Oh shoot — To Bamboo!…an Homage… featuring the work of Artists Beverly Messenger-Harte and C. Wood — will open on May 29, with an artists’ reception on Sunday, June 8 in Lompoc! The Lompoc Valley Art Association’s Cypress Gallery will host this nature-centered event throughout the month of June.
“I am grateful for the timing of this collaborative offering of the beautiful flowing paintings and collage of C. Wood, complementing my handmade book and textured assemblage statements,” states Messenger-Harte, “Bamboo is a grass belonging to the Bambusoideae, a subfamily of the grass family Poaceae (Gramineae). Bamboo’s flexibility and resilience, symbolized by it being a grass of “grace and grit,” are indeed part of its unique characteristics, making it a valuable material and a beautiful symbol of strength and adaptability.”
The show features Messenger-Harte’s personal connection to bamboo, as she grew up admiring its beauty in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. She relates bamboo to the joys of childhood because she is inspired by this whimsical and sensory experience. Messenger-Harte has been inspired and affected not only by bamboo’s visual beauty, but its creative potential as a medium of art throughout her life. She is forever connected with the plant through her work, making her proud to call herself the Bamboo Messenger Woman.
“I simply love looking at bamboo, touching it, standing in it (as I did when I was 4 years old), appreciating its colors and graceful feathery leaves while alive, as well as the artistic color and texture of the culms (stems) and nodes (joints in stems) when cut and dried,” she said.
Wood is a longtime artist and resident of Santa Barbara and specializes in using oils, acrylics, and pastels. “In this current body of work honoring bamboo, I’ve continued with my love of Japanese patterns and color combinations, have added paper, foil, antique Japanese stamps, and origami paper. Mostly, all of the paper is torn, not cut, layered, and sometimes sanded, painted over, and edited,” states Wood. He describes his creative process as ever-developing and based in spiritual exploration and learning.
These artists will attend the opening reception on June 8 from 1-3 p.m. at The Lompoc Valley Art Association’s Cypress Gallery. This opening is free to the public, and the show will be on view from May 29 to June 29. The Cypress Gallery is located at 119 East Cypress Avenue, Lompoc, and is open Thursday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., and by appointment. See lompocart.org.
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