Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery loves to celebrate Sonoma County's two annual OPEN STUDIOS celebrations, Art @ the Source and Art Trails.

One of Sonoma County's greatest treasures is its wonderful community of working artists. Open Studios allow the public to visit artists in their studios, speak with them about their creative process, and see where the magic happens. Please, make a plan now. Get an Art @ the Source Catalog, study the map, make a plan, and we'll see you there! You may download a pdf of the catalog at ArtAtTheSource.org.

The Sebastopol Center for the Arts is hosting its annual Art @ the Source exhibition, with one piece of art from each participating artist. The idea is that while visiting the exhibition (and reviewiing the catalog), you determine which artists intrigue you most. Then, you make plans to visit the artist studios which interest you most.

Below are photos of some of the works now on view at the Sebastopol Center for the arts. Each photo has a link to the artist's website. The captions of each photo include the studio number where they are listed in the Art @ the Source Catalog, including on the map.

Linda Sorensen is hosting her Art @ the Source Open Studio at Atelier One in Graton. She's teamed along with 8 other artists under the slogan "Graton - 9 Artists in 1 Cool Town." 7 of these studios are in the historic red brick Atelier building, 2 are nearby, as is Graton Gallery.

John Hilton, Robert Rishell, Ralph Love and Milford Zornes all had illustrious careers. They were, among many other things, preeminentpainters of the California Desert. They possessed a knowledge of the desert's distinctive flora and fauna, a respect for its awesome immensity. They shared a familiarity and deep respect for the native people of the desert, their customs, lore and history.

At the time of this 1964 exhibition, the Palm Springs region was far different than it is today. Back then the region had a population of only about 11,000. Today, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and Indian Wells and surrounding regions number close to half a million people. Much of the surrounding desert is now covered with sprawling luxury resorts with golf courses, wide boulevards, and square miles of desert mansions.

In 1964 and earlier, Hilton, Rishell, Love and Zornes could reach the real desert with just a quick jeep or horseback ride. For these artists, the desert itself was the attraction -- the only attraction. The Mojave's seemingly endless vistas, its tenacious wild beauty combined with its colorful history, culture and tall tale stories all called these artists to the California desert.

John W. Hilton had an amazing life. He humbly described his painting skills as self-taught, but that's not exactly true. In the Great Depression years, John had fled Los Angeles and his career as a jewelry designer for Hollywood stars, escaping to the desert. He opened a gem shop across from Valerie Jean's Date Shop in Thermal, California. His daughter Kathi Hilton loved to tell the story of how John's landlord Russell Nicoll rented John some roadside retail space with the agreement that John could sell whatever he wanted so long as he did not compete with Russell's specialty, date shakes. John agreed, and filled his shop with gems, desert related items and his early paintings.

One day in the early 1930's a visitor dropped in. He was James Swinnerton, no ordinary tourist visitor. He was an artist who trained in San Francisco, was a member of Northern California's Bohemian Club, a pioneering cartoonist in San Francisco and New York for William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, and Dean of the California Desert Painters (also known as The Smoketree School).

Jimmy saw promise in John's paintings and the two quickly began a friendship that lasted a lifetime. Soon, the backroom of John's gem shop became an intensive private art school with John Hilton as its only student. There John received instruction and tips from Swinnerton, and in short order, Swinnerton's good friends including Maynard Dixon, Clyde Forsythe and others. As John became more accomplished, he even studied with the great Nicolai Fechin, a famous Russian portraitist who escaped the Russian Revolution and who came to Sante Fe / Taos and Southern California, fascinated by native cultures and painting portraits of native people.

In time, Hilton knew all the California Desert Painters, and with his out-sized personality, became a center of their activities. His art education from his artist friends and collaborators would be the envy of any well reputed art school. He also was a close friend of a long list of non-painter notables such as LA Times editor Ed Ainsworth, General George Patton whom Hilton befriended early in World War II, industrialist Howard Hughes, actor/neighbor/painting partner, James Cagney, and even President Dwight. D. Eisernhower who was a hobbyist painter while president (while in Palm Springs for golfing trips, he would sneak past his security detail to steal some painting time with Hilton). In January 1957, Hilton traveled to Washington to give a painting commemorating Eisenhower's second inaugural.

Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery began acquiring John W. Hilton paintings about 15 years ago. Along with his daughter, Kathi Hilton, we helped arrange for exhibitions of her father's paintings with the Historical Society of Palm Desert. Our web page for John W. Hilton includes the Hilton paintings we currently offer, his biography and links to all the newsletter articles we have published about John Hilton over the years.

Artist Robert Rishell was a Bay Area artist who loved to paint in the desert. He had several exhibitions at the Desert Southwest Art Gallery, and painted in the Palm Springs area many times in the early 1960's. On our Robert Rishell page,we have a link to a radio interview done for KGO radio in 1969 by Bob Avery conducted in the Desert Southwest Art Gallery during one of Robert Rishell's solo exhibitions.

In Robert's own words, he explained why he uses a high degree of contrast in his paintings, "You need dark to show light." During his visits to the California Desert, his daughter Lynn Rishell Spickard recalls the fun she had playing in John W. Hilton's Olympic sized thermally heated swimming pool. Rishell and Hilton discussed their common interests in painting and Hilton advised Rishell about painting locales.

Back in the Bay Area, Robert Rishell was instrumental in helping establisc the Oakland Museum. He often was a juror for many local art exhibitions and competitions, and he was a member of San Francisco's Bohemian Club. He especially enjoyed the Bohemian Club camp outs among the Monte Rio redwoods along the Russian River. Lynn Rishell Spickard recalls how her father enjoyed the company of his annual tent mates, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and novelist Herman Wouk.

In 1974, Robert received a high honor. He was requested to paint the official portrait of California Governor Ronald Reagan. The portrait was done outside Sacramento's Capitol building with Ronald Reagan's back to the sun. With the governor backlit given Rishell's skill at contrasting light and shadow, the portrait is quite stunning. It hangs in the stairwell of the Capitol building along with the official portraits of all of California's governors.

Ralph Love was mostly a self-taught artist, but did train for a brief period with Sam Hyde Harris. He is best known for his paintings of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. The center of Ralph's creative world was his Art Shack in Temecula, CA. There, Ralph would listen to classical music, and sometimes would put down his paint brush and pick up his violin, awaiting the next wave of creative inspiration to roll in.

Ralph's work had quite a following. His paintings were reprinted in Arizona Highways Magazine, and his paintings were collected by Senator Barry Goldwater and author Erle Stanley Gardner. Goldwater said of Love's paintings, "He is the finest living American artist I know, and I could look at his work all day long."

Ralph's daughter Lee Youngman is the owner of the Lee Youngman Gallery in Calistoga (Napa County, California). She has been a good friend of Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery. Her gallery offers a selection of Ralph Love's paintings along with paintings by Lee's husband, Paul Youngman (among others).

Milford Zornes was a life-long artist, and he had a long life. He died in 2008, a month after his 100th birthday party at the Pasadena Museum of Art where he told many of his former students, friends and fans about his plans for his next projects. In the 1920's he studied at the Otis Art Institute and Scripps College, most notably with Millard Sheets.

By the 1930's, Milford was receiving awards for his "WPA" watercolors. He was given a one man show at Washington D.C.'s Corcoran Gallery. One of his paintings was chosen by Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt to hang in the White House. In WW II, Milford was drafted and became an artist for the military in China, India and Burma.

After the war, he established his home studio in Claremont, California, spending his time painting and teaching. He took his classroom on the road. With an entourage of students, Milford painted and taught in many exotic travel destinations as well as relatively closer locales in the American West. In 1963, Milford purchased the former home and studio of Maynard Dixon in Mount Carmel, Utah to use as a location for regular watercolor workshops.

Milford Zornes’ paintings are easily identifiable. Peering across any museum collection, Zornes' paintings almost jump off the wall with their familiar broad brush strokes and his use of unpainted areas of white to help define forms.

His works are displayed in many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Laguna Museum of Art, and they were shown at Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. until its closing in 2014. His works are also included in the collection of the Hilbert Museum in Orange, California, a museum founded and dedicated to California Scene Painting.

Milford Zornes' daughter Maria and her husband Hal live in Sacramento and have been good friends of our gallery. They were key to curating a remarkable exhibition of Milford Zornes paintings at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, California in 2013.

GALLERY NOTES:

SEE ARTICLE AT TOP OF NEWSLETTER. Linda Sorensen will participate in Art @ the Source 2022 with 6 other artists at Atelier One, 2860 Bowen Street, Graton. Two other Graton studios will be open nearby. Linda has been busy creating new work and will be there to welcome you. The dates are June 4-5 and June 11-12, 10am to 5pm. The main preview exhibit is at Sebastopol Center for the Arts from May 22 to June 12. Also at Corrick's in Santa Rosa and Gallery One in Petaluma. If you don't receive the catalog in the mail you can request one or find them at visitors centers, etc., or check it out online at ArtAtTheSource.org

During AATS in June, The small Linda Sorensen paintings that would usually be in her shop on etsy.com, will instead be available in person at her studio. Her shop focuses on giftable small original paintings, and a few giclee prints on canvas of some of her favorite larger paintings. The two pictured here are among her 6" by 6" "mini"s, framed as shown on the Etsy site. Etsy's platform provides an easy-purchase, fast-shipping option as an alternative to contacting Linda or our fine art gallery (which are of course equally welcome).
Link: Linda's Etsy Shop

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

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