While several art fairs and in-person exhibits were canceled or postponed this year, supporting local artisans is still possible in the virtual realm. Central Coast-based multimedia artist Karen Fields recently launched a new website, nipomoartists.com, as an ongoing outlet for her and her fellow artists facing the same predicament.
“Practicing artists who had spent the year building inventory for shows were stuck. In addition, artists found themselves spending even more time in their studios leading to everyone having even more inventory,” said Fields, who is showcasing and selling a collection of her sculptural clay planters and handcrafted jewelry through the website.
This virtual venue currently features artworks from eight different participants, and Fields hopes new artists will join the site each month, she said. Fields aimed to create an online gallery after she reached out to other Nipomo-based artists and craft vendors and pitched the idea.
“Instead of driving to the fair, customers could shop online and then pick up their purchases from the artists’ homes,” Fields said. “This approach allowed everyone to social distance at their own comfort level—an important selling point.”
Price points of the featured items range from $10 to more than $1,000, Fields said, “with items as small as earrings and as large as a 7-foot-tall ceramic totem pole.”
Among the gallery’s featured artists during the month of September is multimedia artist Tina Ellis, who creates mosaic jewelry, large mosaics, sculptures, and other works. The website is also currently showcasing pottery and ceramics—both functional and decorative—from Walt and Rochelle Hoylman, aka the Clay Geeks. This local couple has been working with clay since 2005.
Lately clay has also been Fields’ medium of choice, although she’s mainly dabbled in textiles, metalsmithing, and painting over the years. During the course of voluntary quarantine, Fields has been spending a majority of her time in her studio, creating new works fashioned from polymer clay. Fields said one positive aspect of this surreal time period has been its encouragement of experimentation, she explained.
“COVID-19 isolation has been hard in the human sense, but it has also put me in my studio every day. Not being able to run out and grab particular supplies has caused me to solve problems in new ways—which is one definition of creativity,” Fields said. “I’ve already done a lot more experimenting than usual and have produced things that a year ago I wouldn’t have come up with.”
Other featured artists in the show include Nancy Blain, aka the Harried Potter, whose functional ceramics are constructed from clay slabs, which she rolls, textures, and paints by hand.
Nipomo couple Louie and Cindy Moreno also work in ceramics and are showcasing some of their large-scale ceramic sculptures on the website.
Although the couple feels lucky they’re able to keep producing art from home, they miss many aspects of participating in traditional art shows and other public gatherings.
“As most of our work is done out of our own home art studio, our interactions with other artists are very limited,” the Morenos expressed in their artist statement. “While we have continued creating art, at some level, COVID-19 has probably impacted our creativity, as we no longer engage in the type of interactions that stimulate thoughts and ideas as a result of close and personal interactions with other artists.”
Acrylic painter Jewel DeMoss, whose figurative and abstract pieces are featured in the virtual gallery, also misses the in-person camaraderie between her and her fellow artists in the area. DeMoss’ multimedia works, created from fabric, thread, burlap, and other materials, are also on display and for sale on the website.
“COVID-19 has severely impacted communicating with and working with other artists, which is so important to stimulate creativity,” DeMoss said. “Educational opportunities are rare and mostly virtual. Although I appreciate these opportunities, virtual learning is simply not as stimulating as in-person learning where artists can learn and support each other.
“Galleries are shuttered and opportunities to show art are stymied; this is the reason nipomoartists.com has been created,” DeMoss added. “Artists need venues to show their work.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood needs a punny nickname; send suggestions to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 3-10, 2020.