Artists
– from painters to musicians to sculptors – abound in the
tri-city area
Wandering through Gilroy resident Richard Starks’ workroom is like taking a hike around his cerebral cortex.
In one corner sits a box, overloaded with obtuse pyramids, misshapen trapezoids and other roughly-drawn, three-dimensional steel shapes waiting to be discarded or pieced together.
Covering a wall are photos of bleeding fingers and swollen toes, scrawled over with instructive messages such as, “Always cut away from yourself – Nov. ’04.”
Metal pelicans in various stages of completion nest on a nearby workbench. One stands proudly on its newly welded feet; another teeters on its belly, leaning its unfinished head against a block of wood; a third lies on its side, its wings an arm’s length away.
In the middle of the chaos sprouts a finished piece of art – a gleaming pillar, twisting up toward the ceiling. The steel surface is covered with a light scalloped pattern where Starks has worked it over with numerous types of sandpaper. The edges are smooth, as if the strips of metal that had been muscled and melted together were merely bent from the same sheet.
“I want to make it look like it’s easy, but it’s not,” he said.
The now-retired Starks, who grew up in Watsonville and taught shop class at schools in east San Jose, has all the trappings of a no-nonsense teacher. To match his flattop buzzcut and blackened, calloused hands, his approach to art is methodical and precise.
Each day he wakes up at 3am and drives to a gym in San Jose. In the parking lot, the first signs of dawn showing, he spends half an hour sketching shapes, working out the engineering aspects of his sculptures or devising ways to remodel his 1930 Ford Model A pickup. After a thorough weight-lifting session – Starks designed and built exercise equipment on the side during his teaching years – he comes home to put his ideas into action.
The result is metal sculptures ranging from a few feet to more than a dozen feet tall, with a variety of finishes, from translucent candy green to a natural rust look. While much of Starks’ work is no more than a stylized s-shape or a few blocks put together, it is done with an exactitude that reflects his education in both art and industrial studies.
“I get satisfaction out of the design part and also doing it myself,” Starks said. “When I get going on something, I don’t want to stop. It’s like the old scientist – slip the food under the door and leave me alone.”
Incorporating the occasional nautical or outdoor theme, these arduous works of sculpture, like so much of the art in the South Valley, are not only reflections of the artist but also of the world in which they grew up.
Organic Art
Don Jensen, a Morgan Hill landscape architect who describes his art as wood alchemy, is similarly inspired by the area around him.
“The image,” Jensen said about a silhouetted tree he inlayed on a 2-foot by 4-foot wooden quilt he made several years ago, “talks about our agricultural past here in the valley – how it was related to fruit trees or nut trees.”
The importance of the area that has served as his home for more than 20 years is reflected not only through motifs such as trees and surfboards, but through his choice of materials. Rather than purchasing pre-cut wood, Jensen uses local resources to produce his work.
“I challenge people to bring me the most gnarly trash they can find and I’ll turn it into something special,” he said.
To start a piece of woodwork, Jensen must haul found wood to his downtown home and leave it to dry one year for every inch of thickness. Then, provided it has not cracked or rotted, he can saw it into boards and begin to carve it into a desired shape.
The advantage is that his finished pieces have intrinsic value to community members. This is the case with his 2006 Morgan Hill centennial project, in which he cut off a slice of a stump of a felled valley oak at the intersection of East Dunne Avenue and the railroad tracks. He sanded the disc, finished it and traced significant events in the valley’s history on its rings using pins.
“As a landscape architect, I make exterior rooms – I bring the inside out,” Jensen said. “With my woodwork, I do just the opposite – I bring the outside in.”
With the tri-city area full of artists, he is not alone in his efforts.
Fellow Morgan Hill resident Marie-Christine Briot-Connolly, whose painting of downtown was selected for the centennial poster, spends much of her time painting large canvasses with pastoral scenes from nearby refuges such as Henry W. Coe State Park and the coast along Highway 1.
“I love the sensuality of the golden hills,” said Briot-Connolly, a commissioner for the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center. “I like to convey the wind, the bright light.”
Accordingly, the French-born oil painter uses thick applications of paint to describe movement and bright hues to convey abundant sunshine. Shadows are downplayed as plant life and clouds are the focus.
Deep Roots
Hollister resident and oil-painter Kathleen Sheridan, while still focused on her surroundings, finds different inspirations and ways to express it.
It is the “little places that people don’t notice” that enthuse her, she said.
Just last month, Sheridan, who has long promoted arts in the area and currently serves as the secretary on the San Benito County Arts Council, was out walking with her camera when, in a Hollister backyard, she saw a faded red shed with a ladder propped up against it. Nearby lay a hot pink basket, a pile of bright green Astroturf, yellow gloves and a hula-hoop.
This “detritus of life propped up against this wall” intrigued her and prompted an attempt at a painting, she said. Scenes like these are typical inspiration for the photo-realistic works she produces.
Unlike Briot-Connolly’s summery paintings of landscapes, Sheridan’s pieces explore contrasts of light and the artifacts of human existence. As a result, she does much of her work in the fall and at sunset, when the air is crisp, the sun casts heavy shadows and the neutral colors lull the viewer into believing time has stopped.
Visual arts are not the only artistic forms in the tri-city area that tap into the region’s history. Music has long been a conduit of history, with the blues acting as, among other things, an organic means of storytelling.
No one in Gilroy knows this better than native John Garcia, who in his 30 plus years of singing and playing guitar has shared concert stages with music legends such as B. B. King, Box Car Willie, Bo Diddley and the late John Lee Hooker, a Gilroy resident of the ’70s.
“We’re kind of in the crossroads to everything,” Garcia said of Gilroy.
As a teenager in the 1960s, he would cruise up to San Francisco to see musicians play at what are now some of the most famous Bay Area venues, including The Fillmore. As he grew older and developed his skills, he started to participate in jam sessions with the likes of Harvey Mandel and Carlos Santana at the same venues.
By the 1970s, he had taken center stage, showing off his quick picking on lead guitar and his crooner-like voice as front man for a number of projects. During this time, he entertained at such places as New York’s Carnegie Hall and the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.
After years of touring, Garcia has settled back down into life in the Bay Area. While often appearing in San Francisco or San Jose, he also finds time to perform in Hollister, where he headlined at the San Benito County Fair from 1983 to 1988, in Morgan Hill, where he played at the Mushroom Mardi Gras in the ’80s, and in Gilroy, where he played at the Garlic Festival from 1979 to 1992.
“I can’t really say I ever really moved away,” he said of his hometown. “I’ve traveled on vacation, went other places, but I’ve never really moved from here. I was born and raised here. This is my roots.”
Despite the diversity of media and styles of artists in the South Valley area, they have something else in common besides the inspiration their surroundings provide.
Whether Briot-Connolly and Sheridan, who have always had to juggle their pursuit of art with their full-time occupation of being mothers, or Jensen, who is so swamped with new projects he has to add them to his “long list of things to do,” as people brimming with ideas they can agree with Starks when he says, “So many things to do and so little time.”
So You Want to Get Started in …
Music
“I think having a love or a passion for it is important – if you don’t have that, it’s not for you,” blues musician and teacher John Garcia said of playing an instrument.
Once the passion is there, acquiring the necessary skills are the next step.
Garcia recommends a variety of ways to improve musicianship, including listening to music at home, going out to see live shows and abundant practice.
“Definitely, if you want to get into this, you want to be patient for one thing,” he said. “Things don’t always come as fast as people want them to come.”
Also, “It helps to find a good teacher,” Garcia said.
To do this, he recommends choosing a teacher based both on the music the teacher plays and recommendations from students.
With all these components in place, a person’s knowledge and capabilities should grow.
As added encouragement, Garcia said, “keep an open mind. Nothing’s impossible.”
Drawing or watercolors
Do not go out and buy art supplies just yet, warned teacher Diane Wallace.
“They’re not going to find the good tools,” Wallace said of beginning artists. “Some of the best things, I’ve never seen available in stores.”
Rather, she recommends signing up for a class that provides high quality tools. Once a person attends the class, they will become accustomed to high quality art supplies and be able to purchase them on their own.
When drawing, students “need to understand the larger shapes that are underneath,” Wallace said. “Don’t let the details distract them.”
This will help with acquiring a sound sense of perspective, after which students can add details.
“Start with the biggest, simplest ideas first – you can decorate them later,” she said.
Doing so also helps students practice with the tools they are using. Knowledge of these skills is integral to creating quality art, Wallace said.
In this spirit, Wallace teaches her watercolor students how to remove paint without damaging the paper before they apply it. This prevents students from finding themselves in the situation where they have ruined something they like because they were trying to fix a mistake.
Practicing the basics is important for all artists, Wallace stressed.
“No matter what subject they’re interested in or what style they’re interested in, they have to have some basic skills to work with,” she said.
Woodworking
“Most people when they get started, they have something in mind,” said woodworker and teacher Don Jensen.
While he applauds this purpose-driven mentality, Jensen also feels it can be hurtful if a budding artist puts all his eggs into one basket.
“Don’t go for the big kahuna up front,” he said. “You’ll mess up and get disappointed and frustrated and put it down.”
Instead, Jensen advises new woodworkers find a class and a few, simple easy to use tools.
“For a beginner, just start off with some basics and that can be just a hammer and a saw,” he said. “From there, you can go with more hand tools. Gradually you’ll figure out there are power tools that can do what you want to do a little bit faster.”
To supplement classroom education, Jensen recommends woodworking and home improvement programs on television. Also, he believes that a number of magazines can offer ideas and new skills.
Still, despite all there is to learn, the basic requirements for woodworking are simple.
“If you’ve got good common sense and a passion, you’re in,” Jensen said.
Where to see their artwork
Richard Starks
At Starks’ studio in Gilroy, or online at www.richardstarks.com. Call (408) 848-4036 to make an appointment.
Don Jensen
At Jensen’s studio, 20 E. 5th St., Morgan Hill, or online at www.donjensendesigns.com. Call (408) 778-2495 to make an appointment.
Marie-Christine Briot-Connolly
At Galeria Tonantzin, 115 3rd St., San Juan Bautista. Open Friday to Sunday, 12-5pm. Call (831) 623-ARTE or visit www.galeriatonantzin.com for more information.
Kathleen Sheridan
Online at www.sallystreetstudios.com or at Winfield Gallery, on Dolores Street between Ocean and Seventh streets, Carmel. Open Monday through Saturday from 11am-5pm and Sunday 12-5pm. Call (831) 624-3369 or (800) 269-1950 or visit www.winfieldgallery.com for more information.
John Garcia
Recordings and a list of upcoming concerts are available at http://www.harmonicamasterclass.com/johngarcia.htm.
For booking information, call (408) 847-6221.
For lessons, contact Candace Fazzio at The Music Academy in Gilroy at (408) 848-1064.
