An Artfully Eventful Year

In terms of artistic life, 1998 will go down in Ventura County history as a year like many others, with losses and gains, disappointments and hope renewed. But there was at least one momentous event: It was the year we lost Beatrice Wood, at the sage age of 105.

From her lofty but not snooty perch in upper Ojai, Wood was the county art scene’s guiding light, actively and symbolically, a seemingly immortal presence over the past few decades.

As symbols go, Wood was a wonderful paradox. Blessed both with elegance and absurdity, she was an artist with direct links to the history of Dada. Wood’s ceramic work and drawings, which can be seen at Ojai’s Milagro Gallery, live on, like her spirit.

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Ojai’s fledgling Bagier Gallery held great promise early in the year, with memorable shows by Michael Kelly and others. Unfortunately, the gallery closed in the summer.

In its wake, owner Robin Bagier teamed up with Kelly to curate the formidable exhibition “Mexican Masters: A Celebration of Mexican Art and Influences.”

The show focused on the art of Kelly and the late Eli de Viscovi, protege of Diego Rivera (and Bagier’s aunt).

It was one of the finest art shows of the year and hopefully the beginning of more art-intensive shows in this Ojai venue.

In gallery-longevity news, Gallery 9 celebrated its fifth anniversary in its the ample space in Thousand Oaks’ Janss Mall. Across the freeway, the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery continued its work with an irregular series of group shows.

It was a very good year indeed for photography in the area. John Nichols, the dedicated photographer, curator and gallery owner, reopened his gallery in a new, larger location on Main Street in Santa Paula. Nichols also opened a lovable and deceptively profound museum-within-a-gallery, the “Snapshot Museum,” this fall.

Meanwhile, the photographic imperative is obvious from the name of Ventura’s still-new Atget Gallery, named after the famed French photographer Eugene Atget. Monika Binkley’s space paid due respect to the fine art of photography, including work by William Hendricks.

Up Santa Barbara way, the photographic muse also visited regularly, with a show of work by photojournalist Genevieve Naylor at Brooks Institute and the impressive and still-running “American Photography: The First Century,” at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

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Photography also plays an ongoing role in the curatorial overview of the Carnegie Museum in Oxnard, still the county’s premiere art space. There, we saw work by jazz photographer William Claxton and the loony visions of Philipe Halsman shooting Salvador Dali’s mustache in myriad variations.

Donna Granata, the resident portraitist to Ojai’s art scene, also showed her lucid goods in the museum’s gallery dedicated to regional artists. Another memorable Carnegie Museum show was “Current Devices: The Electro-Mech Art of Andy Schuessler,” a cerebral circus of clever assemblage work.

A modest but tasty show of work by Grandma Moses appeared at the Ronald Reagan Library near Simi Valley; and the Santa Paula Union Oil Museum continued to slip art into its agenda.

The Ventura County Museum of History and Art, with an inherent mix of concerns, covered both in-house angles with its dazzling watercolor show, “California Style: 1930s and ‘40s.”

Some of the area’s most reliable artists had strong shows this past year. The powerful and poetic Gerd Koch had two retrospectives, first a small one in the intermittently active Third Floor Gallery of the Ventura City Hall and later a large spread of work at the Ojai Arts Center.

Hiroko Yoshimoto presented one of the finest of the regular roster of shows at Ventura’s Buenaventura Gallery.

Sometimes, art showed up in unexpected places. Jane McKinney showed her mystical landscapes in the unusual but suitable environs of the Albinger Archeological Museum; and Sylvia Simmons’ semiabstract visual etudes could be found lurking in mysterious quietude in the administration office of Moorpark College.

Ojai’s gifted Mexican emigre, Ernesto Seco, showed up in various nooks, including a show of musician portraits at the Ojai Roasting Co. during the Ojai Festival.

Business as usual in the arts included shows worth seeing at Natalie’s Fine Threads, a second-story space in downtown Ventura, and on the literal fringes of Ventura, at Art City II. The Childress Gallery in Ojai also continued showing good work, if on a less-regular basis.

In short, there was plenty to look at and to be encouraged by. Ventura County’s art scene continued on its merry, humble path in 1998, albeit with one less art icon in its population.

Josef Woodard, who writes on music and art, can be e-mailed at joeinfo@aol.com.