age of 85.

Wood died this year at the age of 105.

After losing both his wife of 45 years and his best friend, Heino could have settled for retirement, memories and his well-established reputation. But he has chosen not to rest on his laurels. In fact, he doesn’t seem to rest at all.

In 1995, Heino solved a mystery he had been working on for 10 years by creating a yellow glaze that held its color after firing.

Centuries ago a Chinese artist had made such a glaze, “but he died without leaving behind the formula,” Heino said. “The Asians have tried ever since to figure it out.”

They couldn’t, but he did.

“I have the only yellow in the world,” he said.

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Heino has struck gold with his yellow glaze, which is a pale, soft shade of butter--”the color of Chinese robes,” he said. He is busier than ever.

“One Japanese gallery owner comes twice a year and buys 20 large pieces at a time,” he said. “He pays me $25,000 for each pot. . . . I barely have time to keep up with all the orders.”

With his new wealth, Heino has bought himself both a new Rolls and a Bentley.

And with his workload, when does he find the time to drive?

“I like to prowl around at night,” he explained, with a boyish grin.

In his new luxury car, Heino is one artist who is hard to ignore.

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Wendy Miller is a Times staff writer.

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OUT AND ABOUT

Parade of boats at the harbor and percussion effects minus the drums. B8