Photograph by George Sakkestad
Artist Kay Duffy is showing her work "Oil and Water" at the current exhibit at the Los Gatos Museum on Tait Avenue.
By Shari Kaplan
When two dozen artists combine the written imagery of poetry with the visual aspects of painting, the result is "Poetic Visions," the exhibit on display through March 16 at the Los Gatos Art and Natural Science Museum.
"Poetic Visions" comprises 34 watercolor, oil, pastel and mixed-media creations by members of Allied Artists West, a group of nationally known and emerging professional artists, most of whom reside in the South Bay. Next to each painting is a complete or excerpted poem chosen by the artist to complement the subject or feel of the painting.
Most pieces are still lifes, portraits, landscapes or character studies, with a few examples of abstract art mixed in. This array is reflective of AAW as a whole, as its membership represents a melange of painting media, techniques and artistic viewpoints.
Outdoor themes are among the most popular. Los Altos resident Millicent Bishop and Santa Claran Jane Hofstetter both chose the rugged Monterey coastline for their watercolor portrayals of windswept cypress trees, sandy dunes and misty skies.
Next to "Monterey Pines," Bishop quotes Joyce Kilmer's famous poem that begins "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree." To further the mood of "Monterey Coastline," Hofstetter chooses "God's World" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, in which the poet extols the wonder of nature with "O World, I cannot hold thee close enough." Hofstetter also traveled up California's wild Sonoma Coast for two of her other paintings: "Fort Ross" and "Once by the Pacific."
Saratogan Vivian Taggart traveled a little further for her oil painting, "The Ruins of Jumieges Abbey, France." Although its columns and walls are broken, the abbey still holds a magical majesty, thanks in part to Taggart's engaging imagery of bright flowers and vines climbing all over the ruins with a bed of green grass underneath. Beside it, Taggart excerpts from "Turf and Towers," in which Robert Browning ponders "Have you, travelled lady, found yourself inside a ruin, fane or bath or cirque . . . some work of art gnawn by Time's tooth. . . ."
Some artists favor people over scenery. In "Island Girl," Stanford resident Lori Waterman uses oils to depict a demure young woman standing in the lush flower field of an exotic isle. As she stares contentedly into her fresh bouquet, her lover hovers right behind her, his smiling face gently blurred in a soft-focus effect.
Waterman's poem choice of "Only Thee and Me" by Louis Untermeyer is a perfect match: "Only of thee and me the night wind sings, only of us the sailors speak at sea; the earth is filled with wondered whisperings only of thee and me."
Several artists wrote their own poems, including Ruth Morrow of San Jose. She penned "Pacific Gemstones: Mandala," which accompanies her two related watercolors, "Pacific Gemstones: Menhirs Du Mer" and "Pacific Gemstones: Breaking Loose."
In both paintings, multicolored stone flecks dot the rocky shoreline; in the latter, they appear to be slowly washed away by the tides. In her free-verse poem, Morrow describes the endless geological cycle of rebirth and the effects of the four elements--earth, water, fire and air. "Locked in the crust of time, the gemstones wait with endless patience" to come to the surface, to see and be seen, at which time they "burst forth in a flash of crystalline joy."
The Los Gatos Art and Natural Science Museum is located at 4 Tait Ave. It's open from noon to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, February 12, 1997.
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