Photograph by Jeff Kearns
Artist Peggy Ann Johnston holds up a work inspired by her 50th birthday: 'Girl! Those are Decades!' This will be the fourth year that Johnston has taken part in Open Studios
Into the Fold
Artists welcome the community into their worlds during Silicon Valley Open Studios
By Amy Jenkins
Artists across Cupertino will open up their homes, studios and yards to the public on April 27 and 28 as part of the 16th annual Silicon Valley Open Studios. This is an opportunity for a self-guided tour of the art-making process right in the neighborhood.
Peggy Ann Johnston says she is getting her Cupertino home ready; this is fourth year she will participate in Open Studios. Although Johnston has a Ph.D. in psychology and has taught chemistry and math, she has loved art since she was a child, and now she teaches classes to adults and children. As one of seven children growing up in Michigan, she found clay in the creek in her backyard and taught herself how to use it to create art. Today, her signature artwork is totem poles made with large, colorful ceramic beads. But she also works with a wide variety of media, including watercolor, printmaking and papier-mâché.
A piece she made specifically for Open Studios, called April Fool, is a six-foot steel pole with numerous purple and yellow ceramic beads that can be rearranged on the pole to suite the owner's taste. The top bead looks like a jester's hat and has strings of small, colorful beads hanging from it. She says that when she made it last fall, every color portrayed in the beads could be seen in her yard.
"I like the concept of something rigid like steel that can still be flexible and move like the beads do when you walk by and touch them," says Johnston, who will allow visitors to tour her home, yard and studio, while her students will lead tours.
She also makes huge ceramic sculptures, such as one titled Family Circus, which took more than three years to make and represents details about her family depicted in a circus theme. Made in two pieces to fit into her kiln and fired five times, she started this piece to relieve stress while she was planning her mother's 70th birthday party. On the vessel are seven elephants, representing each child in the family, a reproduction of a 1960 Volkswagen bus the family owned and a clown juggling seven balls, representing her mother dealing with each of her children.
Johnston says she makes the Open Studios a kid-friendly event. Since most of her large pieces are expensive, she will set up a table with small ceramic pieces that children can buy for one dollar. She says she will also do demonstrations of how she makes art. Visitors may also purchase smaller, less expensive pots and get ideas for commissioned work from artwork Johnston has made.
"The nicest people go to Open Studios," says Johnston, who has had 200 people consistently visit during the event weekend. "It's fun not just to sell but to show my artwork. I teach my students that part of the creative process of making art is showing the work. I can't imagine not doing Open Studios. It is a wonderful experience to talk to artists."
Photograph by Jeff Kearns
Painter Sue Ashley shows off her painting 'Downtown San Jose.' This is the first year that Ashley has taken part in Open Studios.
Unlike Johnston, this is Susan Ashley's first year to participate in Open Studios. The retired interior designer started taking art classes five years ago at the San Jose store University Art and from the University of Santa Cruz Extension program. After experimenting in various media, she decided she liked watercolor.
"I found watercolor does its own thing and I like how you don't have complete control of the outcome," she said. "I didn't have the feelings of serendipity with oil."
Ashley will show her work, along with 19 other artists and members of the Fine Arts League of Cupertino, at Blackberry Farms in Cupertino. Other artists will show oil paintings, photography, collage and watercolor.
While Ashley used to focus on landscapes, she says she has shifted to depicting cities and buildings. Among the pieces on sale during Open Studios are watercolors of the Tech Museum of Innovation and downtown San Jose and San Francisco. She often juxtaposes images in a painting, such as Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in downtown San Jose next to the San Jose Museum of Art. Some images are created from places to which she has traveled, and she either paints from a photograph or on-site, she says.
"Man-made buildings have fragility ... and they are beautiful and important," Ashley says. "This is evident after Sept. 11."
A watercolor in her kitchen tells a story about her trip to France last year. It shows the woman she and her husband, Andre, stayed with; she is looking out her shop window in the town of Fleurie, onto a festival taking place outside.
One work that is for sale at the event depicts Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, Monticello, in the background, and dogwood, a flower from the area, in the foreground.
Some artists provide refreshments and perform demonstrations, and the Blackberry Farm location is near a playground, Ashley says. Other cities in Santa Clara County with Open Studios on April 27 and 28, from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., are Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Stanford and Sunnyvale.
On May 4 and 5, San Mateo County will have Open Studios in Belmont, Burlingame, Half Moon Bay, Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Montara, Moss Beach, Pacifica, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo and Woodside. On the same weekend, in southern Santa Clara County, Open Studios will be held in Gilroy and Morgan Hill.
Peggy Ann Johnston and her students' work will be displayed at 21881 Hermosa Avenue, Cupertino. She can be reached at 408.863.0589.
Tour guides and maps are available from The Collection, The Oaks, 21269 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 615, Cupertino, 408.865.0298. For more information about Silicon Valley Open Studios, call 650.941.5337 or visit www.svopenstudios.org.
Cupertino, California Since 1947
