Santa Cruz County is a hot spot for artistic talent, and a new art exhibit Everyday People showcases what seven of its local artists have been up to. The new exhibit spans the five branches of Santa Cruz County Bank from Scotts Valley to Watsonville and is open for the public to enjoy.
Its common theme depicts people going about their everyday tasks.
“We try to show art work that hasn’t been seen by the public yet,” says Mary Anne Carson, senior vice president at the bank. She's also a member of the SCCB Arts Collaborative, which has helped promote local artists since 2004.
“I saw one of Rosemary’s paintings at a friend’s house and I built the show around her idea of capturing people,” Carson says about Rosemary Allen’s painting series of Oakland construction workers.
Two of Allen's paintings are at the Front Street branch, as are three from her more recent Urban Farmer series.
Curated by Joan Blackmer, the collection of paintings, mixed media, and encaustic works is for sale, with 100 percent of the sales going directly to the artists. The prices range from $150-$7,000, and the works are as varied as their prices.
But even if art work doesn’t fit into your budget these days, Everyday People is definitely an inspiring collection worth feasting your eyes upon.
Artist Suzanne McCourt's "everyday people" are musicians. They appear in the vibrant acrylic-on-paper, “Jammin,” which hangs at the entrance to the Front Street branch, and again in her mixed media “Wharf to Wharf” piece, which was used as the race’s 2010 poster.
“I’ve probably painted him 60 times over the last 20 years,” says McCourt of the hatted-man sitting bent over his guitar, mid-foot tap and mid-strum.
McCourt’s subjects are often wearing hats, which add to an element of mystery she likes to give her work. “Once you put your art out there, it’s everybody else who brings their own stories,” she says.
Her “Wharf to Wharf” piece is teeming with details of the race course and somehow includes everything from the Cocoanut Grove and the Santa Cruz Wharf, to the race’s finish-line balloons and famous Capitola palm tree. McCourt calls this style “iconic,” as it tells the story of the race.
She used layers of homemade paper, old photographs from the race, memorabilia of the race and paint to create the wharf-to-wharf story.
“I’m a paper addict,” says McCourt, who loves to incorporate the textures of paper in her mixed-media pieces.
Stephanie Heit has worked with encaustics for the past seven years and also paints. Her small “Encaustic Silk Transfers” are modestly priced at $150.
“I started doing them for Open Studios, because I wanted to find something affordable for the public,” says Heit.
Her “encaustic silk transfers” are made by laying an image-printed piece of silk into a wax base and then building more wax and colors upon the image. “There's a whole ambiance around it—you know, the heated wax, the smell of the wax," she said. "You can just do beautiful things with it. Painting doesn’t have the luminescence of wax.”
Other artists with artwork in Everyday People are Rosemary Allen, D. Hooker, Mary Hopf, Don McPherson and Judy Stabile.
The show will run through the end of March and will be followed by a show Carson says will be a celebration of Santa Cruz County.
Everyday People can be viewed during normal bank business hours: Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and Fridays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., excluding holidays.
Exhibit locations: 7775 Soquel Dr., Aptos; 819 Bay Ave., Capitola; 720 Front St., Santa Cruz; 4604 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley; 595 Auto Center Dr., Watsonville.
