Since 1984, when started by a group of local artists, Artwalk gives those who appreciate art a lively event to which they look forward, and a marketplace to acquire pieces they love and find additions for art collections. Mission Federal Artwalk in Little Italy each spring attracts more than 100,000 attendees over one weekend. Artwalk NTC is in its 10th year at Liberty Station, and on Aug. 15-16, it was communal event meets summer festival that generated an inspired buzz, impressive foot traffic, and creative reverence.
Since 1984, when started by a group of local artists, Artwalk gives those who appreciate art a lively event to which they look forward, and a marketplace to acquire pieces they love and find additions for art collections. Mission Federal Artwalk in Little Italy each spring attracts more than 100,000 attendees over one weekend. Artwalk NTC is in its 10th year at Liberty Station, and on Aug. 15-16, it was communal event meets summer festival that generated an inspired buzz, impressive foot traffic, and creative reverence.
Food vendors sent tempting scents into the air and musicians on stage, including La Mesa’s Marissa Grace, serenaded the people enjoying art during the carefree weekend. Artists greeted, informed and sold to the attendees who strolled and stopped by their booths. More than 175 artists were selected for Artwalk NTC, and though it is smaller in scale than the annual Little Italy event, the talent showcased such a wide variety of artistic mediums—as well as personalities—that there was no repetition or redundancy. There was an air of originality, but also familiarity in paintings of local beaches, and glazed pottery with earthen tones. Elements of Dia de Los Muertos, jewelry made from sea glass, drawings of fighter jets with words hidden in the design—Artwalk NTC was a feast for the senses with masterful artwork that avoided being overstated.
Ally Benbrook and Edwin Nutting, both of El Cajon, and Peggy Bradshaw-Palm of Alpine, represented East County.
Peggy Bradshaw-Palm has placed first with her work, once in 2011 with the Foothills Art Association and this year at the Pacific Southwest Wildlife Art Exhibition. Bradshaw-Palm is a member of Women Artists of the West, and she entered three originals, “Courtship”, “The Nap” and “Grassland Majesty.” While many of Bradshaw-Palm’s works are paintings of wildlife, “The Nap” is a painting of one of her dogs lying across her husband’s lap. Bradshaw-Palm starts with a photograph, then sketches from that photo, and finally, paints from the sketch.
“Each one takes me probably a month, I probably spend three or four days on the drawing,” she said.
She has done portraits for 30 years, though her job did not involve art at all. Her profession was physical fitness, and she did art when she could fit it in. Her work has absolutely no novice quality, and she enjoys changing subjects.
“I just got into the wildlife in 2011, so I’ve been switching and going that direction for a while,” she said.
Bradshaw-Palm took local classes and studied under different teachers, from Cuyamaca College to Encinitas.
“Every time I go back to a teacher, I learn something new,” she said. Her pieces can all be seen at www.peggybradshawpalm.com.
The medium of Edwin Nutting is an airbrush. He created his own technique in college, back in 1976. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute and San Francisco Academy of Art.
“I use the canvas in a three-dimensional form, much the way you would put ceramic on a potter’s wheel. And as I turn it, I airbrush it, it’s in the three-dimension, and then I slowly unfold it. As it unfolds, it creates avenues that I use as stencils for my airbrush, the valleys, and I go up the valleys and down the valleys, with my airbrush, and as I unfold it, I end up with this finished piece tight as drum, and it gives the illusion that it’s still in the three-dimensional form,” Nutting said.
His individual technique makes for original pieces that attract and have the ability to trick the eye. What he showcased at Artwalk was only a year’s work. He spent a career in the elevator trade, which, he said, was like building sculptures. He does some teaching and is still somewhat active in the elevator industry, but his passion is creating in the studio (since “the second” he retired), at his home, up against Rattlesnake Mountain on a half-acre.
“This is a year’s worth of work, this is nothing, you just wait,” Nutting said with a smile. “I’m going nuts!”
Nutting is free to devote all of his time to art now, but has always been creatively inclined. Nutting did artwork for the band The Beat Farmers. Nutting met his wife through lead man Country Dick and Mojo Nixon was their preacher.
“Country Dick and I were soul mates,” Nutting said of the late singer. Nutting’s unique work can be found at www.nuttingairbrushgallery.com.
Ally Benbrook, returning artist to Artwalk, had new work to showcase at Artwalk NTC.
“New are these acrylic mixed media collage pieces, that is a wonderful counterpoint to the discipline of watercolor. It really frees me up in all ways,” Benbrook said.
Her “Cliff House San Diego” piece is a “watercolor on textured museum board” that was done plein air, or “live,” she explained. She painted it outdoors as she saw it, capturing a moment in time. Benbrook’s demeanor is that of a relaxed, natural artist, indicative of someone happy with their day’s work. She, like many other artists, has been creative her entire life.
“My career, I did not realize, was art. My family owned a weaving mill on Johnson Avenue in El Cajon, since 1972. We wove upholstery and drapery fabric, and it was all custom colored, custom dyed, we had a dye house. My job was fabric deign and running the dye house. So for thirty years I did that, and when I started painting it was so easy,” she said. Matching colors came to Benbrook especially well. Her website is www.allybenbrook.com.
