Celebrating the National Lands of California
Exhibition on View July 20, 2019 – January 19, 2020
Mariah Reading, El (Hub)Capital II (Yosemite National Park), Photograph of acrylic on hubcap, 24 x 24 x 5 in., 2018, Courtesy the Artist.
The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is pleased to share its second juried exhibition – Celebrating the National Lands of California – a showcase of fine art inspired by National Parks, Monuments, Preserves, and Recreation Areas located within the state of California. The show is on view at the Wildling Museum from July 20, 2019 – January 19, 2020 in the first-floor gallery.
The goal of this exhibit is to bring awareness to the wealth of national lands to be found in California and to celebrate and discuss wildness, nature, and preservation. It is also to provide an opportunity for artists to display their work, and for the public to view and purchase the art. Celebrating the National Lands of California is the second such exhibition and competition organized by the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature. Click here to download our press release.
Jurors Nathan Huff, George Rose, and Stacey Otte-Demangate distributed awards at the opening reception hosted on Saturday, July 20, 2019 at the Wildling Museum.
The $2,500 First Place prize was awarded to Alan Sonneman for his oil painting, “Foxtail Pine, Western Slope of Cirque Peak, Sequoia National Park.” The award marks Sonneman’s second first-place win at the Wildlling, where he also won in 2016 at the museum’s inaugural juried competition, Celebrating the National Parks of California.
Second Place prize ($1,000) went to Lynn Hanson for “Fieldnotes, Channel Islands National Park,” a charcoal work featuring an Island Fox on a vintage Santa Cruz Channel nautical chart. Third Place prize ($500) was awarded to Nancy Yaki for her acrylic painting, “Santa Monica Mountains.”
Honorable mentions were awarded to Sue Britt for “Spring Cove at Point Reyes,” Robert Cooke for “Zabriskie Point,” Ivan Hernandez for “Spring Serenade,” Mariah Reading for “El (Hub)Capitan II,” and Blake Whitaker for “Joshua Tree.” Click here to download our press release announcing all artist awards.
Celebrating the National Lands of California features 63 artworks by 57 artists from across the U.S. Locations featured in the exhibition include Carrizo Plain National Monument, for which the Wildling Museum produced a short documentary film with filmmaker Jeff McLoughlin featured in the exhibition space, along with Channel Islands National Park, Death Valley National Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Joshua Tree National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, Mojave National Preserve, Point Reyes National Preserve, Redwoods National Park, San Jacinto National Monument, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Sequoia National Park, and Yosemite National Park.
The Wildling Museum is grateful to Nathan Huff, assistant professor of art at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, and George Rose, professional photographer and board member of the Wilding Museum, for judging the impressive diversity of entries, along with executive director and curator Stacey Otte-Demangate. Works featured in the exhibition are available for sale with 40 percent of proceeds benefitting the Wildling Museum.
Generous support for Celebrating the National Lands of California provided by the Wood-Claeyssens Foundation, Pete and Becky Adams, Tierra Alta Vineyards, and Donors to the Patti Jacquemain Exhibition Fund.
Featured Artists
Neal Abello, Illona Battaglia Aguayo, Kathy Barnhart, Stephen Berry, Nancy Bingham, Peggy Brierton, Sue Britt, Barbara Brown, Bob Canepa, Chris Chapman, Ted Chin, Robert Cooke, Carla Crawford, Taylor Crisp, Dennis Curry, Joseph Doherty, Celeste Evans, Kevin Gleason, Lynn Hanson, Chuck Harris, Patricia Hedrick, Ivan Hernandez, Mark Hespenheide, James Hodgson, Christine Huhn, Susan G. Jorgensen, Gretchen Kieding, Christine Kierstead, Linda Kunik, Ed Lister, Dana Mano-Flank, Deborah Newman, Ana Phelps, Linda Sue Price, Kelly Radding, Robin Raznick, Mariah Reading, Ines Roberts, Hannah Rothstein, Ann Sanders, Brenda Whitehill Schlenker, Samantha Schwann, Stephen Shachtman, Virginia Sharkey, Pamela Sloan, Libby Smith, Jen Snoeyink, Alan Sonneman, Geralyn Souza, James Stoicheff, Nic Stover, Cheryl Strahl, Janice Tieken, Chris Turnham, Blake Whitaker, Chad Williams, Nancy Yaki.
About the Judges
Nathan Huff
Artist Nathan Huff earned an MFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Long Beach; a BA in Art Education from Azusa Pacific University; and has also studied art in Italy, France, the U.K., and Spain. Huff actively exhibits in Los Angeles and abroad, and has been featured in solo exhibitions at the University of California, Riverside Culver and Sweeney Galleries (Riverside, CA), D.E.N. Contemporary (West Hollywood, CA), Minthorne Gallery (Newberg, OR), Gallerie View (Salambo, Tunisia), and group exhibitions at JK Gallery (Culver City, CA), Ganna Walska Lotusland (Santa Barbara, CA), Westmont Ridely Tree Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA), Angels Gate Cultural Center (San Pedro, CA), and Concrete Walls Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). In 2011, Huff was invited by the state department as a guest Curator with Art in Embassies for the U.S. Ambassador in New Zealand to curate an exhibition, "Encountering Place." Nathan has taught classes with art students at California State University, Long Beach; Los Angeles Southwest College; Biola University; and Azusa Pacific University as an adjunct lecturer. He currently teaches as an assistant professor of art at Westmont College in Santa Barbara.
George Rose
George Rose has worked as a photographer for more than 40 years, capturing subjects in popular music, film, news, politics, and sports, eventually leading him to California’s Wine Country. During his prolific years as a Los Angeles-based photojournalist, Rose developed a remarkable and historic body of photographic work focused on popular culture and also served as a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times. His independent assignments, focused primarily on the entertainment industry, have been published in USA Today, Time, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone. Over 40 vintage prints of his are in the permanent collection of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Rose photographed the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders football games as a photographer for the National Football League from 1982 to 1996. Thousands of these images have been published in officially sanctioned NFL books, calendars, trading cards and game programs. For the past 25 years, Rose worked as a wine industry executive communications director at four successful wine companies: Fetzer Vineyards, Allied Domecq Wines USA, Kendall-Jackson, and J Vineyards & Winery. During this time, he continued to pursue his passion of photography. His vineyard photos have been used in numerous publications and calendars throughout the world of wine. In 2015, Rose moved to Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley. Much of his time is devoted to documenting the natural environment of the county, as well as vineyard estates up and down the coast of California. He is also a contributing photographer with Getty Images.
Stacey Otte-Demangate
Stacey Otte-Demangate has been the executive director of the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature for the past 9 years, curating many of the exhibitions and has judged several competitions as well. She has an MA in Museum Studies from Cooperstown Graduate Program and a BA in Anthropology from Arizona State University. Before coming to the Santa Ynez Valley, she was the director of the Catalina Island Museum, where she helped to grow their exhibitions, improve their collections management, helped them buy property for a future expansion and forged a strong relation with a local plein air painters group. While not an artist herself, she has always loved the arts and greatly enjoys working with artists and helping to promote their works in concert with supporting the mission of the Wildling Museum – to raise awareness of the need to preserve open spaces through programs and exhibitions featuring inspired art.