| Yucca Valley | |  | Dennis Mattson
Carving, Jewelry
55267 Hwy 62, Yucca Valley | | Dennis Mattson alias Four Winds, was born in a small farming community in N.W. Oregon in 1948. His family lived on a small self sufficient farm for all his childhood which he credits most of his artistic skills. The medium that Dennis works in is as he says “sticks & stones & skins & bones”. His artwork is also influenced by 30 years of spiritual and political work with indigenous peoples from South America, Central America, North America and Canada. Dennis has an ability to combine the articles of native into ceremonial tools and jewelry. His combination of old traditional and contemporary is quite unique. Dennis’s clients consist of spiritual seekers and native American Indians who use these for their Icons, spiritual advancement. | |  | Christy Walker
Recycled Glass, Metal Collage, Sculpture
760.250.1525 | | My approach to art and in particular sculpture, is very personal and self-evaluating. My art is my history and when I look at my body of work, it reflects the paramount themes in my life. It is my impression and response to the human condition. This concept is what I strive to make clear for myself. However, the process and techniques used in creating the art also allows others to bring their unique impressions to the work. This is achieved by presenting the viewer with a familiar image, and implied figure, and the suggestion of the human form. I present a view that is easily engaged. Process: While executing the work, I most often work from life modeling in clay. I then make a mold and pour a wax, which I use to cast my bronze. Using the process of lost wax and the help of a small team of artisans, I pour one of a kind pieces. Depending on the scope of the work, I usually complete the foundry process without additional assistance. I feel the more I handle the work the more possibilities are revealed, and just as important, I have greater quality control. This process has emerged from my life long passion to create and my dedication to study as well as formal training. Sculpture is not the end but most often the beginning of my creative process. After I cast my work I have the opportunity to explore again as a painter. I love the magic of illusion and creating the impression of depth and mass on a flat surface. Using my sculpture as the model, I work on a 1/8 inch birch wood panel. Using my fingers and some rags, I apply pastels and pigments and use crayon to define line. This is a fast and aggressive approach as well as a definite shift from the long journey of creating sculpture. When the work is complete I present them together. Each piece may stand alone and yet they are forever linked as an aspect of one another. Each is equal in importance in my process of making art. The final step is when the work moves away from me and takes on a life of its own. | |  | Craig Pratt
Native Art & Artifacts
760.329.1038 | | Siksika Tribe of Blackfoot Nation. Resident of Desert Hot Springs for 15 years. Art ranges from paint to pen & ink drawings but is dominated by Native Artifacts (Beads, feathers, leather etc.) Been doing this all my life. (Top of Page) | |  | Geoff Fennel
Gallery Quality Canvas, Paper Prints
7387 Elk Trail, Yucca Valley | | Raised in the Bighorn Mts., Wyoming, educated on a Marine Research Center in the West Indies, apprenticed as a special effects cameraman, pioneered some of the earliest uses of computer graphics at Cal Arts (Disney experimental film school) where he taught the 1st 3D Graphics Lab, worked in L.A. for 20 yrs as a Visual Effects Director/Animator , Geoffrey has brought his knowledge of visual techniques and his love of the natural world back to his heart when he moved here 5 years ago. These images represent Geoffrey as who he is today. High Desert Love was written in December of 2003 for his family, using his latest works of art that he has created in the last two years. These images were created using an artistic language he has been developing for the last 20 years. It’s foundation is based on palette knife painting and the manipulation of the image to bring out it’s central essence by de-constructing it and then rebuilding it with a painters mind. Geoff has created his own techniques and style that helps him to express his new-found relationship with the high desert environment. In 2002 he help create the High Desert Living Arts Center and his art work has been on display in their gallery since its grand opening. Geoffrey lives deep in the mountains near Yucca Valley (Ca.) area and is continuously working on new writings, films & artworks using music, water, stone, wood, glass, leather, paint, thread, feathers, earth, silicon, native plants, animals, video, time-lapse cinematography, photography or whatever else he finds in his travels around the South west. | |  | Wanda Stadum
Jewelery, Etch Glass
7387 Elk Trail, Yucca Valley
760.365.0044 | | Wanda Stadums background in artistic pursuits have spanned over 40 years using many various mediums for her palette. This year she will be featuring her custom hand made wearable art using natural stones and silver. Also showing in her Old Town studio, Signs & Designs by Wanda in Yucca Valley, will be large photos of her custom "etched look" and sand-blasted glass pieces commissioned by million dollar homes, churches and businesses throughout the Hi-Desert and Coachella Valley. | |  | MazAmar
Clay, Glaze
5838 Hwy 62, Yucca Valley
www.MazAmar.com | | Thomas and Amara Alban are full-time clay artists in Old town Yucca Valley. Inspired by the beautiful high desert environment, as well as the creative exchange intrinsic to the area, they create functional art pottery as well as expressive sculpture and panels. (Top of Page) | |  | Brian Baltzer
Mixed Media Collage, 2D & 3D
760.228.3078 | | Semi-abstract, my collage work is textural and colorful. Some of the finely executed details draw you to look closer at the art work and then move away to look at the whole. I am fascinated with found objects, especially the objects that are no longer used for their created intent or original design. I incorporate them into my art piece. I try to allow the found objects to be lost and incorporated into the whole, losing some of their identity even more. I consider unity or harmony throughput my artwork. Does my work give the viewer a since of rest, peace or chaos? I find liberty in a thoughtful self-restraint, carefully considering my choice of colors, materials and form, giving them some thought to detail. I consider tension that is created between geometric and organic forms. In the process of working I understand that which I have been given control over that which I have in Gods’ hands, therefore giving me liberty to do that which I can do for the enjoyment of others. | |  | Susan Gonzalez
Ceramics, Gourd Art
760.899.7779 | | I was born in Los Angeles in 1943 and attended LA schools. I graduated from the USC School of Art and Architecture with a major in Ceramics in 1974. During my college years I spent summers at Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts as a ceramics assistant, and was able to work with many nationally acclaimed artists. My art has always been influenced by my love of horses. I have raised, trained and shown American Quarter Horses for 40 years. My art was often sidelined by the needs of th3 animals in my life. I returned to school in 1982 to pursue an Associate of Science in Commercial Flight. I completed with my team in Intercollegiate Flying Association competitions where we won many national awards. I completed my commercial pilot and instrument ratings in 1987. My art often includes many different materials-wood, clay, gourds, beads, and found objects. I see the possibilities in many things, and I refer to my creativity as a river on the move, not knowing what inspiration awaits around the next bend or has been cast upon the shore. | |  | Bonnie Brady
Acrylics, Handmade Paper
760.899.7779 | | I work in acrylics and often add my own handmade papers to my paintings. The combination of paint and paper makes for rich textures and unexpected patterns. I also use other collage materials and like to incorporate print media in foreign languages into my work. Exploring color has been the focus of my painting at College of the Desert for the past two years. A native Californian, I received my BA in Biology from USC in 1963, and Certificate in Occupational Therapy in 1975. (Top of Page) | |  | Rhonda Duval
Giclee, Acrylic Painting
760.365.5047 | | I am here therefore I paint, or write and rhyme… Oh its so sublime. | |  | Shirley James
Colored Pencil, Woodburning
760.365.6769 | | I use multiple mediums colored pencils and wood burning. I work with leather and with acrylics quite often combining them into landscapes and portraits. Colored pencils, plain and watercolor, combine into rich paintings of color and detail. Wood burning is a natural extension of my carved leather and drawing. I love the detail and the color that I can accomplish. I want to share my excitement and my reverence for the wonders of the Mojave Desert and the magnificent variety of California. | |  | Andy Weddington
Oil & Watercolor
www.WeddingtonGallery.com | | I have always found it more interesting to look at paintings if knowing only a bit about the artists’ thoughts behind their approach to painting or something that speaks as to why something was painted. I would require a book to address just those two variables. For me there is no recipe or standard approach for painting. Each subject requires the painter to see, select, compose, omit, add, rearrange, and simplify all in hopes of capturing the essence of the subject and creating a painting that is interesting. Light, Shadow, angles, and color all come together in a moment of time that captures the painter’s eye. The painter’s task each and every time is to see with fresh eyes and think and create as he works. There is no point in trying to paint every dingle nuance of detail—that’s why cameras and film (and now “0’s” & “1’s”) are for. The painter simplifies—painting only what is necessary and allows the brain to fill in the detail. The paintings in this open house have been hung in no particular order. A still life may hang next to a landscape or an oil next to a gouche (opaque watercolor) in order to reinforce the fact that I follow no recipe when painting. And, to also demonstrate that I do not restrict myself to a particular subject matter—as a painter must be able to paint anything less he becomes a mannerist. I simply paint what interests me as a challenge and do whatever necessary to capture, as close a s possible, what I’m seeing. I have no interest in creating slick, polished studio works of nostalgic scenes—of any sort. It is those sights all around us—every day—which the average person never notices that appeal to me. Sunlight falling across objects small sections of the landscape, the way shapes come together, and the hustle and bustle of life are just a few examples of things that require the makes for truth in painting. This approach is commonly referred to as “plein air”. There’s no time for polish when working “plein air”—it’s the rough immediacy of brush and paint that gives the paintings their appeal. America has a rich history of plein air painters… in regions throughout the country… especially in California—from north to south and coast to desert—and it continues today… (Top of Page) | |  | Esther Shaw
Oil on Canvas, Mixed Media
www.EsthersArt.8k.com | | Esther Shaw’s paintings are mostly from a particular site in the Mojave Desert, a place called Covington Flats. It contains many acres of desert land within the Joshua Tree National Park. On these grounds there had been a fire which burned hundreds of Joshua trees many years ago. Today, the trees lie on the desert floor looking strangely figurative. Shaw has been painting trees for many years including the Washingtonia Palm, the sequoia semperviren and the aspen. The installations have been a more recent art application for Shaw. In 2002, she did an installation called “In the News”, a work in tribute to the journalists, who were killed following 9/11. Recently, she did an installation “Enlighten”, which she confronted the subject of autism in hopes of enlightening the general public about how the child with autism senses the world about him sand some of the issues of the parents facing the subject. | |  | Mark Junge
Acrylic Painting, Prints
www.SouthwestSpaces.com | | Using transparent layers of acrylic glazes, Mark continues the tradition of the 19th century American Hudson River School painters -- a group who believed landscape painting was one of the highest expressions of one’s love for nature and God. These artists depicted the natural world with a spiritual presence—a world to be held in awe and reverence. After Mark signs the pieces, he adds the initials “AMDG” for the Latin Ad Majorem. | |  | Steven L. Rieman
Sculpture & Painting
www.RiemanSculpture.com | | Since 1979 sculptor Steven L. Rieman has lived and operated his studio in Yucca Valley, California. His work asks questions about the balance between advancing technology and the preservation of the natural environment. Many of his works are kinetic, activated by the wind. Rieman is a graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. | |  | Tina Bluefield
Oil, Watercolor
760.464.8444 | | After many years living in Colorado mountains, I now find myself in the high desert of the Mojave. I have traded long winters for long summers; I have traded steep slopes, snow and endless lodge pole pine forests for vast desert valleys, warm sand and endless creosote… When I first moved to Colorado in the late 1970’s I painted watercolors of barns and farms with the mountains rising in the distance. Then I made long excursions into northern Arizona and New Mexico and painted their red rock sentinels and their pueblos lying under deep blue skies. Most recently I have been painting large oil (4 feet by 4 feet) color-fields, sometimes with suggestions of human figures or animals. And now I am painting what I see around me in this magical desert. Painting is my way of communicating my fascination with the mystery and complexity of our planet and of the inner worlds of the human psyche from my point of consciousness in our great Universe. (Top of Page) | | |
