The Sunnyvale Sun
News
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Brushing Up: Artist Carol Lois Haywood is working on a painting from an image of a 90-year-old wooden Monterey clipper that she took a couple of years ago. The ship, named ÔThe Irene,Õ was torn apart in a storm several months ago.
Sunnyvale watercolorist to open studio
By Stephen Baxter
When Sunnyvale artist Carol Lois Haywood sees something about to be destroyed, she tries to preserve it through her artwork.
In 1990, she saw a packing shed on the C.J. Olson Cherry Ranch near the corner of El Camino Real and Mathilda Avenue. Before it was torn down, she depicted it in a watercolor. Jan Camp of the Sunnyvale Historical Society saw prints of her work at a yard sale at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and the society eventually acquired the original for a future display.
Haywood's interest now lies in wooden fishing boats in Half Moon Bay that she believes will be lost; her maritime works will be displayed at a Silicon Valley Open Studio event at her Sunnyvale workspace May 12 and 13.
"I believe these boats are about to disappear. That's one of the reasons I'm drawn to painting them," Haywood says.
Haywood, 65, was born in Evansville, Ind. She started taking art classes in seventh-grade and attended the John Heron Art Institute in Indianapolis. She moved to San Jose in 1988 and worked in social services. Haywood later moved to Santa Rosa before coming to Sunnyvale, and decided to pursue art professionally about 10 years ago.
In Sonoma County, she saw old farming equipment rusting in fields and rushed to preserve it in art. She got her first taste for wooden work boats at an art class in Bodega Bay.
"I just fell in love with the shapes. It was just very interesting to me," she says. She continues to take courses on watercolor, and her technique has earned the respect of other Sunnyvale artists such as painter Angelo Lopez.
"I've seen a lot of watercolor and her work--it has a good feel for the ocean," Lopez says.
Watercolor can be trickier to work with than acrylic paint because mistakes are difficult to fix, but Lopez says Haywood has a strong command.
Lopez and Haywood met at a Sunnyvale Art Club meeting earlier this year, and both say the group has given them a social and professional outlet.
On Sundays, Haywood often walks the docks in Half Moon Bay and takes pictures of boats. She brings them back to her studio, preparing each work and painting it. Each piece takes roughly 20 hours.
One of her favorites is "Quadrilaterals," which shows a group of boats in Half Moon Bay shortly after dawn, bathed in blue-greens and yellows.
"It's a quiet, kind of meditative picture," she says.
A lack of salmon from the Klamath River, which meets the Pacific Ocean near the California-Oregon border, has been difficult for the Half Moon Bay fishermen, Haywood says. She fears the wooden boats, and their endless maintenance, will die out.
Haywood's studio at 1183 W. Olive Ave. will be featured in Silicon Valley Open Studios on 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 12 and 13. For more information on her work, visit www.haywoodc.com.
