All about the arts at Kiwanis

The Tehachapi Arts Commission is planning two linked events that promise to attract nationally recognized plein-air artists to the area, Commission member Jim Wilson told the Kiwanis Club of Tehachapi Nov. 11.

"It will be the biggest art event ever in Tehachapi," Wilson said. "It will highlight professional artists from around the country."

Forty plein-air ("open air") artists have been invited to come to Tehachapi for a week in May to begin work on paintings that will be featured at a ticketed dinner in July to benefit Tehachapi Adventist Hospital.

"The events were scheduled for this year, but we had to cancel due to Covid," said Cheryl Wilson, who is co-treasurer of the Arts Commission with her husband Jim.

With photo suggestions from the Arts Commission, the artists will choose locations around the Tehachapi valleys from which to create their paintings.

While some of the paintings will be finished within the week, "The artists will take their photos, notes and sketches back to their studios to finish their artwork," Jim Wilson said. They will come back in July for the $100-a-ticket dinner at the Aspen Center in West Park. The following two days at the Aspen Center will be open to the public, and their juried art will be shown and available for purchase.

The visiting artists may give private workshops to local artists while they are here, but no public events are planned, he said.

Wilson, an engineer and former artist representative, said the participating plein-air artists will receive 80 percent of the sale price of their work. Two hundred pieces of art are anticipated from the 40 artists who have confirmed, each of whom may submit three or four canvases.

The Tehachapi Arts Commission, an arm of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council, includes Donald Towns, Dwight and Laura Dreyer, Sally Lawrence, Pat Doody and Jim and Cheryl Wilson.

The Kiwanis Club of Tehachapi is a service organization that serves children locally and, as part of the global Kiwanis International, provides help to children around the world. The club completed its Stars and Stripes Flag Display Project deliveries for the year on veterans Day, November 11. The next delivery date to subscribers within the Tehachapi city limits will be Presidents Day, Monday, February 15. For club information call Tina Cunningham, (661) 822-4515.