Seen with one of her watercolors, Fairfield’s Sandy Imperatori and students from her art classes will be on hand for Artists at the Adobe, a free, plein-air event Saturday in Pena Adobe Park in Vacaville. (Contributed photo/Pena Adobe Historical Society)
Art is metaphor, but such abstract ideas likely will not be debated during the Artists at the Adobe event Saturday in Vacaville.
Orginally set for May 4 but cancelled due to inclement weather, the event will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Pena Adobe Park, 4699 Pena Adobe Road, off eastbound Interstate 80 and to the left of Lagoon Valley Regional Park’s entrance.
Some of the exhibiting artists are familiar to the Solano County visual arts community.
Fairfield’s Sandy Imperatori and students from her art classes will be on hand for the plein-air event, free and open to the public.
Imperatori studied graphic design at Carnegie Mellon University and has conducted the Plein-Air Workshop in Virginia City, Nev., for more than two decades. The former gallery director of the Fairfield Visual Arts Association, she began drawing and painting as a young child. She’s painted watercolors for more than 25 years.
Artist Ann King of Oakland will chat with park visitors about her watercolor painting “Nestora Peña and Apolonia Vaca Along the Old Spanish Trail.” It depicts the daughter of Juan Manuel Vaca, just 3 years old, and the only daughter of Juan Felipe Peña, age 5, as they traveled in the saddle bags of a “gentle mule” on the Old Spanish Trail to California in 1841.
In a press statement from Cricket Kanouff, president of Pena Adobe Historical Society, the event’s sponsor, King said she “fell in love with mules as I studied photographs to get a reasonable likeness for this illustration. They walk heel-toe over rocky terrain, are quite sensible and only go where it is safe. That’s why they have the reputation of stubbornness.”
Historical Society docent James Tunstall, an American Indian, will be showing his handmade jewelry. He celebrates his heritage by using leather and shells to make necklaces and earrings. Park visitors will have an opportunity to make their own shell necklace using wooden pump drills. Also, Docent Armando Perez’s American Indian heritage can be found in his paintings, which will be on view.
The two men have been sharing their heritage with Peña Adobe park visitors for more than seven years, Kanouff noted in the prepared statement.
Joining the artists will be members of the Vacaville Art League and Gallery.
Established in January of 1963, the League is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and promotion of the visual arts. Located in the 129-year-old Segura home on Monte Vista Avenue, the Gallery has provided a place for the public to participate directly in the visual arts since opening on March 16, 1968. League members will offer information about their gallery, events and classes.
For those who wish, bring your art supplies and join the fun or bring a picnic and enjoy the wildlife and listen to the music of the Vacaville Acoustic Jammers under the direction of Terry and Leslie Cloper.
The Jammers sing and play a variety of instruments including the guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and harmonica. They meet the first and third Wednesday of the month at the McBride Senior Center, 91 Townsquare, in downtown Vacaville.
In past years, the artists’ event has included some 100 participants.
Docents will be on hand to answer questions and conduct tours of the Peña Adobe, built in 1842 by the Peña family, who, with the Vaca family, settled in the Lagoon Valley.
While at the artists event, visit the adjacent Mowers-Goheen Museum, home to a collection of artifacts, including a woolly mammoth bone found locally near Putah Creek.
