Saratoga News

"Three Sisters," a mixed media on rice paper, is the work of Yoju, a Saratoga artist who uses only her first name.

In the Name of Art

Saratoga artists welcome the public into their studios

By Carolyn Leal

Saratoga artists will open their studios to the public the weekend of April 12-13, displaying their work for sale, talking about their art and doing demonstrations. There will be 67 artists at 53 sites in Campbell, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, San Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga and Sunnyvale sharing their work spaces this weekend. Tour hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Other area artists will be featured April 19-20 (Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto) and April 26-27 (San Jose east of Highway 17/880 and Milpitas).

In all, 240 artists will exhibit at 147 tour sites over the three weekends. The event was started in 1986 by a group of 79 artists, mostly from San Jose, who wanted to better-acquaint the general public with the variety of works produced by artists living or working in the county. Studios range from small home studios to large rented warehouses.

Here are some of the Saratoga artists who will be participating:

Well-known artist Kay Duffy goes to an art workshop at Yosemite every year, and that experience has inspired some of her current watercolors. Her studio is in her home at 20637 Leonard Road. "My girls have left, and their big double room is my studio," she says.

She describes her work as "loose, wet watercolors--free, not tight." The out-of-doors is a frequent subject, but she also does abstracts. She teaches classes several times a year at Hakone Gardens on Big Basin Way.

Dawn Hart-Kocsis, who lives in Saratoga, has her studio at 138 W. Campbell Ave., Suite B in Campbell. "My work is very different," she says. "I do stuff out of my head."

Her recent paintings, done in a textured, unique style, are metaphors for her own life experiences. But she still works with organic materials and found objects, creating mixed-media construction pieces. "I paint, I draw, I do sculpture, mixed media, write children's books and do illustrations," she says. She is a former staff member at the San Jose Museum of Art.

Yoju Kondo, who uses only her first name professionally, is a Japan-born artist who has been painting and studying art for some 40 years, starting when she showed promise at age 8. She paints a wide variety of subject matter in mediums ranging from watercolor to China ink, water-soluble crayon and pencil. Her style is an eclectic blend of Western and Oriental. Her Saratoga studio at 12272 Via Roncole is a 750-foot addition to her home.

She displays her work on five Web sites, one in Japan. One of the sites features her cat paintings, another her Buddha paintings.

Peruvian Hugo Lecaros' paintings hang in the United Nations building in Peru and are in many private collections. His paintings portray the everyday lives of the people of his homeland.

"I don't paint with my eyes, I paint with my heart," Lecaros says. He often works late at night, sometimes discarding canvases when ideas and colors don't mesh. His ideas come from his memories and experiences of Peru. He composes them in his mind, draws and stores them in a bulging sketchbook until he is ready to put them to canvas. Though most of his sketches are of Peru, some new subject matter is beginning to emerge, taking on the look of his Saratoga surroundings. His studio is in his home at 20350 Zorka Ave.

India-born Kavita Singh has been painting for 22 years. Her specialty is painting on silk with permanent dye. She does wall pieces and wearable art such as scarves and jackets.

"Color is my forté," she says. Her studio is in a converted garage at her home, 13475 Holiday Drive. For Open Studios, she will begin a silk painting to show the process from start to finish.

Other artists showing their works in their Saratoga studios are James W. Arnold, Suzanne Arnold, Ruth R. Condit, Starr Davis, Kevin DuArte, Doug Gerhart, Judy Gerhart, Sharon Lips, Helen MacKinlay, Judith Marshall, Marylyn T. Mori, Richard Osborn and Rick Waltonsmith.

Catalogs with artist biographies and art reproductions are available by mail from Open Studios, P.O. Box 2106, Cupertino, 95015-2106, or by calling 415/964-6575. Catalogs are also available at The Mitre Box, 20605 Third Street, Saratoga. Free maps are available at Aegis Gallery, 14531 Big Basin Way.