Join us this ArtWalk in the Janet Addison Community Room to enjoy four local artists expressing their themes of the Ventura scenery. Photographers Linda F. Peterson and Stacy La Mascus and painters Hilda Kilpatrick and Rex Kochel invite you to view colorful Ventura through their eyes and expertise.

Linda F. Peterson has over 20 years of experience photographing a vast spectrum of subjects ranging from the well known to the obscure, major destinations to the back roads of America including Texas, the Southwest, Yosemite and Montana, as well as Africa, Korea, Cuba, Russia and Europe. Her education as an interior designer/owner of La Tigh Interiors gave her the basic insights for detail, composition, light and color to transition to a new career, but it was photographing out in the wild that cemented her love for this medium.

Photographing the life, architecture and natural beauty of the many and diverse environments I travel is always interesting and challenging. My ultimate goal is to share what I have had the pleasure of experiencing and to give pause for thought.

Fascinated by watercolors Rex Kochel took an art class at Ventura College in his mid 30s, had immediate success, and has been moving forward with his art development ever since. A resident of Ojai going on 20 years, Rex's studio is at his home on Signal Street, where he resides with his wife Deborah. When he is not painting in his studio Rex is sketching on location around the world. The freedom to travel now that he is out of the classroom has been a wonderful and challenging experience.

I'm primarily a watercolorist, who paints in diverse styles, but most of my paintings are lyrical, fanciful architectural renditions of prominent buildings and structures, i.e. the Ventura Pier, the Ojai Post Office,, and the Ventura Mission. My artwork begins with a largely blind continuous line drawing, whereupon objects are distorted, overlapped, and interlocked in interesting ways. The finished work is a kind of abstract realism, recognizable, but definitely altered in charming ways.

Stacy La Mascus is a third year Visual Journalism student at Brooks Institute in Ventura, Calif. While she enjoys shooting a variety subjects, her true passions are social documentary, environmental topics, and travel. Along with still images, Stacy compiles multimedia and documentary pieces that seek to inform and challenge preconceived notions. Stacy's favorite season is fall and she finds resolute peace while hiking in backcountry settings. With aspirations of studying Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics, she hopes to continue her travels abroad someday and find touching stories of human struggle and spirit worldwide.

Hilda Kilpatrick works "alla prima," meaning "without layering" - wet on wet, from top to bottom. She never works long on a single painting in order to preserve her spontaneity. She sets a painting's tone and value by first blurring the white canvas using an "imprimatura" technique - a transparent wash in "terracotta," her favorite color. She next sketches on the canvas, and, as she says, "Now the fun begins." Growing up amid a family of artists in Peru, she dreamed of becoming an artist at a young age. Eventually, a yearlong sojourn to Europe launched her ideas into action. Fascinated by the beauty found in nature, Kilpatrick's oil paintings are primarily landscapes, local scenes and places that "speak to her soul." She prefers to work outdoors and standing up because it affords her a better perspective.

My paintings reflect what touches my senses, what makes me laugh inside, and makes my heart jump with excitement and anticipation.

John Villani is the author of Art Towns California. The book takes an up-close look at nearly thirty small and mid-size communities where the arts have established local cultures of creativity. Villani has traveled from the shores of Lake Tahoe to the sands of Encinitas in uncovering the background, arts identities, and cultural assets of these places.

John will be doing a book signing in the Community Room, Sunday October 19, from 12:00 to 4:00 PM.

Read more about Art Towns at: www.arttowns.com