Art show is a family affair

Debbie and Michael Wong show her digital art piece, "Reflections," which both contributed to creating and which is entered in the upcoming Coastal Arts League show, 'Families of Artists.' Photo courtesy of Debbie Wong.

By Stacy Trevenon--Half Moon Bay Review

Which came first, nature or nurture?

Or, as the Coastal Arts League (CAL) puts it with regard to art, "What is the role of genetics and what is the role of environment?"

Exploring that question and inspiring answers is what CAL's new show, "Families of Artists," sets out to do.

This exhibit showcases 15 artists who are familiar names on the coast - and takes the unprecedented next step of showcasing their artistic spouses, offspring, siblings, uncles, aunts and in-laws, in order to explore the role of genetics versus influence.

"I think (the origins of artistic talent) end up kind of hidden," said artist and CAL member Pat Dailey, who conceived the idea of the show. "We have more artists running in families than we know."

"Families of Artists" opens March 6 and runs through April 7 at the Coastal Arts League Museum at 300 Main St. in Half Moon Bay. There is a reception for the artists and their participating relatives from 5 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, at CAL.

While the reception will allow the artists to bask in the achievements of their loved ones, it also opens the way for discovering common ground in the experience of growing up artistic.

Was it a family affair, Dailey mused, or a case of "odd man out"?

"Sometimes people use family background in ways we don't think about in American culture," she said.

"Artists, I think, have permission to do their own thing," she added, "and be their own person."

Each participating family has at least

two members who dabble seriously in art. Most, but not all, include a CAL member, and the majority live on the Coastside,

while others come from the South or the Midwest.

For Dailey, that means three extended generations: Her mother, two sisters, two nieces, brother-in-law and son will have art in the show.

While the potential for artistic influence ran high in her family, Dailey's route into art was circuitous. Interested in both art and science, she took art classes in high school, but set it aside to become a psychiatrist.

After medical school, she noticed people having fun with art, and fell back into it. She took classes with local ceramic artists Randall Reid and the Moon Town potters group, and became a ceramic artist.

For some in the exhibit, their influence was by encouragement.

Photographer Michael Kellicutt said his father "encouraged me mightily," giving him equipment and even building a darkroom. But oddly, his greatest artistic influence was an indirect one: His father expected him to go to college, "like it or not." He did, and found the hallowed halls "had an influence on me. It opened me to all this."

On the other hand, Kellicutt's quilter wife Shirley (both are active CAL members) grew up mastering needle and thread from her mother, Violet Hjort, a quilter for 75 years. "Shirley is an expert," he said. "She got it off her mother."

Kellicutt, Shirley, and her mother will all be in the show.

For others, the pull to art was dramatic. Michael Wong, owner of Spring Mountain Gallery in Half Moon Bay, recalled being strongly affected by his sign-painter father, but even more so by his uncle Wilfred, an actor and watercolorist whom he "always admired."

Wong did not enter anything, himself, but did enter a haunting painting of his uncle's: a self-portrait featuring the artist in a bubble inside a room, with a bustling city shown outside.

In addition, one of Wong's cousins is an art curator, and another is an artist and art teacher.

Wong's wife, Debbie, will also participate, with her dramatic digital picture titled "Reflections," that she and Michael both created.

In it, she sits contemplatively at the edge of a pond, in which are reflected images of her brother, Arlo, who died of cancer in October, and her sister, Laurie, who died at 16 in a car accident in 1969. Michael took the photo of Debbie, which she inserted into the digital work.

Debbie's photographer sister, and her painter daughter, will also participate, she said.

For her, art is a matter of nature.

"From the time I was a little kid, I had to hold a pencil in my hand and draw," she said. "I was just born with it."

Such talent, she declared, is "all part and parcel of family, and you don't question it. You're just an artist, and it's part of who you are."

Other artists whose work is in the show include: