Local artist Virginia Mack and her husband, John, moved to the Central Coast in 2002, and both drew artistic inspiration from the local environment. The two would often paint Morro Bay together, whether enjoying a plein air bayside session, or getting closer to the water via watercraft. When John passed away in 2011, Virginia found it difficult
to create without her longtime painting companion by her side.
“I tried to figure out how to redefine myself,” she said. “I couldn’t paint at first by myself because my partner wasn’t there.”
The couple often enjoyed Morro Bay together in a kayak that Mack still has. She began taking it out on the bay alone, bringing her watercolor pad, palette, and
camera with her.
“I started doing quick sketches of birds,” she said. “Eventually these turned into a series of quick gesture drawings.”
A gesture drawing has to be done on the fly, especially when depicting a bird, because they could take flight at any moment, Mack explained.
“There is something so momentary about the interactions that I find intriguing,” she said. “There is something about them that is so elusive; they fly away and swim away so quickly.”
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These gesture drawings make up a large part of Mack’s exhibit currently showing at Allan Hancock College’s Ann Foxworthy Gallery. The exhibit, Embracing the Bay: Images of Morro Bay Estuary, includes many gesture drawings, studio pieces, and a couple of photographs. Mack primarily uses her camera to capture a moment for a painting she wants to spend more time on at home, the artist and Hancock arts instructor explained.
“The studio works, they are accented by the photographs for reference,” she said. “But the landscape is very intuitive, and the details of the birds are a little more fleshed out thanks to the photo.”
The peculiarities and nuances of Morro Bay and its estuary have become a bit of a study for Mack, right down to the schedule of the tides.
“With low tides and high tides, if you pick the wrong time, you can get stuck in the mud,” she said. “There is a particular place that I love that you can’t get into when the water is low.”
Once within the estuary and when the tide goes down, the water becomes very calm, Mack explained. This gives her a chance to slowly, but quietly, approach shoreline nesting areas and view her elusive subjects from a unique perspective.
“Being at eye level with the channel, you are at the level of the bird life, like at their feet, which is a very different view of bird life,” she said. “Gliding into the estuary, you are very quiet, and so little birds even, they don’t spook and fly away when you just glide by like that.”
Mack enjoys kayaking in the bay year round, in the winter months when many non-native species dwell in the estuary and in the summer months when only the natives remain.
“I have started really appreciating the common birds,” she said. “Some people are disgusted with gulls or bored of coots, but these are the birds that are here year round, and so I have really come to love them.”
Mack’s exhibit will show at Allan Hancock College’s Ann Foxworthy gallery through Oct. 2, and includes her paintings, a few photographs, and even a display of the humble art kit she brings with her on Morro Bay excursions.
Arts Editor Joe Payne is no longer bored with coots. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 11-18, 2014.