arts 30 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY september 28-october 4, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com Decisions, decisions. The 2023 Artists Studio Tour catalog is shimmering with colors, shapes and patterns. For the 31st time, Arts Habitat is connecting local artists to their community by opening artists’ studios—often their homes—to anybody who wishes to experience local art. (The nonprofit also provides space to those who don’t have the luxury of a workspace that can accommodate hosting art fans.) The event takes place during two weekends, giving local art hunters an opportunity to spend four days (two consecutive Saturdays and Sundays) visiting at least some of 60 art stops, a few of them—like the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts in Carmel—housing work by multiple artists. If you are unsure about where to start, just trust your eyes and connect an image you like in the catalog with an address. Below, read about three artists who are participating. ALAN ESTRADA Carmel | Mixed-media painting Among those who will be showing work this year at the Carl Cherry Center is mixed-media painter Alan Estrada. It will be hard to miss him if you come, because Estrada is the only artist who will be showing his work outside, right next to the entrance. This position means that, as opposed to other artists at the Cherry (Estrada is showing the first weekend only), he can show many more pieces. “I’ve never sold a work of art of mine in my life,” Estrada says about his mixed-media paintings. “They sell themselves—to someone who wants to buy them.” A philosopher by training, Estrada fully switched to arts in the summer of 1985 (that being said, during his time at UC Irvine, he had a chance to work with legendary printmaker John Paul Jones), first selling his works to buyers in Japan via Japanese art agents. From that period comes one of his favorite pieces, “A Portrait of A Japanese Lady”—the original sold to a Saudi sheik for $50,000, but Estrada made another one and will have it with him at the Cherry. He will also have a painting from the Mother Nature series that he has been working on since he was 4 years old, he says. The piece for sale is an original—one Estrada is ready to part with. “I’m slowly beginning my late phase,” the artist says, hoping to make space—both in his head and in his studio—for new pieces. In addition to paintings, Estrada builds his own easels and artists’ taborets that he makes from empty wine boxes. And that’s just scratching the surface: Estrada is a renaissance artist—a political cartoonist who has been published in newspapers, and a drummer in various bands. (A disclosure: Estrada is also a housemate of this reporter.) As a bohemian artist, he doesn’t feel a need to have a website or be represented by a local gallery. DIANE GRINDOL Pacific Grove | Animal drawing There are so many ways to do the Artists Studio Tour. Diane Grindol is lucky this year to be able to participate from the art studio she has been sharing, since October 2022, with fellow artist Nancy Donaldson in one of the suites of the Fountain Mall office building in Pacific Grove. Before that, Grindol would participate in the tour out of someone’s driveway. “Isn’t it amazing?” she asks, looking around a large, sunny room that feels a little bit like an old-fashioned drawing room, and very much like an arts and crafts workshop. “I didn’t do any art for 25 years,” Grindol says about the break she took after receiving an art degree. Originally from Chicago, she is not sure if she would have gotten back to art full-time if not for the everybody-paints-in-Carmel-and-Monterey vibe. “I came here to study French [in 1982] and I didn’t want to leave,” Grindol says. So she stayed and tried many things—magazine publishing, working as a secretary, founding a book club, writing books and driving for Bank of America—before returning to art. It’s drawing bunnies, pelicans and otters that makes her and her fans the happiest. In addition to watercolors, Grindol makes postcards with her art. Her return to drawing—more precisely, animal drawing—was rooted in her love of birds. When Grindol moved to Monterey, the first thing she bought was a cockatiel (she has two at the moment). Her serious interest in birds shows with the level of detail in her work. Grindol is a delicate and loving storyteller when she draws, creating scenes of domestic bliss in the animal kingdom. After taking an animal drawing class for adults, Grindol began teaching the class. “Basically I stayed in that class so long that the main teacher would ask me to substitute for her,” she says, laughing. PAUL BOLLWINKEL Monterey | Mosaics Mosaic artist Paul Bollwinkel is showing at his brother’s house. His brother is ceramics artist Mark Bollwinkel, the first of the siblings to pursue art and to move to Monterey. But for Paul, it was a gift from his husband—a “make-your-own mosaic coasters” kit—and a trip to Barcelona that turned this retired human resources professional into a mosaic artist. “Gaudi’s mosaics, especially in Güell Park,” he says about a turning point in his art life. “It’s just fantastic. The whole platform and benches are made of mosaic. Such a wild mix of colors. He definitely inspired me.” Bollwinkel got serious about art around 2006. He makes flower pots— most of them looking like miniature wells, but adorned so carefully with crushed porcelain and ceramic as if they were gifts to the royals. “As you can see, I’m kind of random,” he says about his way of laying little tiles, the opposite of formulaic traditions he observed, for example, in Morocco. Next to Spain and Turkey, it’s Morocco with its alhambra—a traditional design with a geometric floral pattern—that moved Bollwinkel the most. After he began his mosaic adventure, neighbors started bringing him broken dishes so he had plenty of material to work with. Bollwinkel prefers working with tiles that he buys himself or gets from people as leftovers after their kitchen renovations. “I’m inspired by what I get,” Bollwinkel says, “but my materials are ceramics and porcelain, which is much better for the outdoors.” In addition to flower pots, Bollwinkel does mosaics around the house, adorning walls and steps. Both his house and his brother’s bear a mark that says “a mosaic artist was here”— deep blue, red and yellow pixels that display images and shapes on otherwise ordinary surfaces. Bollwinkel is the only mosaic artist in the 2023 Artists Studio Tour catalog, but he is one of 100 local artists whom you can meet this weekend or next. The 2023 Artists Studio Tour takes place from 11am-5pm Saturday, Sept. 30-Sunday, Oct. 1 and Saturday, Oct. 7-Sunday, Oct. 8. Free to attend; some artworks are for sale. artshabitat.org. Stop By Stop The 2023 Artists Studio Tour features 60 possible art-filled stops over two weekends. We made it to three. By Agata Pop˛eda “I’ve never sold a work of art. They sell themselves.” Paul Bollwinkel among his mosaic-coverd flower pots. Over the past few years, he’s been commissioned to create large-scale decorative planters for several Bay Area senior and affordable housing communities. Daniel Dreifuss
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