Residents of San Benito County and elsewhere will get a chance
to peek behind the curtain of the creative process on Saturday and
Sunday, when the Aromas Hills Artisans hold their first annual
Holiday Open Studios.
Residents of San Benito County and elsewhere will get a chance to peek behind the curtain of the creative process on Saturday and Sunday, when the Aromas Hills Artisans hold their first annual Holiday Open Studios.
“This is a great opportunity to see art being made,” ceramic artist Sally Diggory said.
The group plans to showcase 17 artists in 11 studios; the art will include oil paintings, stained glass, weaving and more. Diggory noted that the San Benito Open Studios have become a spring tradition, and the Aromas artisans thought it was time to start an event of their own.
“We’ve got a fairly strong artisans group with great energy and ideas,” Diggory said. “We need a venue to sell goods, to get goods to the public, and we all like the format of open studios.”
For Gayle Sleznick, a San Juan Bautista-based watercolor painter, opening her studio brings additional benefits.
“For the artists, it’s a great incentive to clean up your studio and finish your art,” she said.
Sleznick, 67, has been painting for more than 30 years – or as she put it, “forever, basically.” She took her first class at St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, and as she and her husband moved from location to location, she kept taking classes and teaching herself.
“I looked at painting as a career,” Sleznick said. “Fortunately, with painting, you never have enough days. I like to paint from life; it’s how I like to learn.”
Even when she’s on vacation, Sleznick is creating art. In addition to the numerous paintings she’s produced during her annual sojourns to Yosemite, Sleznick has a stack of journals full of small drawings and paintings from her travels.
“It’s a wonderful way to really see things, to see things differently,” she said.
But why watercolors? Sleznick said, “It just seemed to be my medium.”
She noted that it was also a practical decision. Before his retirement, Sleznick and her husband moved every four years or so – he’s worked as the superintendent at a number of national parks, including Yosemite and Pinnacles – and watercolor art and supplies are easy to transport.
Like Sleznick, glass bead artist Diedra Kmetovic of Aromas said her medium of choice just seemed right. Kmetovic, 41, said she’s been interested in beads and jewelry since she was young. She didn’t enjoy the glass-blowing class she attended, but when she tried making glass beads, something clicked.
“One of the things that I like about glass is that it’s very spontaneous,” Kmetovic said. “You have a plan about where you’d like to go, but it doesn’t always follow the plan. You have to work with what’s right there.”
In addition to showing and selling her art during the open studios weekend, Kmetovic will be demonstrating how glass beads are created. She said she’s excited to have a chance to educate people about art.
“Some people seem to think that art can only happen in a perfectly inspirational environment,” Kmetovic said. ‘But it actually happens in the mundane world. We just need to dedicate a certain space to art and creativity.”
Maps of the artists’ studios and photos of their work are available at www.aromashillsartisans.com.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at (831) 637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
