Ernestine's portrait was purposefully painted in egg tempera. This is a medium that I thoroughly enjoy. It is a meditative experience from beginning to end. It requires mixing the dry ground paint pigment ( which is usually color from the earth or rock) mixed with egg yolk, distilled water and a dash of vodka (the technique I learned was from the Russian icon artists).
Amy Hauldren,
UCSB Intern, Communications Major from Chicago
Artist Holli Harmon has created a portrait of Dr. Johnson that reflects both his own anthropological expertise, and the importance of the Chumash culture to the history of the Santa Barbara area. After thinking about how to represent the field of anthropology and academia in general, Holli decided that the sky was the best way to represent these ideas, because it implies a broad opening of infinite knowledge. The field of anthropology is so vast, dealing with mysteries of the past that can be uncovered to help us understand our own role as humans existing in the present and future.
She decided to paint the portrait in watercolor, a very fluid medium that allowed her to embed Chumash symbols into the work. The fluidity of the watercolor paint allowed her to experiment with the representation of the sky, a very important feature of both the Chumash culture and a symbol of Johnson’s own extensive knowledge. When examined closely, viewers can make out a couple of white figures created by the clouds of the sky. These two symbols, which closely resemble a sun and a person, are repeated in many different Chumash cave paintings. Esteemed anthropologists like Dr. Johnson are still researching the significance of these specific figures.
Harmon has painted Dr. Johnson himself in a significant and symbolic manner as well. Johnson is depicted wearing a chambray shirt with khaki pants, his uniform for work, which can also be interpreted as a cultural “uniform” commonly worn by people today. His shirt has the symbol of a condor on it, which is the emblem of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, where Dr. Johnson has been the Curator of Anthropology for nearly thirty years.
As viewers, we are looking up at him, because he is a strong leader in his field. Holli has included Chumash symbols painted on the rocks below him, as well as those in the sky, representing the idea that their culture existed before him, and it will exist after him as well. The artist has positioned him in between the Earth and the sky, connecting the knowledge that we have of their cultural history with the mysteries that anthropologists are still seeking to understand. This connection is also significant because it symbolizes Johnson’s life work in connecting existing Chumash with their ancestors through DNA tests and matching old records at the Santa Barbara Mission. He connects living people to their ancestors in the heavens in order to strengthen the knowledge of their family and enhance their identity as a member of the Chumash community.
David Dewey, watercolor, 18x24
In the portrait of David Dewey, the Stanton Ranch manager on Santa Cruz Island, Harmon's design for this specific painting was influenced by her connection to the land and the buildings of the Island. Most of the structures that still remain on Stanton Ranch were developed between 1888 and 1891, long before David Dewey arrived. Mr. Edwin Stanton, one of the original owners of Santa Cruz Island, oversaw the development of this historic ranch. Upon Harmon's arrival over a century later, she found a remarkable connection from Santa Cruz’s historic ranch environment to the beautiful paintings by the American artist Andrew Wyeth. Born in 1917 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, Wyeth’s work was heavily based on his rural hometown, which appears very similar to fields and style of housing on Santa Cruz Island. When Wyeth was asked about why he depicted his childhood area in a lot of his work, he responded, “I didn’t think it a picturesque place. It just excited me, purely abstractly and purely emotionally.” Being a fan of Wyeth’s work and Stanton Ranch’s resemblance to it, Harmon utilizes similar techniques to paint her portrait of David Dewey. The Dewey portrait was painted with David standing in front of one old Stanton Ranch building. She uses watercolor, Wyeth’s trademark, to paint this particular portrait, which emphasizes the connection with Wyeth’s work and the culture of Santa Cruz Island.
Christina's World, Andrew Wyeth
In many of his paintings, Wyeth depicted the building of his farming neighbors the Olsens and the Kuerners. In his painting, Christina’s World (1948), Wyeth depicted the house of his neighbors, The Olsons, and their daughter, Christina Olson, who suffered from a chronic condition where she was unable to walk. This forced her to spend most of her time at home. When Andrew Wyeth unfortunately passed away in 2009, he was buried next to Christina in a spot near to where he drew Christina’s World.
Christy Ranch, Santa Cruz Island,west end
Harmon quotes, "An observation I have made is that I have seen so many pieces of art because technology makes reproductions accessable through books (and now online.) I made this connection on Santa Cruz Island. I had seen a large body of Wyeth's work and then I noticed I was experiencing Santa Cruz Island through the lense of Wyeth’s world. On one corner of the island I felt as if I was in the painting, Christina's World."
One of the intentions of using social media in this project is to underscore how all art work is influenced by this mellinium's abundance of information. So Harmon's intention of using watercolor and painting David in his work clothes is a clear acknowledgement that she has absorbed Wyeth into her own painting métier. This is another example of absorbing culture into our own personal identity."
“If you knew Mike, You knew that he was a warrior, a warrior for the ocean.”
--James Cameron
By Jin Yang
The nautilus is the starting point of Mike and Mimi’s lives as underwater filmmakers, so it is appropriate for it to appear as a design element to build the painting around. Like the nautilus shell, their lives spiraled from their individual careers to their marriage, their film company, and their commitments to the ocean, family and community. The ever-expanding spiral embraces them beautifully as if they are still as enthusiastic and ambitious as they were in the beginning.
The spiral is also represented by a mathematical sequence known as The Fibonacci Equation: an expanding spiral created by drawing circular arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares in the Fibonacci tiling. This pattern is repeated throughout are natural world, such as in sunflowers or in the shape of our ears. This pattern is variously referred to as sacred geometry, divine proportion, mathematics of harmony and Phi: the Golden Ratio. The Golden ratio is a common compositional tool in art and design. It uses the same mathematical equation as the nautilus to create balance and compositional harmony in a painting. Therefore, Holli chose this as the major design element in the De Gruy portrait. The portrait depicts the moment this loving couple are holding each other happily and peacefully in front of the ocean, which they devoted their lifetime passion to.
Mimi and Mike De Gruy, oil on canvas, 24x36
Holli uses a muted mild blue color palette for this painting. It successfully creates a feeling of freedom and vastness found in the ocean. Mike and Mimi are looking at different directions in the painting; following their sights, we can imagine the infinite world and dreams ahead of them. With the combination of the painting and their stories, I kind of just want this moment of love and serenity to stop and last there forever. All of the challenges, struggles and dangers are below the surface in the moment and all we can see is a couple, enjoying their lives full of love and expectations.
Their embrace unites them as collaborators in their profession but also speaks to their love as a couple and advocates for the ocean’s well-being. This moment in time prophetically stops there, but will last forever. While this painting was nearly completed and still on the easel, Mike De Gruy was tragically killed in a helicopter crash while on assignment in Australia on February 4th, 2012.
It was a huge loss of a great teacher and an outstanding advocate for the ocean. Mike’s life was so richly lived that with his energy and power are delivered to us through his works. We will carry his ideas and enthusiasm into our lives as passionate human beings for the things we love.
--
Luis Carlos Garcia, UCSB Student Intern, "Writing About Art",Economics Major, from Tijuana, Mexico
Madonna del Prato by Giovanni Bellini
Holli Harmon’s portrait of Ernestine De Soto captures her personal identity and ties it with that of her ancestors. Inspired by the idea of the first contact between Europeans and the peoples of the Americas around the 15th and 16th century, Harmon uses a technique that the European artists used at the time called egg tempera. This is a slow process to paint with since it applies layers and layers of egg yolk and pigments. The style of the piece also takes inspiration from a famous Italian painting titled Madonna del Prato by Giovanni Bellini. In Bellini's painting the central figures and the background are connected.
Ernestine De Soto, egg tempera, 12x16 by Holli Harmon
Beginning with the surroundings, Harmon’s portrait illustrates the scenery of Santa Barbara as it was when the friars founded Mission. Sycamores, aloe vera, and agave century plant, all native plants of California, covered the arid lands. Replacing the castle in Bellini’s original painting, the Mission stands as the symbol of the Spanish encounter with the Chumash and how it has played a large part in the California Native American’s history as well as De Soto’s personal life. The Mission stands almost alone, surrounded by wild vegetation but illuminated from the inside, showing signs of life. There are two figures, both related to the Mission, at both sides of De Soto. On the right, a Franciscan friar, distinguished by his brown habit, watches over the cows and the Chumash laborer on the left. As part of De Soto's nursing career she cared for the aging and infirm priests who retired to the Santa Barbara mission. De Soto befriended many of these aging priests and says that she loved them a lot and has many humorous stories to tell about those years of nursing.
At the center stands De Soto herself. Her thick black hair follows the traditional braided style of the Chumash. Among her jewelry, she wears bracelets made of various shells and her earrings of white abalone, materials very often used by her ancestors. Around and down her neck hangs a cross, representing her devoutness to the Catholic faith. She wears a customary white dress and in her hands is the Tule reed, the plant used in Chumash basket weaving, which is their famous art and craft. As her scepter, it points to the night sky where several white stars form the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor constellations. Translated as Big Bear and Little Bear, the constellations’ names recall a Chumash parable, The Sugar Bear. De Soto’s mother used to tell her this story at bedtime. The bear constellations hang as a symbol of De Soto’s love and admiration for her mother.
To learn more about Ernestine De Soto, visit her story here.
Terry and I recently went to see "The Lady in Gold," the Simon Curtis film about a Gustav Klimt painting that was stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family in Vienna. I have always loved Klimt's work and was motivated to learn more about the history behind his paintings. Thank you to UCSB student Hannah Tucker, from the Writing About Art class, as she provides some observations about the process of painting the Nakamura portrait in the following article.- Holli Harmon
Hannah Tucker, UCSB Student Intern, "Writing About Art",Global Studies Major from San Diego
In this portrait of Professor Shuji Nakamura, Holli Harmon employs style and content interdependently to create a visual representation of Nakamura’s Japanese heritage, particularly in the context of art and technology. Oil is her medium of choice in this elaborate layering of colors, symbols, and patterns. This decorative style is a technique that is highly characteristic of Japanese art as well as art from the French Art Nouveau movement. A major figure of this movement as well as Holli’s leading artistic inspiration for this portrait is Gustav Klimt, a late 19th c. symbolist painter from Austria. Klimt’s work is famous for its rigorous layering of symbols and decorative patterns. Like Harmon and other artists working in this modern age, Klimt painted during an era that was progressing rapidly towards higher technological sophistication. It was the same era as Edison's break through with the electric light bulb.
Shuji Nakamura, Nobel Prize Physics 2014, oil on canvas, 30x30
The ideological impact of this revolutionary period translates into the abstraction in Klimt’s work and the way it merges symbols of old and modern culture. A similar translation seems to be at work in Nakamura’s portrait. Harmon implements decorative elements to relay information about ancient and modern Japanese culture and its influence on Professor Nakamura’s success. While the colors and patterns in this portrait are striking for their aesthetic purposes alone, both elements also have much to offer content wise. The use of gold again seems very Klimt inspired but the hues of blue and violet have much to do with Nakamura’s life’s work in LED innovation. He is most famous for inventing the blue LED. Also relating symbolically to his inventions are the patterns made up of the Gallium Nitride molecule floating in front of his kimono and in the background of the painting. The other symbols, such as the fan he’s holding, the kimono and Astro Boy are symbolic of the Japanese warrior, a figure valued highly in both ancient and modern Japanese culture. There is much to tell about Nakamura’s life and heritage. Without the visual elaborateness inspired by Klimt and other Japanese artists, much of the story would be lost.
