ArtsLIVE in Ventura County

Op-Ed / Essay Submitted by Jackson Wheeler

Art … unites

When I arrived in Southern California in 1975, my art experiences had been limited to the color plates in the family Bible, the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina and house sitting for a professor/mentor Carolyn Kizer who owned paintings and sculpture by some of the great artists of the Pacific Northwest.

The house-sitting experience left an indelible mark, as it was an example of how one might live day-to-day with art.

Graduate school at UC Berkeley was my original destination; Ventura County, for a multitude of reasons, became my “Land of the Lotus-Eaters.” In 1976 I met potters, Louis Vanyi and Lillian Merkle; in 1977 I drove to LACMA with a friend to see the Richard Diebenkorn retrospective, and by 1978 I was taking courses in ceramics at Ventura College, where I met artists: Jim Danisch, William Winterbourne, Margy Gates, Irene Koch, Gerd Koch, Hiroko Jue (Yoshimoto), Mary Michel, Richard Phelps, Carlisle Cooper, William McEnroe, and by extension found the Buenaventura Art Association Gallery (BAA) on Main Street, next door to Jessica Prescott’s pottery gallery. 

My very first piece of art which I purchased in a BAA gallery was a collage by the late Sue Gerding Ricards. It was affordable, and I could make payments. I had grown up into someone who owned an original piece of art.

I was an autodidact for the most part, although I did take two art appreciation classes at Ventura College (Harry Korn and William McEnroe), Color and Design (Hiroko Yoshimoto), and a half semester of drawing (Richard Phelps) before an eye infection forced me to withdraw.

Along the way, through my close association with the BAA and proximity to very fine museums and art galleries, I realized that many paintings and drawings produced locally were just as sophisticated as any I might see in Los Angeles, San Francisco or Santa Barbara; and with careful and sometimes not-so-careful budgeting, I could acquire original works of art. I realized that I could live with original art much as my mentor did, and with the added pleasure of actually meeting the artists and having ongoing conversations with them about their creative process, which was of great interest to me as a writer.

So, Dear Reader, what happened next? I met artists; I continued to look at art; I attended openings at galleries; and when the opportunity presented itself, I purchased art.

About 12 years ago my friend, the painter Jane McKinney, posed the question as to what would happen to the art I had acquired when I died. I think the precise word Jane used was “croaked.”  Knowing the Ventura Museum of Art had received the collection previously held by the Bank of A. Levy, a collection, much like mine, primarily comprised of artists living and working in Ventura County, I decided to look closer to home and contacted the Oxnard Carnegie Art Museum.

Susanne Bellah, the curator, was gracious enough to look at part of the collection and determine that there were some museum-quality pieces. 

Overnight I had become a “collector” although I must admit that I am more about looking and sense-making than anything else, and that when I make a purchase it is some instinctive response to something the artist, through his or her work, has said to me directly.

Over the years I’ve volunteered with the BAA and served as president, I participated on the selection committee for the city of Ventura’s permanent art collection, I’ve given talks on “collecting art” with Joe Rund and John Nichols, and currently sit on the Board of Directors for the Oxnard Carnegie Art Museum Cornerstones (the nonprofit component of the city-owned and -operated museum) and host the Arcade Poetry Series at the museum from January through June of each year. At each reading, I get to listen to poetry and sit among wonderful pieces of art: my personal definition of bliss.

Best of all, many of my friendships are with artists, and I feel I belong to some sacred organization devoted to making sense of the world, and to promoting some essential goodness that lies at the core of humanity.

Poet Jackson Wheeler, of Oxnard, is member of the ArtsLIVE initiative of the Ventura County Community Foundation.  This Op-Ed is one of a series celebrating the arts and their impact on leaders in Ventura County.

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