Critic’s Confession

Because emotional temperaments at year’s end lean toward ‘fessing up and making resolutions, it’s a good time for even that subspecies of critics to come clean.

In retrospect, this columnist’s most reconsidered review in 1999 would be his dismissal of Norman Rockwell, America’s most beloved (by the general, non-art-oriented public) and besmirched (by the fine-art world) figure.

Just after the notable Rockwell show at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, the art world has embarked on a dramatic reappraisal of the illustrator/artist, via a traveling Rockwell show destined for a no-less-lofty home than the Guggenheim in Manhattan. And, well, OK, this columnist admits, there is more than meets the culturally conditioned eye in Rockwell’s wonderfully painted, anecdotal kitsch. And we saw it here first.

Taken as the sprawling, evolving cultural whole that it is, Ventura County is a region on the move, but more slowly than might be expected. There is plenty of art to be found here, in disparate corners and with varying agendas according to the specific space. With determination and a hunger for looking at original art, local art lovers and critics can keep up a fairly steady pace.

As it turned out, the Reagan library was the site of some of the more important art exhibits in the county, between the Rockwell show and an exhibition of artworks from TIME magazine covers over the years.

Last year, as with most, there were comings and goings on the gallery circuit. The impressive, but perhaps inevitably short-lived Atget Gallery, a fine “fine” art photography space run with an admirable passion by Monika Blinkley, struggled and finally folded in the fall. But in its time, the gallery offered a good role model for how to present a gallery and fight for the rights of a sometimes neglected medium like photography.

The photography flame was nicely kindled elsewhere, however, with the opening of the Janss/Nichols Gallery in Thousand Oaks. It’s a beautiful space with aesthetics to match, courtesy of Larry Janss, co-owner and a notable photographer in his own right. The gallery featured a dazzling opening group show and more focused exhibitions by Joyce Tenneson, Ray McSavaney and Don Kirby.

Another photographer/curator important to the area is John Nichols, the Santa Paula resident whose new space featured such offbeat delights as a corner of his storefront gallery called “The Snapshot Museum.” Anonymous, mostly antique snapshots make for disarming artistic inspiration.

Meanwhile, out in the idyllic boonies of the former Camarillo State Hospital--soon to be Cal State Channel Islands--another new gallery cobbled together energies, materials and space to create the eye-opening Studio Channel Islands. The gallery space and expansive studio space in the back take over a wing that once housed the hospital’s respected art therapy program (one regret of the hospital’s closing is the disappearance of its illuminating art exhibitions from the art therapy program).

The new gallery’s first “Invitational Fine Arts Exhibition” last fall was another clear highlight of the art year in the county. For now, the gallery has limited hours and takes a bit of work to get to, but this is a space to watch closely in the future.

Meanwhile, Ventura County isn’t lacking for group shows that showcase the resident talent. The Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, besides presenting important--and entertaining--shows like “Dali’s Moustache” and “The History of the Chicano Movement,” also offered its annual survey of Ventura County-based art, “A Classic Competition.”

The Ventura Museum of History and Art focused on history more than art in ‘99, but nodded to the rich local art archives with “Celebrating Ventura County Artists: Selections from the Museum’s Art Collection.” History was in the making, too, with the 63rd annual Santa Paula Art Assn. show, which spread itself out at the Blanchard Library in Santa Paula.

Downtown in Ventura, the finest model of a best-kept secret gallery is upstairs at Natalie’s Fine Threads, which has a continuing run of well-presented shows. On the better end of the ’99 roster were shows by D.M. Spaulding, Ginger Moore-Maxwell, Lori Markman, Jennie Snyder and the “Art/Life 200th Edition Retrospective Show,” paying tribute to the locally based, globally pitched monthly limited-edition art periodical.

Two blocks away, the Buenaventura Gallery is the happy home of the Buenaventura Art Assn. and shows work by members, with a featured show in the back gallery each month. Recently, that space showed work of photographer “Schaf” and provocative Christian-themed artwork by Lee Hodges.

Art City II is something else altogether, a space on the fringes by the Ventura River with room to breathe and a copious, raftered gallery teeming with good rustic vibes. It’s as important to the cultural identity of Ventura as any art space around, and the current show, “One Year Later,” commemorates its survival after two devastating fires at the original Art City site last December.

Ojai’s Center for the Arts, a cultural hub in that tiny, mighty town, kept busy last year. Among the highlights were shows by Reinhart and Finnish sculptors Brita Flander and Elina Sorainen, presented in conjunction with the Ojai Festival. That too-infrequent festival link also featured a couple of memorable musical performances, including the Toimii Ensemble’s reading of Dadaist Kurt Schwitters’ deliciously nonsensical “Ursonate.” More such art-music marriages in this space, please.

In other Ojai news, the annual Ojai Studio Artists Tour and its unofficial fringe event confirmed suspicions of the artistic intensity buzzing through this community. The G. Childress Gallery is just outside town, on the road to Meiners Oaks, but well worth keeping tabs on, as always. The ’99 crop included intriguing abstractions by Neville Gerson, Seco’s ephemeral portraits of the Los Angeles Philharmonic coinciding with the Ojai Festival, and Kathaleen Brewer and Joel Anderson’s “Homage to Local Markers.”

It was also the year that artist/collector Bill Kaderly, who had run his shop and gallery next door to the Childress Gallery, left town. But he didn’t leave without showing his impressive local art collection in a large show at the Childress, as well as the impishly charming “Bashful Bill’s Erotic Art Show.”

During the school year, Ventura College’s two galleries are among the most reliable places to find art of worth, usually culled from outside the area. Last year’s shows included Laura Lynch’s “Swept Away-Pacific Series 1996-1999,” Elizabeth Ingraham’s challenging fabric sculptures and other art to admire by Bob Moskowitz, Charles Morgan, Betsy Lohrer Hall and Loraine Veeck.

And did I mention the nice Rockwell show at the Reagan library?

Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com