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Jan/Feb 2020
Artist’s Statement
Deborah West
I am inspired by beauty which persists amidst the stress and bustle of life. Painting is my response to this beauty and helps me to re-root my awareness in something more vast and deep than this everyday experience. I am fascinated by the subtle interplay of light and color in the natural world that surrounds us and continue to be challenged with its translation into paint.
Deborah’s Bio
Deborah West retired in 2017, after twenty-eight years as a professor of art at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, where she taught drawing, painting, design and art history. She has earned a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of California, Davis. While at Davis, she was awarded a Regents Fellowship and studied with Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley, and Manuel Neri. Before coming to the Central Coast, she taught at Sierra College in Rocklin, Las Positas College in Livermore, and The American School in Switzerland in England. Deborah shows her work on the Central Coast, as well as, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
July/Aug 2019
Passages is part of an ongoing body of conceptual photographic work depicting life, death, and the metaphysical realm of the Spirit. I chose local beaches to backdrop the young woman depicted in this part of the series. The sea was the beginning of us all and is abundant with life. Where there is life on earth there is also death. Life is the journey between birth and death. Spirit leads us to our paths, without our even knowing it. The choices that we make become our lives.
Heidi Gruetzemacher
May/June 2019
ROUNDUP SERIES
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVEN LEWIS
These collections of prints are an excerpt from an ongoing group of images which I have created to examine traditional roundup on a local ranch in the Huansa area. The camera provides me with the opportunity to reveal and document the events that are occurring. During that process, complicated random relationships of movement, time, color, shape, and content reveal themselves. The resulting photographs allow the viewer to view some of the cultural and social rituals which give the participants lives meaning.
December 2019
Sept/Oct 2019
July/Aug 2019
Kaylee Kamiya always knew she wanted to be an artist, but was uncertain if she had the tools necessary to succeed.
“Being in a small town, it wasn’t something I thought could happen,” she said.
But it did. At 19-years-old, the Orcutt native is already an accomplished creative on the Central Coast.
In May, she was awarded the Valley Art Gallery Scholarship by the Santa Maria Arts Council. She was granted $1,000 and a two-month-long exhibit at the Santa Maria Public Airport beginning July 8. Her art will also be showcased at Orcutt’s Valley Art Gallery for the next year.
“It’s a super great opportunity,” Kamiya said. “It’s helping me cultivate my art more and further myself as an artist.”
She used a portion of the funds to purchase pencils, pastels, and ink, which has allowed her to experiment with more colors. Vibrant colors, according to Kamiya, are an integral part of her work.
“Every piece I make is like an internal self-portrait,” she explained. “I channel a lot of feelings through the colors I use. It’s like a synesthesia type of thing.”
Besides prints, Kamiya makes keychains, bookmarks and more. She is inspired by the local environment and women empowerment. An especially important aspect of her style, she explained, is focusing on projects as a whole rather than just minor details.
Kamiya is also an actress and is beginning to direct. She graduated from Orcutt Academy High School during her junior year in 2017 to star as Laura in “COAST,” a film that explores the lives of different women growing up in Santa Maria.
Currently, she is a student at Allan Hancock College and is hoping to transfer to UC Irvine next fall. Her ultimate goal is to teach art education as a college professor while also continuing to act, direct, and create art.
Jamie Guista reporting