Free Art For All in Oceanside

Oceanside is our closest beach town. With a promise of an afternoon deluge, we headed out for our last glimmer of sunshine.

First stop, which is pretty typical, was Mission San Luis Rey (the 18th of the California Missions, c. 1798).
Mission Grounds Coffee Shop is proving to be one of our favorites. We took our cups to-go and searched for some warmth in which to enjoy our drinks.
I mean, look at this view!
We even had a lovely conversation with this Dutch Friar. That was a first for us.

Our final destination was Oceanside Museum of Art. "Each month OMA welcomes friends and neighbors on Free First Sundays to join in Art For All, our fun hands-on art-making experience led by artists and cultural partners from our community. Whether you’re new to art or have your own creative flow, Art For All is the time to let your imagination soar. Visit our current exhibitions to spark your creativity! Explore different art-making materials through creative projects at each session while learning from local and regional artists. Check back each month to see what we’re up to next!"
We were invited to join them during Black History Month for a special Art For All. OMA partnered with Cynthia's Artistic Expressions to have us create collages and paintings inspired by the iconic styles of Basquiat and Romare Bearden."

Steve is such a good sport. And he actually enjoyed himself!

I was giddy! I had been looking for an opportunity to do a collage and experience some of my own creativity. There was a lot of inspiration as well.
An added bonus was the company of Brady and her sweet 5-year-old.


After lunch, we returned to the museum for the highly anticipated fifth Artist Alliance Biennial juried exhibition. This is a display of talent and creativity from the museum’s artist members. An integral part of OMA’s mission is supporting local and regional artists. Southern California’s cultural landscape is diverse and growing, which is reflected in the burgeoning talent in this exhibition. This year saw 1,149 submissions by 303 artists and the selected work is a showcase of 75 artworks from 62 of OMA’s Artist Alliance members.
Part of what I love about art museums is my ability to really look closely at the work. Robin Raznick's Bring on the Night is impressive from a distance.
Yet, it's when one really studies it up close that one discovers the details she includes which are exceptional.
I can't even begin to imagine the amount of paint she uses. Wow.



Maryanne McGuire's Unity in Essence makes me think of mermaids and I love mermaids!
Steve and I have been a fan of Eileen Mccullough for a while.
We absolutely love her heads... so simple but so clearly a head. Wild.



The Shop by Marshall Toomey took the Grand Prize and will be part solo exhibition later this year. He's an animation artist and supervisor who has worked on some pretty incredible films (The Lion King, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, to name just a few). I look forward to seeing more of his talents.
What a cool photo by Ana Phelps.


George Papiak's North Strand View was hyperrealistic to me. No wonder it won 2nd Place.
Another Robin Raznick piece, Kipaipai Forest includes oil paint, soil, pine needles, sticks, feathers, and metallics on canvas. So creative.

With my love of Modernism, Larry Gordy's Party, Palm Springs, CA 1961, by John Linthurst stuck a chord. "This artwork is from a vast collage series Golden Age, which whimsically explores the immediate post WWII decades. The series, as Larry Gordy exemplifies, consists of vintage paper dolls collected an individually repurposed into scenarios of my own making. Once the design is complete, I run a final print for post painting in oils. The 'dolls', mind you, are pixel failures when enlarged 1,000% percent (dependent upon the scenario's scaling), thus why I must paint the life back into them."

"In a sense I am culturally visiting my own youth and upbringing, in a wishful way, that glorifies-perhaps mythically-an excess we often associate with an affluent class. "In a wishful way" means that I wish I too could have basked in these buoyant interactions, but socially inept is how I had/have painted myself. So that is why children role play with dolls: Create scenarios to place themselves confidently into. In the sublime, you are witnessing it here. P.S. I amass every detail of these collages personally. This work may have twelve hours of me invested, but as an Al artist friend quipped recently, 'your twelve hours is my twelve seconds'. My works have zero Al participation. Doom cometh."
It seems that museums are our thing right now. We are very fortunate to be somewhere where the arts are valued and affordable. I'm a very happy museumgoer. Fun stuff.
“A creative life is an amplified life.
It's a bigger life, a happier life,
an expanded life,
and a hell of a lot more interesting life.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert

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