Starry Nights exhibition showcases painting, photography, and poetry at Wildling Museum

Spotting the Milky Way at night is one thing, but catching a glimpse of it in broad daylight is quite another. Beginning Feb. 1, museumgoers in Solvang can do just that. Open as early as 11 a.m., night and day dwellers alike can stop by the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature to enjoy paintings and photography depicting landscapes enveloped by moonlight.

Titled Starry Nights: Visions of the Night Sky, this new exhibition will remain on display through June 15. Curated by Stacey Otte-Demangate and Lauren Sharp, this group show strives to capture the majestic expanse of the open night sky, exploring the subject through multiple media.

“I love to explore the intersection of human activity and natural landscapes through photography,” said featured photographer Aya Okawa, whose photo, Human Constellations, is showcased in the exhibit.

The photo was taken in Yosemite National Park one autumn evening, sometime during twilight, Okawa said.

“I visited the meadows to view the night sky and the last of the Milky Way’s presence in the Northern Hemisphere. As night fell, sparkling lights on the sheer cliff face of El Capitan caught my eye,” she said. 

Okawa gradually realized that the distant lights were headlamps of climbers on the mountain, which she learned from other climbers who were also viewing from below. 

“I learned that these climbers rest, cook, and sleep staked into the mountainside as they await the sunrise to resume their climbs,” Okawa said. “Their evening routines make for beautiful viewing from below, like magical glow worms perched into the majestic cliffs of El Cap.”

As for paintings, the Wildling exhibition features a variety of nocturnally inspired paintings by historical artists Fernand Lungren, Lockwood de Forest, and Charles Rollo Peters, as well as more contemporary pieces by Nathan Huff, Eric Merrell, and others. 

“If you spend any amount of time in the open desert away from cities, you’re going to experience dark nights, starry skies, and bright moonlight,” Merrell told the Sun, commenting on his favorite environment to paint in.

The exhibit features three nightscapes by Merrell, including two landscapes painted on location in Joshua Tree National Park. The third piece was painted along the western edge of the Salton Shore. 

“I primarily paint in oil, but will also use watercolor when I’m hiking somewhere that I don’t want to carry an easel,” the Los Angeles-based artist said.

For Merrell, one challenge behind painting night-themed paintings comes from finding the best way to depict the effects of moonlight on a landscape—through color and other design choices. 

“We can see easily in moonlight without a flashlight, but how do you paint it? It feels a little foreign to us as diurnal creatures. But just like during the day, I try to paint what I see,” Merrell said. “Vision is reduced at night, so things we see and understand during the day lose context and shapes merge together. It’s great for avoiding the literal and trying to find the poetry in the landscape.”

Speaking of poetry, a collection of poems by Santa Ynez-based author Dan Gerber will also be on display in the Wildling exhibition, accompanying the show’s visual art. Gerber’s work has previously appeared in The New Yorker, Partisan Review, Caliban, The Best American Poetry, and other publications.

Gerber contributed five original poems to be showcased in the exhibit. One piece, entitled “Ever,” alludes to the hazy ring of light we call our home galaxy.

“I wonder if I’ll ever/ get beyond The Milky Way/ by dying—I wonder/ if atoms of/ my living body now/ will ever get that far—I/ wonder what I/ mean by I.”

“The poems selected for the exhibit will, I hope, help provide an atmosphere for the paintings and photos,” Gerber said. 

Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood also wonders what Gerber means by I. Send interpretations to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.

This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 6, 2020.