Besides the expansive ocean and beach scenery, the large state of California has an abundance of art hubs, events, museums and artists living among the beautiful weather and laid-back atmosphere. From the metropolises of Los Angeles, Palm Springs and San Francisco, to the natural beauty of places like Sequoia National Forest, Yosemite National Park and Joshua Tree National Forest, there’s a richness that attracts artists and art lovers alike. 
View toward Malibu. Courtesy Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.
Having established itself as a cultural hot spot, Los Angeles alone contains an exhaustive list of events, museums and shows. The popular LA Art Show returns with its international contemporary art experience from July 29 to August 1, showcasing work from over 120 galleries from 20 plus countries. Hosted in the LA Convention Center, visitors will see a multitude of media from painting, sculpture and photography, to installation, performance and fashion. For those who wish to further engage, there will be plans for a premier party that will be announced in June. 
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Courtesy San Francisco Travel Association.
Los Angeles is also home to some renowned museums such as the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, containing approximately 7,000 objects of contemporary art created after 1940 in all media. While the museum is currently closed, upcoming exhibitions include Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor, a collection of over 30 years of video installations exploring the relationship to the body.
Heading north to San Francisco, the art scene and cultural happenings are also in abundance. The cityscape alone with its unique architecture, cable cars and large, hilly streets is enough to inspire anyone. The annual Art Market San Francisco takes place at Fort Mason Center and presents a wide selection of contemporary and modern artworks. Complete updates for the tentative 2021 show are available through the event website. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is also worth a visit for exhibitions like Close to Home: Creativity in Crisis, showcasing the work of seven Bay Area artists exploring the impacts of COVID-19. 
Arts district street art. Courtesy Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.
In addition to the many galleries, museums and events, San Francisco also has amazing public art. In honor of Golden State Park’s 150th anniversary, there will be an enthralling sculptural light installation called Entwined, by artist Charles Gadeken. Through the end of February (with a possible extension into June), the public can view the whimsy of lit-up, abstract forms in Peacock Meadow, next to the Conservatory of Flowers. 
Cable car in San Francisco. Courtesy San Francisco Travel Association.
In the Southern part of the state, the popular Arts District Liberty Station of San Diego, near the Mexico and California border, shares quite a diverse art experience. The area is rife with creativity including dance performances, galleries, restaurants, artist studios and a virtual First Friday Art Walk. There are a plethora of events and art engaging opportunity all in one venue.
Just north of San Diego is the city of Escondido, home to another arts center known as the California Center for the Arts. Their unique campus contains a concert hall, theater, art museum, art and dance studios and conference center. In addition, they offer free community events and educational programs. The Center also will partner with Oil Painters of America to hosting its 30th National Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils.
For more creative adventures, check out California artists such as Cathryne Trachok, James C. Leonard and Shawn Gould, and stop in SHOH Gallery in Berkeley to see their latest collections and get information on upcoming shows.
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Arts District Liberty Station
2690 Historic Decatur Road #209
San Diego, CA 92106, (619) 548-2137
info@ntcfoundation.org
www.artsdistrictlibertystation.com
A short distance from San Diego’s International Airport and downtown area, a collaboration of professional artists have established studios in Arts District Liberty Station, a beautifully repurposed 28-acre former naval training center. 
Arts District Liberty Station, Orchids of an Oahu Waterfall, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 36", by Colleen Veltz.
Along with studios for working visual artists, the Arts District is home to performance arts, community service groups, creative shops and restaurants. The work now is all about creating distinctive, inspired local art with the unmistakable influence and creative spirit of Southern California.
In the last year, many artists and art organizations expanded online capabilities for virtual touring, viewing, classes and purchasing, or moved their art outside. Veltz Fine Art is among these. Colleen Veltz, a dynamic force in the district, creates botanically inspired works often themed on gratitude and impermanence. Her gallery periodically exhibits work from top area artists. Lisa Bryson is the featured artist for April 2021.
Arts District Liberty Station, Gilded Age II: A Satirical Self Portrait, oil on linen, 72 x 48", by Lisa Bryson.
A bird’s-eye view of Arts District Liberty Station. Photograph by Malik Earnest.
During this pandemic, Bryson has taken the opportunity to develop work in response to the experience of “sheltering in place.” She continues to push figurative work into a realm between abstraction and representation, redefining the figure in the 21st century. She says that her approach to painting reconstructs the visual dialogue of the human experience. The April exhibit of selections from Homage Series will include several new paintings.
First Friday at Arts District Liberty Station is an excellent time to meet the artists, view new art and enjoy creative performances and art events.
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Cathryne Trachok
(707) 280-5895
www.cathrynetrachok.com
Artist Cathryne Trachok lives in a world where she believes everything is a possibility. A possible painting, a possible drawing, a possible inspiration, question, problem and solution. Trachok asks, “With that worldview, I am influenced by almost everything, and is inspiration far from influence?”
Cathryne Trachok, Barbarians at the Gate, oil, 18 x 24"
Color, light and form are very powerful substances, and Trachok is constantly absorbing them—influenced and inspired by them. “A flower is overloaded with all three and are fascinating to look at and a challenge to paint,” says Trachok. People are overflowing with color, light and form on the outside, and lit up by them from the inside, which makes painting figures like painting a novel. Animals are just quieter versions of people, with the added bonus of fur, fangs and claws.” 
Cathryne Trachok, Preaching to the Choir, oil, 24 x 12"
Cathryne Trachok, Just for a Moment, oil, 9 x 12"
Trachok notes that water is the ultimate challenge. “It’s not only containing color, light and form,” she explains, “but moving all three around within its spaces, constantly changing, daring the artist to catch them all.”
The most powerful of substances for Trachok is the outside perspective of family, friends, collectors and mentors. “I am blessed with those people. Life and art are good places to be.”
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James C. Leonard
jamescleonard@comcast.net
www.jamescleonard.com
Artist James C. Leonard is one of California’s leading abstract expressionist painters. Working with an extended palette knife and acrylics on canvas, he creates bold horizontal and vertical strokes in strong colors in order to trigger the viewer’s emotions. This basic movement is complicated by the inventive layering of dropped, speckled and fragmented colors that create a sense of additional depth.
“My paintings are the attempt to integrate my profound respect for individuality with the process of making art,” Leonard explains. “I work with in an introspective, intuitive fashion and strive to bring a personal sensibility to the work.”
James C. Leonard, Wisteria Outside my Window, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 72"
Leonard believes that imposing his will on the work does not allow it to tell him how and where it wants to go. Standing back and entering into a relationship with the work, based on respect and trust, allows for this inner dialogue to take place. "I try to determine a specific outcome or predetermined idea," Leonard says, "but through dialogue, allowing for the emergence of the individuality of each painting. This is the only way I can create art. The personal aspects affect the relationship with the work."
Leonard’s paintings have ambient landscape qualities and can have 30 or 40 layers in one painting. His final touch employs a technique called sgraffito, meaning scraping lines through the upper layers so the colors of the ground layers show through. The German painter Gerhard Richter has influenced his style, approach and directness.
James C. Leonard, Spirit and Nature, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72"
“The aspect of layers is one that surfaces time and time again,” says Leonard. “Layering creates both a sense of personal emotional, physical and spiritual history. Each layer reflects its own statement, compounded by the subsequent layer that adds to the visual story. Together a collective passage of time and place emerge to represent a collective idea that can only emerge from the viewer.”
Years ago, Leonard came across a statement by Mahatma Gandhi that has become a keystone for the meditation of his work: “All true art must help the soul to realize its inner self…True art must be evidence of the happiness, contentment and purity of its authors.”
Together, a collective passage of time and place emerge to represent a collective idea that can only surface from the viewer.
Leonard’s work was recently collected by Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and from November 5 to 29, 2020, he exhibited with The White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York, as part of a group show.
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Shawn Gould
Eureka, CA, (707) 476-8197
shawn@shawngould.com
www.shawngould.com
Art and nature have always been important parts of Shawn Gould’s life. Growing up, he spent many days outdoors exploring the streams and woodlands near his home. These formative experiences first established his deep love of nature and his unending curiosity to see more. 
Shawn Gould, Wrapped in Light and Lace, acrylic on hardboard, 24 x 30"
“Inspiration for my paintings comes from the world around me,” Gould says. “A flash of color or spark of light catches my eye and draws me in. An idea is born and reality gets transformed into art through my imagination.”
Along the way, Gould learned to follow the path less traveled, a path that he continues to explore today. His paintings are a blend of photorealism and tonalism with areas of precise detail giving way to softer edges and muted tones. Nature provides a constant stream of new inspiration with its ever-changing conditions of seasons, weather and light. Gould’s goal is to capture the fleeting moments when all of these elements come together, and to change an ordinary scene into something special. Drawing inspiration from these personal experiences also brings an authentic realism to his work. 
Shawn Gould, Balancing Act, acrylic on hardboard, 30 x 20"
Shawn Gould, Gambel’s Flush, acrylic on hardboard, 20 x 30"
Gould began his art career as an illustrator, creating award winning science and natural history illustrations for clients like the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Institute and National Audubon Society. His paintings have been exhibited in the Buffalo Bill Art Show, Birds in Art, the Society of Animal Artists’ Art and the Animal, as well as at galleries and museums across the nation. Gould has received numerous awards for his artwork and he is also a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists.
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SHOH Gallery
700 Gilman Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 504-9988, shoharts@hotmail.com
www.shohgallery.com
SHOH Gallery developed out of a love for the myriad of fresh and exciting voices present in the contemporary arts of the San Francisco Bay Area. Talented, diverse and inspiring, the artists that they feature range from newcomers to established museum-caliber artists.
SHOH Gallery, Dream Keeper, oil on panel, 12 x 12", by Nadezda
SHOH Gallery, Sewing Night, oil on canvas, 48 x 36", by NadezdaThe February show for the gallery features the surreal and dreamlike works of Nadezda. She and her horde of characters and creatures will be filling the entire gallery in all their forms; sculptures and graphite drawings, as well as oil paintings on canvas and on panel. Nadezda’s artwork focuses on narratives carefully mined from the surreal chambers of her imagination and transformed into dreamscapes.
With the show on view, a visit to SHOH Gallery this February is to visit a wonderland of the imagination!
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California Center for the Arts, Escondido
340 N. Escondido Boulevard Escondido, CA 92025
(760) 839-4177
www.artcenter.org/museum
The museum at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, hosts four to six exhibitions per year. The museum seeks to provide North County San Diego with access to relevant, thought-provoking and wide-ranging exhibitions that highlight the contemporary artworks and artists of the California region.
Exterior view of the California Center for the Arts campus.
The museum is partnering with Oil Painters of America to host the group’s 30th annual National Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils, from April 9 to May 16. The exhibition will highlight paintings that show the highest quality in draftsmanship, emphasizing a diversity in representational style and subject matter. 
California Center for the Arts, Escondido, Remembrance, oil on oil paper panel, 24 x 18", by Jeffrey R. Watts
Dedicated to preserving and promoting excellence in representational art, Oil Painters of America’s primary mission is to advance the cause of traditional, representational fine art by drawing attention to the lasting value of fine drawing, color, composition and the appreciation of light.
Every piece in the exhibition will be for sale, a portion of which will help benefit the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. —
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