Plein Air

Exhibition: Beyond the Border, a Collaboration of Art Communities (San Diego/Tijuana) en Plein Air
Featuring artwork from “Paint outs: in the local regional landscape: January – May 2024
Exhibition date: June 6th – June 24th, 2024
Jurors:  Mr. Jean Stern, Director Emeritus of the Irvine Museum, Art Historian, Author, Curator, Lecturer and Teacher.
Wendy Wilson-Gibson, Executive Director of Bonita Museum & Cultural Center

Prospectus to enter

Reception:  Saturday, June 8th, 2024, 2:30-4:30 pm
Location: Bonita Museum and Cultural Center | 4355 Bonita Road | Bonita, California 91902 | 619.267.5141

Thank you to “Paint out” community organizers:

California Art Club (CAC), San Diego Chapter,  Exhibition Coordinator –Joyce Trinh

Dessert Plein Air Association Dianne Moore

OMA Artist Alliance Dana Edwards

Salmagundi Club Gracie Schlesier

SDPAPMG (San Diego Plein Air Painter Meetup Group) Julie Bradbury-Bennett

SDWS (San Diego Watercolor Society) -Drew Bandish , Jenny Rivera

Temecula Art League – Susan De Armond

Tuesday’s North County plein air group-Lorraine Cote

San Diego Urban Sketchers – Katheryn Peterson

Coronado Art Community

Fallbrook Art Community

 

Past Plein Air exhibitions:

 

Lumière de California: California Art Club

Exhibition dates: May 21 – June 24, 2022
Reception: Sat. May 21 – 4:30 -to 7:00pm

• Wednesday May 18 at 9am meet at the museum for a “Bonita Paint-Out” with host artist Mehl Lawson.   Paintings from the paint-out will be displayed in the “Wet Gallery” during the Lumière de California exhibition.
• Saturday May 28
  9:30 – 12noon Demonstration by Calvin Liang, please rsvp here
  1:00 – 2:00pm Demonstration by Lisa Capano, Painting Restoration
• Friday June 3
  11:00am – 12:30noon History Comes to Life with 1915 painters Alice Klauber and Robert Henri.  rsvp here

About the exhibition

Lumière de California celebrates the unique light of California as expressed through plein air painting.  Forty-three artworks in the exhibition feature the essence of morning light, afternoon sun, as well as twilight.  Sky, water and mountains interact to express the beauty of California.

Artists in the exhibition include Brian Belfield, Scottie Brown, Tonya Burdine, Gloria Chadwick, Rick Delanty, Mark Fehlman, Roger Gordon, Laurie Hendricks, Carolyn Hesse-Low (artwork “Skies over Hwys” featured above), Michael Hill, Debra Holliday, Debra Huse, Rose Irelan, Chuck Kovacic, Lester Machado, Rich Magram, Brad Neal, Jon Olson, Kathryn Peterson, Robin Purcell, Daniel Raminfard, Jeff Remmer, Jeannine Savedra, Lisa Skelly, Joyce Trinh, Sharon Weaver, Jeff Yeomans

Link to gallery of artworks in the exhibition: https://www.californiaartclub.org/exhibition/lumiere-de-california/

The Bonita Museum & Cultural Center (BMCC) is located in South Bay San Diego along the Sweetwater River. From the mountains to the bay, the Sweetwater valley has been an ideal historic location for plein air painting.  Plein air painter Alfred Mitchell started the Chula Vista Art Guild seventy six years ago to document the flora and fauna of South Bay San Diego.

 

“Sunstrokes” Sharon Weaver

 

About the California Art Club:

Founded in 1909, The Painters’ Club of Los Angeles disbanded in mid-December of 1909 after its members felt it had outgrown its usefulness. After this, Los Angeles Times art critic Antony Anderson revealed that a small group of artists who had belonged to the former association had regrouped to form the California Art Club. They believed there was a need for artists living in Southern California to meet and share their ideas, and to exhibit together. Frank Rennsselear Liddell, a businessman and part-time painter, was elected as its first president, and Charles Percy Austin was named as corresponding secretary. As one of the oldest, largest and most active art organizations in the country, the California Art Club is committed to keeping the traditional arts and its time-honored skills alive, for more information see their website.

Jurors for the exhibition:

Janet Klauber, art collector and historian, is the grand niece of early plein air painter ALICE ELLEN KLAUBER (1871-1951). Janet carries on the legacy of support for plein air painters as well as documenting early San Diego history. Both professional and personal pursuits find third generation San Diegan Janet Klauber applying her family’s early San Diego civic and artistic passions to current settings.
After completing Anthropology undergraduate work at Yale University, Janet carried out archeological work at Kitchen Creek along what is now the Kumeyaay Highway. During Janet’s Chicago residence she implemented full spectrum Arts-Education programming from drawing and painting instruction to dance, theater and video production within public and private schools. Janet’s return to San Diego allowed her to be part of the Timken Museum of Art’s staff, followed by her organizing the San Diego History Center’s (SDHC) 2014 MASTERWORKS OF THE EXPOSITION ERA exhibit. Janet and the SDHC team were able to reunite many of the plein air and other innovative works first seen together during the 1915 Panama California Art Exhibit organized by Janet’s great aunt Alice Klauber (1871-1951). Most recently Janet coordinated the San Diego Collectors Group’s (SDCG) quarterly visits to eminent regional private art holdings and/or Curator-led Museum exhibit walk throughs.

Anne Porter, Chair of the Arts, Culture & Design committee with Diego Port Authority. Anne was born and raised in San Diego. Her grandfather, E. A. Brelin, acquired Maurice Braun’s studio and home at the end of the artist’s life, so Anne was fortunate enough to see masterful California plein air paintings from an early age. Plein air paintings, and California light, created a context for how she would look at art for the rest of her life.  Ms. Porter received an art history degree from the University of Nevada, Reno. She is the co-founder of the Imperial Beach Arts Bureau and finds Tijuana and our culturally diverse Border region of special interest.