Ocean views, scrub brush, mountains, and oak trees define Santa Barbara County’s landscape, and all of its variation is on display at the Betteravia Galleries for the Near and Far exhibit that opened on Feb. 17.
A large panoramic view of a South Santa Barbara County beach surrounded by rocky cliffs hangs across the lobby from a small image of a boat washed up on shore. In another room, the trees and houses near a county beach are on display next to a painting of the brushy scrub prevalent in the county’s mesas and open spaces.
The exhibit, Near and Far: Plein Air in County Parks, features works by members of Southern California Artists Painting for the Environment (SCAPE), and 40 percent of the art sales benefit the Santa Barbara County Parks Foundation. Near and Far was transferred from Santa Barbara to the Joseph Centeno Government Center in Santa Maria in mid-February by the Santa Barbara County Arts Council. So far, the exhibition has raised more than $3,000 for the parks foundation, according to Rita Ferri with the council.
“SCAPE is an organization of over 200 members that has found a brilliant way to make their love of the land visible—visible through their paintings and visibly tangible in their donations to nonprofit environmental organizations,” Ferri said.
The county parks foundation is a small nonprofit that relies on partnerships with groups such as SCAPE to raise funds every year in support of Santa Barbara County Parks, said Coleen Lund, the nonprofit’s secretary/treasurer. Lund said the foundation also writes grants to help with capital projects as well as things like fund educational cruises on Lake Cachuma and put dog poop bags at beach access points.
Jane Hurd, a SCAPE representative and painter, said the group of painters picks a number of environmentally focused nonprofits each year to benefit from art sales.
“We depend on the environment for inspiration,” Hurd said. “We want to contribute to help save the environment.”
Paintings submitted to the show were completed, or started, at a number of paint-outs in county parks, including Cachuma Lake Park, Jalama and Goleta beaches, and the Santa Barbara Courthouse. Hurd said most of the paintings are oil, but there are also acrylics and watercolors in the show. She also noted that it sometimes takes up to three site visits to finish a plein air painting.
“It’s challenging in that you have to deal with the environment, the wind, and the sun, and the rain, and the insects. … The light is always changing, and you kind of have to chase the light,” Hurd said. “I prefer it to painting in my studio.”
North County artist and SCAPE member Marcia Burtt stood on the bridge at Orcutt Community Park to paint the pieces she submitted to the juried show.
“It’s really just a community jewel,” Burtt said about the park, adding that the view from the bridge is fantastic.
Burtt is one of the founding members of SCAPE, and she’s stepped back from the helm over the last 12 years, but said the group’s new leaders are “really making something great out of it.” She’s also a member of a group of Santa Barbara painters known as the Oak Group, which has been around for almost three decades. It’s a small, loose affiliation of friends that has a similar mission to SCAPE, but Burtt said it’s not really open to everyone. Because so many artists wanted to join, they decided to create a group that would be open to anybody who wanted to join. SCAPE has between 200 and 250 members at any given time.
The paintings will be on display at the Betteravia Galleries North and South, 115 E. Lakeside Drive in Santa Maria, through May 21.
Contact Managing Editor Camillia Lanham at clanham@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 19-26, 2015.