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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Artistic Resource: Barry Smith, owner of the new Stone Griffin Gallery in downtown Campbell, sits next to paintings done by the gallery's current featured artist, Vicki Asp. Smith has been in the business for the past 20 years and owns another gallery in Sacramento.
California Impressionists
Gallery features artwork by various artists in Campbell's downtown
By Amy Jenkins
Barry and Dana Smith now have another establishment to call their own in downtown Campbell.
For six years the siblings have owned Stone Griffin, the store that sells gargoyles and garden statues and is now located next door to the Gaslighter Theater. At the end of October the brothers opened up a brand-new art gallery called Stone Griffin Gallery, located across the street from their retail shop, at 401 E. Campbell Ave.
Barry says the gallery will display six or seven quality artists on a continuing basis. One of the featured artists is Vicki Asp, who lives on the outskirts of Sacramento and paints scenes depicting vineyards in Napa and Sonoma counties.
The gallery carries original art and limited edition prints of Asp's "Wine Country Landscapes" paintings. Asp is a plein air painter, which is an old painting style in which the artist paints on site, Barry says. He says she paints all the colors of the vineyards as they change during the spring and with snowfall during the winter.
Asp is featured at the gallery because Barry discovered her three years ago when he saw a 6-by-4-inch painting of hers and realized she had talent, he says. He says he has sold one of her paintings a week for the past two years. Barry lives in Sacramento and owns another art gallery there called Smith Gallery.
"I like Asp's work because she increases the intensity of color to add drama and excitement to her paintings but at the same time she makes them believable and realistic," he says. "She increases the intensity of colors to add vibrancy as well, and it still looks real."
Asp's paintings are acrylic on canvas or board and are really popular as a result of her 20 years of experience as a painter, Barry says. He says, "She has been painting 20 years or a couple days because in order for her to complete a painting that takes two days she has 20 years of practice."
Another artist featured at the gallery is Michael Parkes. He's a famous American surrealist painter who lives in Europe, Barry says. He says he has a huge following around the United States and in Europe for his surrealist artwork. Stone Griffin Gallery does not carry any Parkes originals, but it has exclusive, limited-edition stone lithographs that sell for between $20,000 and $60,000.
The gallery also sells work by Steve Memering of California landscapes and paintings of underwater ocean scenes. Some are realistic and some imaginative, such as a 4-foot-square jellyfish and coral painting, Barry says. Gallery manager Loretta Beavers says Memering takes much longer on his paintings because he paints from different sources, such as photographs, whereas Asp paints on site and must "paint rapidly before she loses light."
Don Dahlke is another artist who has some of his work at the Campbell gallery. Barry says of Dahlke's work, "It's like looking at a landscape as seen through a window or door." Beavers says Dahlke is originally from Washington state and his father encouraged him to work in a hardware store but he moved to the Caribbean and became an artist. His artwork at the gallery is colorful and has "great use of shadows," Beavers says.
Other artists that are featured with fine art and limited-edition prints at the gallery include Daniel Mundy, Reif Erickson, Joseph Bellacera and William Tuthill.
For more information about Stone Griffin Gallery, call 408.374.2944 or visit www.stonegriffingallery.com.
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Campbell, California
