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| OHCC LIVING | NOVEMBER 2023 | 31 Art Lovers We in North County are very fortunate to have such a fine institution as the Oceanside Museum of Art. During our recent visit demonstrating our support for their importance in our community, President Susan Pick presented a donation to Maria Mingalone, Executive Director of OMA. The recent exhibit, Art for the People: WPA-era Paintings from the Dijkstra Collection, invokes a moving and provocative experience. Established in 1935 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Works Progress Administration's goal was to employ many of the unemployed people on relief until the economy recovered after the Great Depression. Some of the 45 paintings capture simple scenes of family life, both of which are dreary, dark and depressing, indicating the hardships, struggles and hopelessness of the time. Several paintings in this collection are by California artists such as Millard Sheets who painted Alcatraz, a foreboding scene of family members gazing at the Federal petitionary. William Ashby McCloy's painting Lost Horizons depicts a woman clutching the ground and a man leaning on a plow in a desolate and distorted landscape possibly as a result of the Dust Bowl. One particularly poignant painting by Harry Sternberg features the hardships and dangers experienced by coal miners who sometimes were forced to dig directly under their own homes and were exposed to toxic gases and coal dust. Other artworks at OMA feature marginalized and oppressed members of society. John Halaka's art, Listening to The Unheard/Drawing the Unseen focuses on dispossessed and displaced populations, e.g., Indigenous Americans and Palestinians. Halaka overlays his drawings on top of sepia-toned digital photographs. He defines forms with layers of rubber-stamped and inked words creating dense images with carefully arranged marks as seen in the haunting portrait, Ghosts of Presence-bodies of Absence, Memory of Memories. The paintings of OMA's Plein Air ("outdoors" in French) depict scenes around Southern California. They represent the natural beauty of our area in a variety of media. One of our club's guest artists who demonstrated her abstract painting a few months ago, Kathleen Scoggin, entered a watercolor of a marsh called Looking Back 2023. Several artists painted the Star Theater in downtown Oceanside. Save Dec. 5 for our festive Holiday Champagne Luncheon at the Shadowridge Golf Club. For more information, please visit https://ohccartlovers.wixsite.com/art-lovers or call Susan Pick at (760) 305-8907. ~ Rita Montjoy Welcome to the OHCC Art Studio display of works by our very talented residents: Pat Battles, Betty Anne Kreutziger, Bonnie Krichbaum, Michael Layne, and Bruce Taylor. Their works vary from acrylic to plein air, pastel, watercolor and oil. Installed over the reception desk is a beautiful painting of the Amalfi Coast in Italy by Gary Warmuth, perhaps a familiar scene to some of you! We encourage you to come visit, be amazed, and tell your friends! If you have artwork you'd like to show in the Art Studio in the future, please contact Judy Harris or Lainy Vinikow. Art Studio

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