Across the street from where her former stationery shop once stood, Michelle Feldman is working with paper in a different way.
On almost every wall of the Los Olivos General Store, visitors will spot Feldman’s oil paintings, some of which were painted directly onto rice paper. Stepping away from the stationary business didn’t stop The Giving Ink founder—who closed her brick-and-mortar in 2019—from experimenting with unique paper varieties.
One of her favorite perks about working with rice paper is how transparently paint can seep through it.
“It stains. You’re literally staining the paper,” Feldman said, while standing in front of her piece titled Golden Hills II.
“This is the reverse of the painting,” she revealed.
Shortly after completing Golden Hills II, Feldman discovered that she liked its backside—a mirror image of her work that seeped straight through the page—more than the front and decided to frame the reversed version instead.
“Somehow that felt symbolic of how life can work,” Feldman said. “You think you’re going one direction, then you find yourself somewhere else, but that ‘somewhere else’ is better than the direction you thought you were going to go.”
For Feldman, her path to “somewhere else” began when she decided to pursue painting as a full-time profession.
“I never thought I could make a living off of it. I just always did art for other people, like illustrations,” said Feldman, an alumna of UCLA’s design school with decades of experience illustrating wedding invitations, greeting cards, posters, decorative and functional maps, and similar commissions.
“Somehow I could always do something for other people, but I never really did it for myself,” said the prolific designer, whose current landscape and seascape showcase at the Los Olivos General Store marks her first solo oil painting exhibition.
The ongoing show, which features several prints and originals by Feldman on display and available for sale, opened in January and will remain on display until Sunday, Nov. 10.
Los Olivos General Store owner Christina Larner said that more of Feldman’s pieces have sold than those of any other local artist she’s showcased at the shop over the past 12 years.
“Michelle’s work has been extremely popular. Customers really have gravitated toward it and asked questions about it,” Larner said, “and I think a lot of visitors are looking for things that represent the local landscape.”
Many of Feldman’s pieces were inspired by the Santa Ynez Valley’s rolling hills and Santa Barbara County’s coastline.
One of her personal favorite ocean scenes on display is an oil on panel piece titled Out is Through, which she described as representing perseverance and healing.
“If you’re in a hard place, you have to recognize it and work through it, and the light is going to be on the other side of that,” Feldman said. “You have to get through it. It’s like you have to go through the storm to see the light. … You can’t ignore it. It doesn’t just go away. You have to face it.
“Art is … such a deep expression of yourself, especially if you do it authentically. It can be really vulnerable, and it wasn’t until lately when I became more confident,” the artist added. “Now it’s just pouring out of me. … I can’t find enough time in the day to do it.”
Pour out your thoughts in an email to Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 24 – Nov 3, 2024.
