Inspiration | 10 Local Artists Inspired by Our Landscape
For me, summer means getting outside and soaking up the inspiration necessary for my work as an artist and designer. Everything comes from the landscape for me—drawing compositions, design palettes, histories that inspire my storytelling, and the purpose of reflecting and amplifying the wild beauty of the natural world in all that I create. This year, I got out to Death Valley and hiked Telescope Peak, spent time in Mammoth, made it up Mt. Dana in Tuolomne, and summited 14,000 foot Mt. Langley in the southern Sierra Nevada. I saw brilliant quartz crystals, ancient bristlecone pines, and rare bighorn sheep. My legs are sore and my heart is full.
Back in the studio, I’m sourcing artwork for a client who also loves landscapes. This is one of my joys—connecting homeowners with talented artists and giving a home the enlivening, connecting, one-of-a-kind touch of art. There are so many wonderful local artists inspired by the wild spaces we share. In celebration of them, and of getting outside, here’s a list.
Ansley West Rivers
Rivers’ photography focuses on the landscapes, watersheds and rivers of the American west where she grew up. I love their moody, ethereal, yet gritty quality, and I search them for clues that might suggest they reference places I’ve been before.
2. David Wilson
I often run into Oakland-based artist David Wilson as he’s climbing the same trail I’m hiking down in the Berkeley hills, carrying his rolls of paper, inks and pencils. He works on-site, drawing what he can capture in a single sitting, often collaging different days’ work together. I love his expressive line, and attention to the places I also love.
3. Rachelle Reichart
Temple visitors performing hand-washing purification in Asakua, Tokyo.
Also Oakland-based, Reichart’s work captures the western landscape by zooming out (creating meticulous drawings from satellite imagery) or zooming in (harvesting San Francisco Bay salt and creating wall sculptures with it.) I love the way she uses delicate materials and processes to yield bold, intense objects.
4. Maysey Craddock
Craddock is a painter who works from her own photographs of fragile landscapes. She works in gouache paint on paper bags sewn together with silk thread to emphasize the ephemeral nature of these shifting, vulnerable places. I love the intricate encompassing patterns and the surprising beauty of the bags-as-canvas.
5. Martin Machado
Born in San Jose, Machado has spent his life as much at sea as in the studio, working as a crew-member on fishing boats and international containerships. His work explores the sea voyage as a metaphor for life’s journey. I love the texture and movement of these works in person.
6. Saif Azzuz
Azzuz is a Libyan-Yukon artist who lives and works in Pacifica, but whose work reflects an indigenous connection to the land’s cycles and seasons, as well as traditions of land management, use, and honoring. I love Azzuz’s work’s vibrant, youthful perspective on a deep land-based heritage, and his insight into places I also know and love.
7. Terri Loewenthal
Loewenthal’s hot, hallucinatory photographs capture the pressure of climate change, and the imperative to preserve the wild spaces that reflect and contain our wildest selves. I love her work because it transforms the landscapes I love into ultraviolet illusions that seem both endless and impenetrable.
8. Afton Love
At her studio in New Mexico, Love’s meditative process includes painting with the minerals in her own backyard, often on surprising materials like silk. I love the pristine calm that her repetitive marks make, almost like listening to a chant or incantation.
9. Carolyn Lord
Lord works in the tradition of the early California impressionists of the 1930’s-40’s, but innovates into slightly more abstract forms. I admire her brilliant understanding of light and color.
10. Tanja Geis
Berkeley artist Tanja Geis dives and sails in the San Francisco Bay, even venturing out to California’s islands. She closely studies the local marine environment and, often working in charcoal, produces works that focus on endangered plants and animals. I love the soft intimacy of her portraits of these vulnerable yet resiliant creatures. Catch her work now at the Bolinas Museum!
Thanks for reading! For more art inspiration, take a look at our Gallery Guide. I hope your own summer provides the light, warmth, and inspiration to carry you through the rest of the year.