Growing up in Santa Barbara, Patti Jacquemain spent a lot of her time drawing and riding horses. She lived on a lemon ranch and said she always deeply cared for the wildlife and wild places that she saw on horseback.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History also had a big impact on her childhood. She remembered walking up the creek from her family’s ranch to visit it.
Experience the wild
The California Nature Art Museum is open Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on weekends from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s located at 1511-B Mission Drive in Solvang. The Wild in California exhibit is up until Feb. 23. In addition to being open to the public, the museum also offers free school visits and discounted group tours.
“I love the Museum of Natural History, and so I think I was influenced very much by what they did there,” Jacquemain told the Sun.
Jacquemain’s love for art and nature ultimately inspired her to start a museum dedicated to both subjects.
In the late 1990s, she and her husband organized a group of peers to put together a concept for the museum. Jacquemain emphasized the importance of having people around her who helped build the idea from the ground up.
“When I first thought about the idea, it seemed like it’s an impossible task. ‘How in the H do you start a museum?’” Jacquemain said. “I’m so pleased with everybody that chipped in and worked in all different kinds of fashions of getting the museum to a place where it is today.”
The group persevered and eventually opened the Wildling Museum in 2000, now known as the California Nature Art Museum (CalNAM), dedicated to educating visitors about nature through art. It moved a few times until the museum settled at its current Solvang location in 2013. This year CalNAM is celebrating 25 years.
After Jacquemain studied art in college, she developed a passion for creating mosaics and woodcut prints. The two media make up her exhibit called Wild in California, which celebrates the state’s biodiversity and highlights the museum’s 25th anniversary. The exhibit officially opened to the public on Sept. 20.
“I hope that when people look at my work, they are inspired to realize how beautiful our land is, and not only all over the country but in Santa Barbara,” Jacquemain said.
Jacquemain’s Wild in California represents CalNAM’s mission to inspire stewardship of the land through art. The pieces were inspired by the California Floristic Province, which covers a large swath of the state and supports endemic and endangered species. The region is one of the world’s 36 biodiversity hot spots.
“That’s really something to talk about, and then to be able to do it through her art just seems like a beautiful, meaningful thing to do,” said Stacey Otte-Demangate, the museum’s executive director.
Recently, Jacquemain said, she’s been making more mosaics than woodcut prints. Her interest in mosaics, which require “a heck of a lot of work,” took off after college when she visited Europe. She bought tiles from Italy at first and had them shipped to Santa Barbara, but now she sources from LA.
Misshapen, rugged tiles are sometimes the prettiest, she said.
“I love it because when you put the mosaic up, the light catches it in different ways,” Jacquemain said.
Her colorful mosaics capture the range of animal and plant species throughout the state. Bears, deer, and mountain lions. Turtles and fish. Poppies and monarchs.
The biggest mosaic in the show weighs more than 100 pounds. Jacquemain called it the exhibit’s mascot, depicting a bear standing up with a butterfly floating near its shoulder. Four people had to help install it.
“They’re all heavy. Some are thicker, some are thinner,” Otte-Demangate said. “It’s been a slow installation for us just because everything is unique.”
The installation took three weeks instead of the typical two-week changeover for other exhibits. There are around 30 volunteers who work at CalNAM.
Last year the museum’s name changed to better represent itself to the tourists who pass through Solvang. Another recent update was the installation of Lulu, a giant wooden troll made by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. Lulu has roughly tripled foot traffic in the museum, Otte-Demangate said.
The curator has a master’s degree in museum studies and has overseen many shows for CalNAM during her 15-year tenure with the nonprofit.
“I’m just most proud of, as Patti was saying, all the teamwork that it’s taken to help us grow as an institution.”
Send mosaic tiles to Staff Writer Madison White at mwhite@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 2, 2025.