Culture, Commerce Converge at Thousand Oaks ArtWalk

Although Nora Yukon is thrilled when she sells a piece of her art, she says the real satisfaction comes when people look, ask questions and develop an aesthetic bond with her work.

And by her estimate, plenty of bonds were forged Saturday during the 10th annual ArtWalk in Thousand Oaks.

“A lot of people buy art for the value, but it’s really about enjoyment,” the 52-year-old Oxnard resident said. “What’s great about this is that I get a lot of feedback from a lot of different people.”

Yukon, a native of Germany, was one of about 160 artists who set up shop on the grassy lawn of the Exxon Building on Hillcrest Drive for thousands of art aficionados.

Organized by the Conejo Valley Art Museum, the two-day show will continue today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., concluding with an award ceremony recognizing the finest artworks in such categories as painting, photography, sculpture and jewelry.

Museum officials chose the exhibitors from a collection of portfolios submitted by artists from around Southern California and other Western states.

Yukon has been an artist for more than 30 years. The more than 40 works she had on display reflected her fascination with Native American spirituality and a love for the natural world.

Her decorative spirit dolls and fetishes--fashioned from smooth pieces of driftwood wrapped in colored wool and festooned with everything from broken sea urchin shells to bottle caps--captured the attention and pocketbooks of dozens of passersby.

“I find a lot of my materials on the beach,” she said. “When I see something lying there, I start to think about what I’m going to do with it and where it will go.”

Among the other artists’ booths were scores of sculptures ranging from geometric shapes hewn from blocks of cream-colored granite to tempered-steel figures. Hundreds of paintings, featuring landscapes, portraits and surrealistic scenes, were on display.

Painter Bob Bonn, who has been a regular exhibitor at the ArtWalk for seven years, said the Conejo Valley event is usually one of the most successful of the 30 or so he attends each year.

“For artists like myself, it’s a great place to do business, and for other people it’s a great chance to see some very fine art,” the 38-year-old Laguna Beach resident said.

This year Bonn brought dozens of his starkly contrasting, brightly colored acrylic paintings. Subjects ranged from bronco-busting cowboys and Native American warriors to impish cats in sunglasses enjoying margaritas.

Camarillo watercolorist Ray Ayers gave visitors a demonstration of how he paints landscapes.

“I think the public really enjoys seeing an artist work,” the 67-year-old Ayers said. “Besides, I like doing it.”

Ayers, who finds inspiration from just about everything around him, exhibited paintings of bread slices, red onions and a coffeepot, as well as several old houses and turn-of-the-century barns.

“I’ve been trying to preserve a lot of the buildings and scenes that are disappearing from the county,” he said. “So most of my paintings have been an attempt to capture those things that aren’t going to be around much longer.”

Many artists said the ArtWalk affords them an opportunity to show their work in a forum increasingly recognized for professionalism and high quality. Visitors Sol Stolman of Camarillo and Connie St. John of Oak Park, however, were more interested in the event’s diversity.

“I like the fact that it’s all here,” St. John said. “You get a chance to look at so many different and exceptional things that you wouldn’t ordinarily see in a museum.”

And for Myrna Cohen of Thousand Oaks, the ArtWalk was a chance to buy something that caught her eye and fit her price range.

“I come every year to look for something that appeals to me,” she said, hoisting her newly bought mountain landscape into the trunk of her car. “The best thing about this is that it’s all here.

“You don’t have to go to a bunch of different places to find something.”