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Laura Corben

Visual Arts: Mixed Media, Painting, Visual Arts Instructor, Works on paper

Now living in Mendocino County, Laura’s interest in the natural world is major focus of her work, both plein air and in the studio. She paints in watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media as well as making numerous journals with ink and watercolor. She earned a BFA from San Jose State University, a masters from the University of Victoria, and taught high school art and art history for many years. Her home studio is in the hills outside of Willits and she is a member of the Artists’ Co-op of Mendocino. Her inspiration comes from a love of Nature, a delight in light and color, changing seasons and living things.

Laura Diamondstone

Visual Arts: Mixed Media, Painting, Works on paper

SF Bay area native with many hairpin turns and destinations, currently rooting as a small homesteader in Anderson Valley. Inspired from a lifelong absorption of a spectrum of visual, writing and performing arts by extraordinary and ordinary creatives. My art making is expression, giving tangible form to what sustains inner to environment exchange and dialogue as well as how materials/color/creative process/experience informs and shapes the process. It is an act of indulgence, necessity, and evolution. Abstraction is challenging, experimenting with materials is research, representational and figurative work exercises neurotransmission. I believe in all of it and nature and giving back.

Judith Edwards

Visual Arts: Ceramics, Crafts, Glasswork, Jewelry, Mixed Media, Sculpture, Works on paper

My relationship with clay began at Grove Street College in Oakland in the 1970s and at Chico State I received a BA in Ceramics. My work is influenced by Mayan Art, Botany, my Marine Science studies & an attraction to Mysticism. Some of my early work also incorporated ceramic sculpture with textiles. Currently, the figurines, tiles and decorative pieces I have been working on are inspired by nature and the mystical use of spirit totems.

Julie Higgins

Visual Arts: Murals, Painting, Works on paper; Soft Pastel

www.artistjuliehiggins.com My work is a constant process of story telling and pushing through the mundane of life into the magic, and the imaginary, which connects me to my sense of nature and how I belong or fit in. It is feeling, emotion, and play set in an ever nurturing landscape with juicy earthy women, sensual form and lots of color. This whole process is how I have come to understand my self and my life in my community and in the world. This process of working with symbols helps me connect with the spirit, and continue my exploration of life and purpose through my art. You can find my work locally at the Prentice Gallery and the Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino, CA. I am also the resident artist at both “the girl & the fig” restaurant in Sonoma, CA and “the fig cafe & wine bar” in Glen Ellen, CA. For more information and locations please visit my website.

Diza Hope

Visual Arts: Murals, Painting, Works on paper

Diza Hope is a Northern California painter working in oil, acrylic and pencil. She studied at California College of the Arts and draws inspiration mostly from natural forms. Lately she has been interested in investigating the architecture, rigidity and beauty of animal skulls juxtaposed against the delicate, undulating and graceful shapes found in flower petals. Besides the formal interest; the distillation of the skull becomes a symbol of our universality and basic oneness, being that we are all made of the same carbon, calcium and stardust and the flower, a symbol of our impermanence, but also the beauty we all have the capacity to create and share. Color plays an important role in her painting process as well and she enjoys pushing the boundaries between harmony and discord through her use of it.

Deborah Hunter

Visual Arts: Constructions/Collage, Graphic Arts, Mixed Media, Photography, Works on paper; Digital art; Digital collage; Encaustic

…will be one of six artists in the Endangered Planet exhibit at the Corner Gallery, in Ukiah, January 3 – 25, 2019. I have been involved in the arts, in one way or another, for most of my adult life. Straight out of high school I started attending Pierce Community College, known for their art and agricultural departments. I took double class loads for four years majoring in art, with a minor in biology. I have had works in some group exhibitions including Barnsdall Park, Pierce and the now-defunct Site Gallery in Los Angeles, mostly in the period of the late 1980s through early 2000s. I spent much of the 1990s working closely with artist Lun*na Menoh to assist her in materializing her artistic vision. In 1997 I started a handmade card business making multiples as well as a good deal of miniature originals. In more recent years I’ve spent part of my time freelancing as a graphic designer. In recent years I’ve become increasingly concerned about political and environmental issues and devote what time I can to activism. Our ongoing global environmental crisis has inspired this series which I’ve entitled Nature in Turmoil. All work I’ve contributed to the Endangered Planet show was created by means of digital collage and alteration of existing photographs. Displaced fragments, photo-negative effects, elements of our shared visual language such as rings that might suggest wave transmission or oversized pixels as a reference to modern technology, menacing shards, the juxtaposition of the beautiful with the cautionary, and other graphic devices are intended to create an unsettling undercurrent. Works in this series consist of a single encaustic panel and a series allowing up to 200 giclees of each work, printed on archival rag paper (typical substrate used for etchings and lithographs). Both the encaustic panels and prints and large in size. The panels are images printed on a translucent paper embedded in an encaustic layer. Part of the beauty and expressiveness of encaustic wax are the drips and swirls occurring as the wax is spread which reveal the hand of the artist. As with all visual art, any intrinsic value must be of a visual nature. If the work itself does not document or suggest any issue or convey anything of visual worth, then excessive verbal explanation given to prop it up is fairly useless. As stated concisely by Edward Hopper “If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” It is my hope for this body of work to appear pretty straightforward -for it not to require a lot of narration and that it can offer something that stays with the viewer rather than a mere passing diversion. I am an artist from L.A., currently residing in Ukiah, CA. Concern about the ongoing global environmental crisis has inspired my recent work.

Ling-yen Jones

Multi Arts; Visual Arts: Ceramics, Crafts, Glasswork, Graphic Arts, Jewelry, Mixed Media, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Textiles, Works on paper

The Coast Highway Artists Collective (CHAC) was formed in March, 2012. The Collective includes artists working in various genres and media. Most of us live on or near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, in an area called “Mendonoma,” which includes the adjacent southern Mendocino County and northern Sonoma County in California. Our gallery in Point Arena has a long art history. The building, which is easily recognizable by its red paint and bright yellow sun logo, was originally a home for a family with five children. Decades ago, the building was converted into an art gallery and was known as City Art. Many artists in the local community contributed to creating the gallery and hosting art exhibits. Years later, the gallery became inactive and stood vacant for a time. CHAC was then formed and refurbished the building to use it for year-round displays of local members’ art. Guest artists are often invited to exhibit at the gallery. Our Collective member artists take turns staffing the gallery on its open days, usually four, including weekends (see our current schedule on the Home page), so that whenever anyone visits, there will be one of our artists there to serve them. The building, with its charming garden, is oftentimes used for community events. .

James Maxwell

Visual Arts: Ceramics, Functional and/or Decorative, Graphic Arts, Illustration, Mixed Media, New Media/Technology, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, Visual Arts Instructor, Works on paper

Multi-media Artist, Author, Arts Educator, James Maxwell moved to the Mendocino Coast in 1973. A few examples of his prolific creative work can be seen below. Top of The Fen (From Visual Essay on Our Local Wilderness) 2’ X 4’ acrylic paint Some details: James E. Maxwell Born: June 15, 1941 Riverside, California Drew and Painted at an early age Riverside School District 1946 thru 1959 Childhood summer vacations with immediate family: 1949 thru 1958 Pacific Northwest and Western Canada Joined US Air Force 1959 After military testing for skills Studied Pattern Recognition and types of Military Codes Assigned Bremerhaven, Germany US Security Service Three years duty. My own one room painting studio in Germany 1960-1963 Traveled extensively throughout Western Europe Museums, and artists’ open studios College: BFA, MFA Art Center College of Design 1963 -1969 William Zacha’s Geranium (Brought Home) 3’ X 4’ oil paint w/copper and faux gold leaf Work: The Hollywood Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Los Angeles Area Television Academy Awards 1970 Honors JAMES MAXWELL Graphics For Contributions to the winning of an Area Television Academy Award OUT OF THE SHADOWS KNBC-TV june 26, 1970 PBS-TV Staff Artist Los Angeles 1974-1976 One Man Showings: La Cieniga Blvd – Hollywood, CA each year 1973-1976 1976 Moved to Mendocino, Northern California Fine Arts-illustration Painting/Sculpture instructor Mendocino Art Center & College of the Redwoods Retired at 68 years of age Returned to Europe when 70 for six weeks visiting friends in England, France, Switzerland, Northern Italy. At 72 returned to England and Northern Scotland, Isle of Sky Traveled with painting supplies South Pacific, Hawaii, American Samoa, Western Samoa, Kingdom of Tonga, and New Zealand, Ireland East West and South for six weeks spring Summer 2016 Returned home overlooking Fort Bragg, CA’s Pudding Creek “I focus on what I can learn from images that question me as much as I question them.” JM

Jazzminh Moore

Visual Arts: Illustration, Mixed Media, Painting, Visual Arts Instructor, Works on paper

I was born at Breitenbush Hot Springs in the Willamette National Forest of Oregon. At age two, my mother and I moved to Encinitas, California. My childhood hinged on making this 1200 mile journey twice a year to see my father, first by car and later by plane, and set me up for a life of travel. After high school, I lived in every major city on the west coast and then spent years in NYC, building an art career and traveling the world. I now live in Willits with my six year old daughter. Willits happens to be equidistant between my two childhood homes and for that reason, feels like a perfect place to have landed. Spill, acrylic on birch panel, 23” x 48”, 2013 For nearly twenty years, I was known for painting dynamic portraits with a sense of movement and psychological complexity. In 2018, I ventured into collage and have not looked back. My work has been fundamentally changed. Through the medium of collage, I can unlock subconscious content and imagery heretofore unmined within the confines of representational portraiture. All recent paintings are informed by collages. My work can be viewed at http://www.jazzminhmoore.com I received my BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, and MFA from California State University, Long Beach, both in Drawing and Painting. I have had solo exhibitions in NYC, LA, SF, Paris and elsewhere. My work has been featured in various publications, including New American Paintings, American Art Collector Magazine, the Village Voice, Interview and Zing Magazine. Recent teaching experience includes seven years in Cornish College of the Arts’ Summer Program and an intensive painting retreat at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, Colorado. I currently teach Portrait Painting and Figure Drawing at Mendocino College. Claire de Lune, mixed media, 36” x 36”, 2018

Performing Arts: Spoken Word, Storytelling, Vocal; Visual Arts: Film, Illustration, Murals, Painting, Performance Art, Visual Arts Instructor, Works on paper

JAYE ALISON MOSCARIELLO, MFA, Transart Institute/Plymouth University Cell/Studio: 310.970.4517 artisall@earthlink.net www.chasethemonkey.org BORN New Haven, CT RESIDE Redwood Valley, CA SELECTED MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS 2007 “The Last Show,” Asto International Art Festival, Asto Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA “Simultaneous Multiplicity,” Asto Museum, Los Angeles, CA Gwangwhamoon Int’l Art Festival, Korea National Assembly Library of Korea GIAF, Korean Cultural Center, Bejing, China 2006 “15th Lantern of the East LA International,” Asto Museum, Los Angeles, CA 2002 “Mane Manebu,” Kid’s Plaza Museum, Osaka, Japan. 2000 “Bridging Two Milleniums,” Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India 1999 “Group Show,” Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India. Rutman, Howard, “What’s Up & Coming,” LA City Search.com, January 2002. Emenegger, Ashley, “How to Get Unstuck,” Artline Newsletter, Los Angeles, CA, Fall 2001. Etkin, Jay S., “Body & Self – A Hit in Memphis,” I.A.S.G. Newsletter, vol.7, num.2, Mar 2000. Lalit Kala Akademi, Catalog, I.A.S.G. Invitational, March 1999. Shaw, David, “1nE Review,” Memphis Flyer, Memphis, TN, December 1999. Shay, Daniel, “7th Street Int’l: Round Up the Usual Suspects,” I.A.S.G. Newsletter, vol.4, num.10, Washington, DC, December 1997. ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCIES 2006 – 2008 SEA, Montebello, CA Berendo Middle School, Los Angeles, CA La Vida West Pregnant Minor Program, Lawndale, CA Sponsored by Theatre of Hearts/Youth First, Los Angeles, CA PUBLIC ART 2008 Walgrove Elementary School – Courtyard Mural , Mar Vista, CA Hillcrest Elementary School – Outdoor Mural, Los Angelels,CA 2007 99th Street Elementary School, Library Mural, Los Angeles, CA 42nd Street Elementary School, Outdoor Mural, Los Angeles, CA ART WORKSHOPS 2000-2005 “Breaking Out”, Art Bootcamp for Blocked Creatives, Santa Monica, CA “One Minute Storytelling” Sister Corita Art Center, Los Angeles, CA “Sending a Message,” Sister Corita Art Center, LA, CA EDUCATION MFA, Transart Institute/Plymouth University, Berlin, Germany and Plymouth,UK

Jaye Alison Moscariello

Performing Arts: Storytelling, Vocal; Visual Arts: Film, Murals, Painting, Performance Art, Visual Arts Instructor, Works on paper

JAYE ALISON MOSCARIELLO 12400 Bakers Creek Rd. Redwood Valley, CA 95470 310.970.4517 artisall@earthlink.net www.chasethemonkey.org www.jayesite.com @jayepo BORN New Haven, CT RESIDE Redwood Valley, CA EDUCATION 2013 – 2015 Transart Institute, Berlin, Germany and New York, New York Masters of Fine Art 2012-2013 Mendocino College, Ukiah, CA 2004 Santa Monica Community College, Santa Monica, CA 2000 University of California Los Angeles, CA 1993 Art Students League of New York, New York, NY 1977-1978 Creative Arts Workshop Studio, New Haven, CT 1972-1976 Paier College of Art, Hamden, CT SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 “The Anthropocene Show”, Redwood Valley Grange, Redwood Valley, CA* 2015 “Transient Transgressions”, Somos Gallery, Berlin, Germany* 2015 “Loose Ends”, Somos Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2014 “Pop-Up” Show, Transart Institute at Somos Gallery, Berlin, Germany (July) 2014 “Fifth Annual Altered Books Exhibition”, MarinMOCA, Novato, CA (Apr.) 2013 “Pop-Up” Show, Transart Institute at SuperMarket, Berlin, Germany 2012 “Food for Thought” Mendocino College Art Gallery, Ukiah, CA 2012 “Anderson Valley Artists” Oddfellows Hall, Mendocino, CA 2010 “Anderson Valley Artists” Oddfellows Hall, Mendocino, CA “Artist Collective at Elk at Gualala” Gualala Arts Center, Gualala, CA 2009 “Artists Collective at Elk” Gualala Arts Center, Gualala, CA* “113th Annual Open Juried Exhibition” Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, National Arts Club, NY “Art in the Redwoods,” Gualala Arts Center, Gualala, CA 2007 “The Last Show”, Asto International Art Festival, Asto Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA “Simultaneous Multiplicity,” Asto Museum, Los Angeles, CA Gwangwhamoon Int’l Art Festival, Korea National Assembly Library of Korea GIAF, Korean Cultural Center, Bejing, China 2007 “Paris Open 2007” Atelier Grognard, Rueill-MalMaison, France/Espace, Villpinte, France 2007 “THE Swimming Pool Show” ROARK, Los Angeles, CA 2006 “15th Lantern of the East LA International,” Asto Museum, Los Angeles, CA 2006 “15th Lantern of the East LA International,” Doizaki Gallery, Japanese American Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA 2006 “10 Points of View,” ROARK Gallery, Los Angeles, CA * 2004 “Hollywood Bowl Sphere Art Project,” Cause & Effect Gallery, Torrance, CA. 2003 “From Korea to Iraq…” Anti War Posters Show, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA. 2002 “Reactions,” The Williamson Gallery, Pasadena, CA. “Naughty Bits & Pieces,” Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA. curated by Christopher Miles “Reactions,” Exit Art, New York, NY 2002 “Mane Manebu,” Kid’s Plaza Museum, Osaka, Japan. 2001 “California Open,” curator, Christopher Miles, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA. “Watermedia,” Bigfork Art & Cultural Center, Bigfork, MT. 2001 “It Figures,” Key Club Video Billboard Show, Los Angeles, CA.4- Person Show, 1st LA Billboard art show. page 2/Moscariello 2001 “Lust & Revenge in the Year of the Snake,” Josephine Butler Center, Washington, DC. 2001 “I.A.S.G. at MOCA,” Museum of Contemporary Art DC, Washington, DC. 2000 “Bridging Two Milleniums,” Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India 2000 “Invitational,” MOCA-DC, Washington, DC. 2000 “California Open,” curated by Carol Ann Kloneides, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA “Reflections of Humanity,” Marlboro Gallery, Largo, MD. “Body & Self,” Cooper Street Contemporary Gallery, Memphis, TN.* 1999 “1nE,” Vertigo Gallery, Memphis, TN. 1999 “I.A.S.G. Group Show,” Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India. 1998 “Downtown Lives_,” Downtown Artists Development Association, Los Angeles, CA “Erotica,” Olympia Hall, London, England. “Speak Out_,” Matrix Arts Gallery, Sacramento, CA. 1997 “Generations,” A.I.R. Gallery -25th Anniversary Invitational, New York, NY. 1994 “Art of Northeast America,” curated by Holly Solomon, Silvermine Artists Guild, New Canaan, CT “Group 1V,” Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, Brooklyn, NY. 1993 “Art of Northeast America,” curated by Eliza Rathbone, Silvermine Artists Guild, New Canaan, CT “Group Annual,” Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, Armory, Brooklyn, NY. 1992 “Salon of the Mating Spider,” Testsite, Williamsburg, NY. “Annual Show,” Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, New York, NY. SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2017 “Politic-OH!”, Willits Center for the Arts, Willits, CA, Oct. 2011 “Chase the Monkey,” Scharffenberger Cellars Art Gallery, Philo, CA 2010 “Mendocino Coast” Lauren’s, Boonville, CA “Land and Sea,” Artists Collective at Elk, Elk,CA “Ocean Series,” Canele, Los Angeles, CA 2003 “Narrative Works,” Flynn Gallery, Raleigh, NC 2002 “Inside/Out,” Modern Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA SELECTED ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS Reith, Sarah, “The Anthropocene Show”, Ukiah Daily Journal, April 2016 Museum of Contemporary Art – KIASMA Studio,“In the Middle of a Movie,” Catalog, Helsinki, Finland, November 2004. Dickson, Laurie, “Artists Interiors…,” Rockport Publishing, November 2003. Mastbaum, Blair, “Art Pick,” DigitalCity.LA, Los Angeles, CA, November 2002. Emenegger, Ashley, “Drive-by Art,” Artline Newsletter, Los Angeles, CA, Spring 2002. Rutman, Howard, “What’s Up & Coming,” LA City Search.com, January 2002. Emenegger, Ashley, “How to Get Unstuck,” Artline Newsletter, Los Angeles, CA, Fall 2001. Etkin, Jay S., “Body & Self – A Hit in Memphis,” I.A.S.G. Newsletter, vol.7, num.2, Mar 2000. Lalit Kala Akademi, Catalog, I.A.S.G. Invitational, March 1999. Shaw, David, “1nE Review,” Memphis Flyer, Memphis, TN, December 1999. Shay, Daniel, “7th Street Int’l: Round Up the Usual Suspects,” I.A.S.G. Newsletter, vol.4, num.10, Washington, DC, December 1997. . SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Los Angeles, CA Library of Congress, Washington, DC National Archives, Washington, DC Paier College of Art, Hamden, CT St. Joseph’s Hospital, Bob Hope Wing, Los Angeles, CA *Co-curator

Bill Mulvihill

Graphic Arts; Media; Visual Arts: Graphic Arts, Mixed Media, Painting, Works on paper

Bill Mulvihill has lived on the north coast since 1970. In the early seventies he worked with Mendocino Art Center instructors Charles Stevenson and Dorr Bothwell. He was also involved in theatre productions performed there, doing posters, stage managing, costume and set design. In the years since then, Bill has worked in many art mediums, drawing, portraiture and printmaking being particular favorites. After completing the College of the Redwoods Graphic Communications Program, he received the certificate in May 2007. Currently, in addition to working with the Arts Council of Mendocino County, he is assistant editor for the Fort Bragg – Mendocino Coast Historical Society newsletter, “Voice of the Past”. Bill also does other design/layout work, digitizing analog audio, & CD and DVD disc design and duplication.

Janet Rosen

Visual Arts: Illustration, Painting, Works on paper

Why make art? For many of us it is a way to mediate reality, to integrate and make sense of the world and then put it “out there” for others to experience. My aim is to create a narrative with enough space for the viewer to enter and find their own story. See more drawings & paintings in the gallery below and at www.janetrosen.com I enjoy working in series, some of which may be completed within weeks while others encompass years of intermittent work. Most projects end up being meditations on time, whether it’s capturing the play of light on moving water, the distortion of time created by illness or isolation, the passage of the sun and the seasons across an oak-studded hill, or the temporality of human life. During the pandemic I began a daily drawing practice focused on the faces of fellow artists on the Sktchy app and more recently this has led me to picking up water-soluble oils for portraiture. You can reach Janet Rosen at mendojanet(at)gmail.com

Lauren Sinnott

Visual Arts: Graphic Arts, Murals, Painting, Works on paper

See a detailed description about Lauren’s latest mural From Finland to Fort Bragg complete with photos & videos here. I am an artist, historian and former politician. www.historymural.com will show you how so many things in my life and work have recently come together in the perfect project: my monumental history mural on the north wall of the Ukiah Valley Conference Center. But let’s back up a little. My diverse portfolio is partly the result of making a living through art in the modern world. Before photography was invented, everyone would want me to create their image. Now, it’s really only dogs that people commission portraits of. I even paid a vet bill once with a mural of dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, and mice. At Point Arena High School, I painted a face that gets walked on: the sports mascot, a 6 ft. grinning pirate on the floor of the basketball court. A local big wave surfer modeled. Art entwines with life… and also its loss. That surfer was part of my California family and I portrayed him as a life-size 3-dimensional winged angel after his death at sea. The lady who commissioned this work died recently and now the angel has come back to me. It all started in Wisconsin’s dairyland, where I was raised by an artist mother and poet father. My mom supported us on graphic design, and as a toddler I worked at a little table alongside her. Our house was filled with paintings and books. It was the Age of Aquarius and I knew I was supposed to be at Woodstock, but it was impossible. I was ten. I spent my senior year as an AFS exchange student in Belgium, speaking only French and learning to take class notes in perfect outline form. I discovered the art of conversation, four-hundred year old homes and good coffee. It was there that I began to feel the pull of an old culture living still where it had always been. Back from Belgium, I attended Rice University in wonderfully hot and humid Houston, TX. I earned a BA in Art and French, then a BFA in painting, and an MA in Art History. During graduate study, I encountered a work whose untold story began to open before me, becoming the subject of my thesis, The Double Portrait of Two Men in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. And the story blossomed again with stunning new research on the part of several scholars, leading to my recent paper, Beloved Disciple: Vittore Belliniano and a Double Portrait of Two Men, which explores the possibility that the exalted Venetian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini and his head of studio were lovers. I taught art history for several years at the museum school, painted one of my most exquisite mural in a private bathroom, and became a single mother of two. But I yearned for the ocean! Not the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, which I had never even seen. And Northern California to be specific, because friends had told me “Your kind of people live there.” My boys and I left town in a converted school bus with a wood stove and beds. We found Point Arena located with its lighthouse on a jutting tip of land WEST of the San Andreas fault. This is the other California, where populations are dwarfed by the ridged landscape and pounding ocean. This is exactly what I was looking for, except I forgot that it was going to be impossible to get my PhD. The consolation prize was my life in politics as City Council member and then Mayor of one of only four incorporated cities in Mendocino County. Point Arena is the seventh tiniest city in California, which meant the city staff was small and overworked, and our jobs as elected officials were large and unending. On top of legislative activity, we also had the tasks of employee hiring, evaluating, and firing. It helped to have an eye for detail. It didn’t help to earn only $100 a month. (See more about fights and triumphs in city government and much more of my artwork on my main website www.artgoddess.com which will be sleek and modern by Christmas!) My boys and I lived in our bus in the fragrant manzanita forest for a year and when we moved to town I supported us with art and rent. I took jobs ranging from art cars to tombstone design, from wedding dresses to sewing a life-size brocade torso complete with all female reproductive parts for a doctor. I created the Velvet Vulva line of purses for the lesbian, feminist and enlightened market. I painted curbs and hemmed pants. Business signs and design services were a mainstay. I picked blackberries, ate wild mustard greens, baked my own bread, and gleaned apples from the ground. We took in a parade of roommates to make ends meet. My house was teeming with the boys and their friends, and was full of books and paintings. Recently my son who learned Mandarin and now lives in Taiwan paid me a compliment. He said, “Mom, I never knew we were poor.” And of course, in real terms, we weren’t. All of these experiences have caused me to reflect on the ultimate purpose of the artist and the historian. Art history is a jeweled necklace, a string of masterpieces threaded on inspiration from around the world. Yet art was made by, for, and about real people who led complex lives. A man who loved men and didn’t have wealth or a noble patron in 15th-century Venice could be burned alive in the Piazza San Marco. Ghosts walk in those grand cities and on the quiet streets of my own town, where no more than a century ago, it was permitted to shoot an Indian after dark. Forced servitude, kidnappings and massacres took place across California, including multiple occurrences here in Mendocino County. During the 1850s, the new state government’s official position was denial of rights and extermination was seen as inevitable. Depravity haunts exaltation, and the sacred charge of the historian is to give voice to the fallen, to shine light on the common and hidden, as well as the great. As a Renaissance painting mutely accomplishes merely by surviving, the historian keeps a subject alive with his published words, and the muralist with her imagery. I love the motto of Yale University: Lux et Veritas. Light and Truth – with one we find the other. My latest and largest project, the huge historical narrative mural on the north wall of the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, is the result of these threads interweaving. I could use all those hours of life drawing, all of that house painting, all my knowledge of narrative art through the centuries, and all my experience working with the public in administration. This is a public work for everyone and about everyone. It contains over two-hundred portraits and tells many stories of people who live here now. People can see why this art has meaning. They understand the argument I once presented to a dear friend over dinner: “You will be fascinated,” he was informed, looking doubtful as he questioned art history and the importance of such things. “History is to humanity as memory is to the individual,” I said. We are each of us walking backwards into the future. “Would you want to do that with your eyes shut?” My companion smiled, saw it was true, and ordered champagne, since he was about to hear what had been revealed by a Venetian inventory from 1569.* *That the great collection of Gabriele Vendramin included a little box portrait of Giovanni Bellini with the portrait of Vittore, his disciple, on its cover.

Antoinette von Grone

Visual Arts: Murals, Painting, Works on paper

Born in 1954. Studied textile design and high fashion. Interneship in window decoration at Hermes-Paris. Currently working mostly in oil on canvas at my studio in Boonville. Represented by Erickson Fine Art in Healdsburg.

Laura Wiecek

Visual Arts: Crafts, Mixed Media, Painting, Textiles, Works on paper; Book Art

Go to my website ShesNartist.net for all information

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