From the icy frozen lands of Montana’s Rocky Mountain stretch to the rolling hills of the Central Coast’s dunes, Marilyn Stankewich’s work is centered on two very distinct worlds.
Art lovers on the Central Coast will get a chance to see the Lompoc Arts Association member’s vision of these two worlds in a show that runs through Jan. 31 at the Lompoc Library’s Grossman Gallery.
“The exhibit is two things that I love in the world,” Stankewich explained. “The ocean here in California, and the Rocky Mountains in Montana, where my husband and I have a cabin.”
Stankewich said her work featuring local landscapes focuses on the dunes and coastal areas, which she fell in love with when she and her husband moved to the area nearly three decades ago. When her husband retired, the couple’s plan was to live full time in their Montana cabin, something that didn’t work out quite as they’d hoped, owing to the bitter and long winters.
“We found that it’s extremely difficult to do,” she said. “So then we decided to come to Santa Barbara because my family lived here.”
But Montana still inspires Stankewich deeply as a painter. She said that some of the beauty in Montana’s landscape has to do with the state’s higher elevation, which creates more saturated hues in its features.
“It’s so beautiful in Montana,” she said. “You come into the state and you’re at a higher altitude. The sky is so blue and clear that all of the colors of everything are just brighter and more beautiful.”
Stankewich’s Montana cabin is near Falls Creek, which is dotted with multiple waterfalls accessible within a short walk. Painting a landscape in a dynamic environment such as Montana can come with some challenges, she said.
“You have to move fast,” she said. “Because the light changes within a couple of hours. So you either have to finish it right then or try to come back the next day.”
But even in the warmer winters of Santa Barbara County, Stankewich is still homesick for the Montana life.
“It makes me so happy just to be there,” she said. “It just makes me want to paint all the time.”
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose is frozen somewhere in Santa Maria with the flu. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 11-18, 2018.