Art in the Library Program Chair - Val Peyser
> past exhibitions
Current Exhibition - "Outside the Box - Abstractions in Art"
Spring 2012 / Artists
- Mike Bailey - Oil & Watercolor
- Carol Bowie - Painting, Printmaking, & Sculpture
- Mike McClellan - Sculpture
- James McElheron - Painting
- Erik Peterson - Digital Abstraction
- Beth Shields - Oil, Wax & Graphite on Canvas & Paper
- Denise Shaw - SVMS Student Art
Mike Bailey web site / contact |
Raised in California, Mike resides in his hometown of Santa
Cruz. With a degree in Engineering, his career in marketing and hi-tech led him
to many different assignments, none of which included art.
As a youngster, Mike was always attracted to art. Yet,
parental “encouragement” led him away from making it a life’s focus.
It began as a kitchen table hobby in 1988 and soon consumed
his every thought. He started at age 46 with a few lessons, lots of books
and an occasional workshop to get him on his feet. What paid off most, he says,
was the compulsive, daily and late night sessions at his easel. Mike is
an adventurous, bold soul, which is reflected in the way he applies his
painting skills. Always reaching for excellence, he is one who must
exhaust all avenues of learning, in order to enlarge his understanding and
expand his abilities.
|
Carol Bowie contact |
Carol Bowie Joined the Santa Cruz art scene more than 25 years ago. She has managed to create a formidable following with her “edgy” and expressive way of working. Her creative playing is broad and inspired by the various materials she employs which include but are not limited to, painting, printmaking, and clay sculpture. Her work is figurative and has a universal quality often infused with an emotional content. She filters images through her contemporary perspective and couples that with her base instincts. A shape evokes an image, a color, an emotion and the composition and subject evolve. It tends to be a free and spontaneous playing for the most part, allowing for some “Creative Magic”. Bowie has been an Open Studios artist for more than 20 years and has also served on the Open Studios Committee as well as the Santa Cruz County Arts Commission as a board member. She has been honored by being selected to receive the prestigious Gail Rich Award in 2000 as well as receiving the Distinguished Artist Award in 2001. Bowie’s work is widely collected locally, nationally and abroad. She welcomes visitors to her studio year-round as she enjoys the opportunity to explain her proces and express her joy in being able to “make art”. Just email to schedule a visit! |
Mike McClellan  |
Mike McClellan caught the "art bug" rather late in life, having spent many years in the construction and restaurant business. Mike always enjoyed creating tangible things, and working with his hands, so the transition from building to sculpture was natural progression. Not surprisingly, his work is in the most substantial material, stone, and his forms draw inspiration from architectural shape and proportion. For the present, McClellan finds his strongest visual connections to the work of Hepworth, Brancusi and Noguchi. Mike’s forms are most characterized by bold, sweeping forms, innovative use of colored stone, and the edgy balance between the weight of the rock and the air that flows through and around the negative spaces in his shapes. Mike has lived in Santa Cruz most of his life, and the cultural and artistic synthesis of his work is a most " Santa Cruz" kind of phenomenon, taking the various threads and weaving them into something unique and pleasing. |
James Turner McElheron web site / contact | James was born in Vancouver British Columbia. He graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design with honors and a scholarship for continuing studies abroad. He traveled to London, where he attended the Central School of Art, before being swept up in the change that was beginning to hit London. The change was rock & roll and graphic design was a major contributor to this new ‘scene’. James found his voice in it. What started as a means of participation in the new culture became a life-long dialog. Under the influence of graphics, and with job offers in America, James balanced a successful career in design with his life-long commitment to fine art. In 1990, James returned to Santa Cruz where he paints full time. |
Moto Ohtake
 | Santa Cruz artist Moto Ohtake is a sculptor and Chair of the Art Department at De Anza College, in Cupertino, California. Mr. Ohtake is a native of Tokyo, Japan. After graduating from Nihon University, he furthered his studies at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco and received his MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1982. Ohtake is most recognized for his series of kinetic stainless steel sculptures. His work is collected both privately and publicly, including works at The Atlantic Botanical Garden, The City of Stockton Marina, De Anza College, Dublin, Ireland, downtown Santa Cruz and an upcoming public art project for the City of San Francisco. The works on paper/collage series that are on display at the Scotts Valley Public Library were created during the late 1990s, as the result of a hand injury and a hiatus from sculpture making. Similar themes, which include an exploration of nature on both a macro and microscopic level from galactic bodies to the delicate patterns of crystalline structures combined with juxtapositions of opposing factors, including chaos and order, simplicity and complexity and gravity and balance are reflected in both his sculpture and two-dimensional work. |
Erik Peterson web site / contact | Erik S. Peterson explores the interactions of light with transparent and reflective matter through photography and 3D digital imaging. He is a photographic digital imaging professional, with decades of traditional darkroom and computer experience. He now does consulting for local photographers and painters as ESP Color Services. His Digital Abstractions collection has been shown in Santa Cruz County's Open Studios, and at a few other local venues. |
Beth Sheilds  web site / contact |
Beth grew up in Southern California and attended UCLA, receiving a BA in Fine Art in 1976. After living in the Santa Monica/Venice area for many years, she moved to Santa Cruz 25 years ago. She has been creating art and participating in the local art scene ever since. Her medium and style have changed many times, but the search is always the same. She seeks something indefinable, the answer to her eternal question. If she could tell you in words what it is, she would probably be a writer. Beth doesn't always believe the work succeeds in fulfilling her goals, but knows that she is here to continue searching and that art is the means and method of her particular quest. Beth’s present work is about the process of trying to discover her most authentic aesthetic. Doing the work creates joy and sorrow, simultaneously taking her to great heights and bittersweet depths. The search for resolution is constant. Sometimes grace finds her and a piece happens in minutes, emerging complete; other times she works for months or even years to find that resting-place called “finished”. |
| Denise Shaw / SVMS Student  | Scotts Valley Middle School students in grades sixth and seventh have created this artwork in their directed studies class thanks to their PTA funding an art program and taught by local artist and teacher Ms. Shaw. Denise Kiser Shaw has been teaching art since 1998 starting with the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County as a SPECTRA Art teacher. She taught at various elementary schools in the county through SPECTRA including Brook Knoll, Boulder Creek, Bradley, Calabasas, Freedom, Hall, and most recently, for the past several years at Scotts Valley Middle School. She also teaches workshops for children at the Museums of Art and History in Santa Cruz, and privately during the summer. Denise graduated from UCSC in 1990, focusing on painting, printmaking, and photography. |
