Artists See Downtown Ventura in New Light

Between the sushi place and a shop selling sand dollars and ceramic whales, Nanci Martinez-Vilar tidies her art gallery and hopes for the best.

She is the fourth artist in the last month to take a gamble on downtown Ventura. A maker of fine pottery, Martinez-Vilar recently closed her gallery in Ojai to open Gallery Vilar on Santa Clara Street.

“I’ve been watching downtown over the years grow from being slightly rundown and funky to more sophisticated,” said Martinez-Vilar, who has worked at galleries in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. “It’s also more diverse. You’ve got theaters, a bunch of coffeehouses, more places to eat. The whole place is more ‘cafe-ish.’ ”

Thousand Oaks may have more money and Ojai more style, but art dealers are coming to see downtown Ventura as a place where an eclectic nature and a new liveliness draw a crowd likely to buy art.

“In Ventura County this is the place to be,” said 27-year-old Sybil Scott, who opened the Trinity Gallery on Laurel Street last month. “Everything else is too planned--it’s more gritty and urban here.”

The new galleries bring to 11 the total now in downtown. The Live Oak Gallery, which sells paintings, and John Nichols Gallery, which deals in vintage photographs, recently opened on Fir Street.

Art patrons say it’s a sign of the area’s ongoing metamorphosis from a strip of thrift stores and antique shops to a place where ceramic wares could sell for $5,000.

City officials applaud the change but note that it wasn’t instantaneous. The decision to make downtown a cultural district was made in 1990. Parking restrictions were eased, more than $1 million in grants were allocated and artists began cooperating on unprecedented marketing efforts.

The city’s new director of cultural affairs, Consuelo Underwood, said the galleries are further evidence that Ventura is no longer taking its cultural cues from Santa Barbara or Los Angeles.

“I think Ventura is coming into its own culturally,” said Underwood, adding that residents no longer are satisfied to drive elsewhere for a cultural experience.

Underwood, who worked in cultural promotion jobs in San Jose and Phoenix, was hired last July. She said she was immediately struck by the city’s support for the arts and that it had allocated $1 million for her department.

“I was amazed,” she said. “That was a real commitment for a city this size.”

Ventura Mayor Sandy Smith said comparatively low rents, bars and restaurants and events like the art walks have made downtown a popular destination.

“We have always had the artists here but they had no place to show their work,” Smith said. “The whole idea has been to get them together in one place. We have a critical mass going right now.”

Scott is part of that critical mass. Originally from Camarillo, she has worked in bigger, more cosmopolitan cities, but it is on a scruffy side street near downtown that she is staking her dreams.

Surrounded by vibrant, wildly colorful paintings of neighborhoods and landscapes, Scott hopes to win a reputation for bringing avant-garde art to Ventura.

“I love the atmosphere here, especially around Main Street with all its different people,” she said. “I could be a little closer to downtown, but I’ll just have to work more on the public relations. I have enough experience to know that foot traffic is not the major thing in selling fine art; it takes getting to know a lot of different people.”

Scott sells paintings that cost $900 to $5,000.

John Nichols has had a photo gallery in Santa Paula since 1984 and recently opened a second in downtown Ventura. “I am very excited by the arts scene in Ventura,” said Nichols. “Things are definitely bubbling to the surface now.”

Whether more galleries will lead to more buying remains to be seen.

Art walks have brought people into galleries but haven’t led to a frenzy of purchasing, artists and gallery owners say.

Lee Hodges, director of the Buenaventura Gallery in downtown Ventura, recently sponsored Saturday Night at the Galleries, with the public invited to drink, nibble and browse. People flooded in but only a few small pieces were sold, she said.

Nichols said he is doing pretty well so far, selling one Horace Bristol photo and two of his own last month. “Art is always scrambling for an audience,” he said. “We can exist on crumbs, but we can’t exist on air.”

Everyone agrees that marketing local talent and galleries is vital. The San Buenaventura Foundation for the Arts was formed two years ago to promote the performing and visual arts throughout Ventura, focusing on downtown. The group maintains a Web site listing a calendar of local arts activities, https://www.venturaarts.org.

“We want to find ways to increase awareness,” said Debi Otto, administrative director of the foundation. “You have wonderful, nationally recognized talent down there.”