New and experienced art collectors can learn about art and start
collecting their first pieces this weekend as they schmooze with
local artists in downtown Morgan Hill.
New and experienced art collectors can learn about art and start collecting their first pieces this weekend as they schmooze with local artists in downtown Morgan Hill.
The Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center will open its doors to budding and professional Morgan Hill artists who will showcase their talents as part of Silicon Valley Open Studios. Catalogues of artists and maps to off-site studios open for visits will be available during event hours of 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
SVOS is a free open art forum where artists who live in your neighborhood get the chance to showcase their work and give the community a chance to introduce their families to the world of visual expression.
Nineteen local artists will be exhibiting their work in the community center’s El Toro Room both days. Many artists have pieces available within very affordable price ranges.
Original artwork can make great gifts, especially for Mother’s Day.
Satu Viitanen, a resident of Morgan Hill for twelve years is a five-star winner of the SVOS Stars Juried Competition. She is known for her free-standing folding screens, wall hangings and floor cloths.
Viitanen, who has participated in SVOS for the past four years, said that she got started in art when friends asked her to paint the walls of their music studio. She created a look of rich textured layers giving a feeling of old-world patina surfaces.
“They fell in love with it,” Viitanen said.
The variety of artworks to be seen includes drawings, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, digital imaging, fiber, textiles, glass, watercolor, photography, printmaking and jewelry.
If you like gourds in bright acrylic colors, clay jewelry in whimsical designs or surreal oil paintings, Angie Young, their creator said that she loves to express emotion and kinetic energy in her work.
Young, a four-year resident of Morgan Hill said that her art career was born in a mental hospital where she began to draw “human bean” cartoon characters depicting the symptoms of mental illness.
Beyond gourds and cartoons, Young’s fine art oil paintings don’t reveal the work of someone who six years ago, could not paint in this genre.
Young attributes her talents to her spirituality and mentor, Stefan Baumman, well-known master oil painter, who mentors her on outdoor painting projects.
Visitors can expect to see Young demonstrating how she works.
“I am thinking of performing a dance while I paint,” Young said.
From gourds, bean people to ceramic fish artist, Shelley Hanes, known in Morgan Hill as the Fish Lady for her whimsical to realistic one-of-a-kind, freehand cut pieces named for their individuality, shapes and colors.
Hanes true-to-life fish art has moved upstream to the Morgan Hill Art Guild where artists get to work and showcase their work in “Art in the Alley” located in the little yellow house downtown at 17265 Monterey Road.
Visitors who like painted, detailed realism can feel the rich colors and details on the oil canvasses of Theresa Wayne’s landscape paintings. Wayne said that she started taking art classes in 1976 and takes classes every chance she gets.
Wayne’s skills are easily detected in her use of shadowing and color blending in her lifelike portraits.
Other Morgan Hill SVOS artists showcasing at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center are Jerri Kuehn, Carole Belliveau, Sheri Chakamian, Renee Filice, Jon Thomas Keegan, Suzanne Perry, Robert Rosalez, Anita Mason, Marge Regan, Steve Soult and Mary Hiller.
SVOS artists displaying their work in their own studios nearby are Bob Freimar, Don Jensen, and John Hughes.
Because of the uniqueness of the artists, there will be something there to catch the eyes of the young and the not so young. Visitors can expect to view creative pieces in various genres.
“Art is about expressing yourself,” Viitanen said.
For the past eighteen years, artists throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have participated in Open Studios, a non-profit organization dedicated to introducing the public to the great diversity of local art and artists working in the greater Silicon Valley.
Introducing art to the local community is being made possible through Daryl Manning, art specialist for the city.
Silicon Valley Open Studios will take place Saturday and Sunday from 11-5 p.m. Color artist guide catalogs for Open Studios will be available for sale at the Community & Cultural Center, 17000 Monterey Road at Dunne Avenue; map guides will be available for free.
Details: www.svopenstudios.org or call 782-0008.
