Saratoga News

One of the paintings in the Garden Art Show.

Garden party grows into annual art extravaganza

Saratogan shows her work in a San Jose back yard

By Cristy Shauck

What began as a whimsical garden party to showcase a local couple's artwork has evolved into an annual community affair.

Nearly two decades ago, artists Gwenavere Johnson and her husband, Wendell, wanted to "do something" with their paintings. They invited neighbors and friends to their Booksin Avenue home to stroll through their half-acre backyard garden, where they displayed their art on easels and from nails pounded into the redwood trees Gwenavere had planted more than 50 years ago.

The show was a smashing success. The premiere event drew about 100 people, and Gwenavere sold 25 paintings, she says.

Wendell died six years ago, but Gwenavere has accumulated a crew of friends and neighbors who help set up paintings, tables and chairs and bring refreshments. She expects to host about 200 people Aug. 18 during a three-hour show, which features her work and the work of two other local artists. Johnson says she makes cookies, deviled eggs and stuffed celery.

"It's a lot of work," she says.

The temperature could be in the 90s on the day of the show, but Johnson's garden will be one of the coolest spots in town. While strolling barefoot on the lush carpet of moss that grows in the shade of her redwoods, she says, "I foster the moss. It's pretty hard to grow in San Jose."

Myriad paths of stepping stones, lined with paintings resting on easels, crisscross the garden.

"I've made paths so that, no matter what kind of footgear they have, they can go 'round and see things," she says. "Wherever you look, you will see something that beckons you."

Johnson pruned bushes and removed ivy growing along the fence in order to accommodate the 200-plus paintings which will decorate a yard filled with pink roses, orange geraniums, white Shasta daisies, red-orange salvia and other flowers contributing purple and yellow accents to this virtual artist's palette of a garden. A bamboo thicket, where Johnson once placed a life-sized painting of a panda, screens a flower pond.

Johnson's paintings will appear in the garden alongside works by artists Vivian Taggart and June Hughes.

Taggart, a Saratoga resident, will exhibit at Johnson's show this year for the first time.

Glenites may recognize Taggart's work from the Heald Business College television commercial that features a woman standing in front of a large painting. Vivian sold 13 paintings to the school a while back. The first time she saw the ad, she was horrified, she said, because she thought someone else was imitating her style. Then she realized it was her painting.

Taggart, an impressionist, has won many awards. Her painting recently hung in Stanford University House, and she has exhibited at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park and at several Bay Area galleries.

"When I heard about the show, I wanted to be in it. I sent Gwenavere photos of my work two years ago, and when another artist dropped out, she invited me," Taggart says.

"I'm not well known outside the art world," she continues, expressing the hope that influential people will attend the Willow Glen event and notice her work.

June Hughes, a San Jose painter, will show her oils and watercolors here for the second time. A member of the Santa Clara Art Association and a signature member of the Society of Western Artists, Hughes also has exhibited at the Hall of Flowers in addition to the Rosicrucian Museum, the Triton Museum and the Santa Clara County Fair.

Hughes has known about Johnson's garden show for several years. "I was thrilled to be invited as a guest artist," says the artist, who paints "people, flowers, everything."

She met Johnson through the Santa Clara Art Association. "She's a marvelous artist," Hughes says. "She's been accepted in shows in Paris."

Johnson's paintings have won many awards, including the Golden Centaur Award, the Diploma of Merit and the Diploma of Nations prize from the Academia Italia. Most of one wall in her studio is covered with certificates and ribbons.

As her birthday present one year, Wendell built the studio above the first floor of the house. "It's made from the boards of the old Booksin House," she explains. "I call it Treetop Studio because it's on top of the trees." (The Booksin House, owned by the family for which the street is named, once stood near Dry Creek and Booksin Avenue.)

Johnson ponders momentarily, then says, "I guess you'd call me an impressionist-realist. Every summer, we traveled. We went around the world several times."

Her paintings reflect the animals, landscapes, people and architecture of the exotic places she's visited, including the legendary Timbuktu. But, among all she's seen during her travels, it is the zebra which fascinates her.

"It's the pattern and the color," she says. "I don't paint them black and white; I paint tints of white and a little color in the dark."

She holds up a horizontal painting of a herd of zebras.

"You may look at it as zebras," she says, then turns the piece on its side, "or you may look at it this way and wonder what it was."

Gwenavere Johnson's "Garden Art Show" will be held Aug. 18, from 2 to 5 p.m., at 2054 Booksin Ave. (between Curtner Avenue and Dry Creek Road).