California

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California art collection featuring California landscape paintings by oil painter Steve Simon.

California celebrated 150 years of statehood in the year 2000. A “sesquicentennial celebration at the turn of the millennium” seemed more than a mouthful. It seemed the perfect occasion for a California landscape artist to portray the beauty of this extraordinary state and so, Simon set out to express this beauty through his own eyes.

Over eighteen months he traveled some fifteen thousand miles within the state’s borders gleaning inspirations as he went along and creating his California paintings as would return from each sortie. Prior to beginning his travels, he had some indication of the treat he was in for. In the end, however, even the loftiest expectations of this native Midwesterner were surpassed.

From the dizzying altitude of the highest point in the Continental United States to the lowest point in the country; from the allure of the Southern California Coast to the vineyards of Napa and Santa Ynez Valleys; from the towering Coastal Redwoods and Giant Sequoias to the fertile Central Valley; from the life affirming grandeur of Yosemite to the unforgiving and humbling austerity of Death Valley, the State of California is by any measure awesomely inspirational.

When the collection was complete the artist had amassed sixty California landscape paintings. To offer further expression, he wrote poetry to accompany each piece. The paintings of California and complementary poems were then reproduced and presented in his coffee-table book entitled “California Through an Artist’s Eye,” celebrating the State’s 150th anniversary of statehood (see Art Books link in left column).

Simon attempted to be as comprehensive as possible in portraying a state that covers 160,000 square miles. This was indeed a challenge. The collection features a variety of California artwork including: California beach and coastal scenes; Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountain scenes; desert scenes from Death Valley, Mojave Desert, and Coachella Valley; a few mission paintings; and a couple vineyard scenes.

We hope you enjoy the collection and if you are looking for California paintings, California prints, or California gifts, we invite you to delve further into the collection by clicking on the thumbnail images and reading more about each specific piece.

The following travelogue was written by Steve Simon after completing his journeys around California for the collection.

California had long intrigued me. Beyond the beaches, mountains, agreeable climate, and free-spirited lifestyle, there is an alluring intangible to the Golden State. California embodies a certain sense of American creativity and expression. It also represents the continent’s end of westward migration and thus, by geographic happenstance, America’s favorite place to come and begin something new.

Upon arriving in California from Chicago five years ago, I proclaimed myself an oil painter, an occupation not remotely befitting my background. With a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.B.A., I had received no art training but harbored a strong passion to paint. In a fit of impracticality, I traded in the pinstripes for an easel and paint brushes and set about the business of becoming an artist.

During the first three years, I stayed close to my newly adopted home of Newport Beach, painting mostly local scenes but always with an eye toward traveling and painting the State. With California’s 150th anniversary approaching and a penned up wanderlust to explore the state building, I felt the time was rife to set out and portray her beauty through my own eyes.

In March of 1998, with the El Niño rains still looming, I began the odyssey, eventually logging some 15,000 miles of driving and hiking en route to completing a 60-piece collection of California oil paintings in eighteen months. Along the way I discovered a state awash in superlative geographic variety. I cannot imagine landscape more inspiringly diverse than California’s. No other place offers desert, fertile valley, mountains, and coast like California. In short, it has it all, and quite spectacularly so.

The rains had brought tremendous opportunities to see the deserts in their full glory. El Niño had brought the dormant desert to life in ways a Midwesterner would never have imagined. For my first trip I headed for the Anza-Borrego Desert. Driving along Route S2, I came to a place called Agua Caliente. I could discern no obvious reference, literally or figuratively, to its Spanish name of “hot water” as I approached an isolated, general store. The afternoon shadows had grown longer but the arid heat still pervaded, even if only modestly in the late winter’s air. The ocotillo plants and cholla cacti in this area were particularly interesting so I pulled off the road. I decided first to wander to the store for a soda before taking some reference photos for a potential painting. Time seemed to saunter so lazily here: the cadence of the clerk’s speech, the wind’s whispering rise and retreat, the sun’s unhurried departure. Everything about the place was mellowing.

As the sun began to set I found myself down the road a stretch. I pulled my aging Mustang off the road and hiked up the closest hill. The desert flora was particularly fragrant like the aromatic potpourri of Grandma’s spice rack. The haste by which the air went chilly betrayed my newly adapted sense of time and temperature. I had sought out the hilltop for a pleasant view to crown the day but now I nervously sensed the desert slowly awakening from its afternoon slumber. With desert’s nocturnal reveille came my own awakening from the hypnotizing effect of the day’s experiences. In the path of the setting sun, out of sight and 70 miles away, lay San Diego. I pressed myself to see the sun dip below the horizon, almost as if I did not want the desert to defeat the city slicker in me before my retreat to civilization.

Thereafter, I toured the Mojave Desert and Death Valley with greater zeal. At Red Rock Canyon in the Mojave, the wildflowers were at their brilliant best. In Death Valley daisies blanketed the Pantamint Range as enthused botanists were identifying species of flowers not seen in twenty years. Such nuances were fascinating enough but the real amazement was in taking in the big picture. I was stunned at the vast and imposing geologic nakedness of the land. It seemed simply to bare itself like an open book to eons of history.

There were canyons to explore, the lowest spot in the western hemisphere to descend to, mountains to scale, alluvial fans to ponder, craters to behold, sand dunes to wade through, even, of all things, a castle to tour, and my favorite of all—the artist drive—an extraordinary geologic display of color.

Spring in the desert was starting to wane so I turned my attention to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascade ranges. The fabulously scenic Highway 395 was my conduit for forays into the Eastern Sierra and a detour to visit the bristlecone pines—allegedly the oldest living things on the planet—in the White Mountains east of the Sierras. Under the bleak growing conditions of high altitude, poor soil, and low precipitation, these monuments to perseverance can live over 4,000 years.

At Bishop I took a steep drive into the Sierras along Route 168 arriving at Lake Sabrina where I stood immersed in the range’s alpine beauty. From my vantage at this clear, trout-filled lake I could see deep into the snowy hinterland all the way to the peaks of Sequoia National Park. I was struck with a sense of reverence for creation.

At the Alabama Hills outside Lone Pine (site of many western films) I set myself up at sunrise to view the marvelous colors of the alpenglow illuminating the craggy granite, snow bedecked peaks of Mount Whitney, the lower forty-eight’s highest point at 14,495 feet. Less than 100 miles from the Sierra’s rooftop the terrain plunges to Badwater in Death Valley—the lowest spot in the hemisphere at 279 feet below sea level—where I had marveled at the aquatic life found in its acrid pond two weeks prior.

This first day in the Sierras was but a warm up act for the magnificence offered there as I continued this spring drive up Highway 395. I would eventually return again in the summer, fall, and winter, each time seeking out new places and sometimes revisiting favorites. In the summer I saw Yosemite National Park for the first time, entering from the east through the formidable Tioga Pass. Casting my eyes for the first time on Yosemite Valley, I felt an aching for its impossible grandeur. At Glacier Point, the most spectacular of panoramic views, I perched myself on a rock out of sight from other tourists and watched the colors change for ninety minutes until it was nearly nightfall.

My sentimental favorite spot in the Sierras, however, is the June Lake Loop. During a bitter winter storm I holed up in the town of June Lake. The morning found me unprepared for the slick roads as I drove precariously to a gas station to purchase tire chains. As I entered the station, I noticed the attendant drawing something while minding the store. His work seemed more than just a hobby and I asked if he would share it with me. He revealed his work-in-progress—a t-shirt design—before showing me his portfolio of stunning watercolors. He was a man blessed with talent and charming humility. I explained my mission of traveling the state and painting scenes. “I’ll send you a copy of my book,” I announced, feeling generous in the wake of his humility. Anxious to return the promised favor, he retreated to another room and returned with a lithograph of a bald eagle he had inked years ago while living in Alaska. As he gave it to me he quoted scripture with an air of peace and wisdom. “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.” I thanked him sincerely and explained to him that I had always wanted to see a bald eagle in the wild but never had. He looked in the direction of a wall of auto parts while his imagination conjured just such a majestic bird. He half-seriously recommended I go to Alaska before I awkwardly segued into my interest in purchasing tire chains. We tended to the business of securing the chains after which I returned inside to collect my gift. I placed the lithograph in the back seat of my car, not having any flat space to stow it in my baggage.

Early the next morning my travels brought me to the Twin Lakes near Bridgeport. I shot two rolls of reference photos before the bitter cold froze any further semblance of creative juices. I began the drive back to Highway 395 relaxed in the relative warmth of my car. The scenery and early hour put me in the mood for classical music. I was searching the radio waves futilely when looking up I dumbfoundedly beheld the first bald eagle I had ever seen in the wild, sitting on a barren tree at lake’s edge. I stopped the car and grabbed my camera. Opening the car door, I feared the eagle would fly away but it just sat there about 50 yards away. I reeled off four photos before it took flight out of sight.

I stood stupefied for a moment at the simply beauty of it all and then returned to my car in the middle of the road with hazards flashing and engine still running. Inside the car, I looked at the lithograph still lying in the back seat. I felt an eerie intuition that, perhaps in some mysterious way, its artist had something to do with this experience. Or quite possibly it was just coincidence. Whatever the case, I will never forget my first bald eagle.

The California Coast was the focus of three of my trips. The variety along these shores proved to be more than ample inspiration: the spectacle of the Northern California redwood forests with their cathedral hush, the peaceful northern coast with its undulating terrain and sea stack adorned shores, the ruggedly dramatic central coast with its hair-pin winding Highway 1, the legendary Southern California beaches with their predictably perfect weather. All in all, there is something magnetic to me about the California Coast. The tug of the tide had, after all, brought me to California.

Nearing the end of my array of California-bound trips, I happened across an interesting bit of trivia. In 1510 a Spanish author named Garci Ordonez de Montalvo wrote a book called Las Sergas de Esplanadian. In his book Montalvo prophesied of an island paradise which was to exist in the new world. This island was to be inhabited by Amazons and ruled by Queen Califia. In defense against evil griffins the Amazons created weapons from gold, for gold was to be the only metal available on the island of her majesty’s namesake—California.

As it were, when the Spaniards discovered the Baja Peninsula, they mistook it for an island. In reference to Montalvo’s book, they christened the land “California.” Proceeding north, the land along the North American coast became Alta California and the lower peninsula became Baja California. When America’s 31st State entered the union in the wake of the gold rush, it did so with the name of Montalvo’s mythic, gold-laden paradise, penned nearly three-and-a-half centuries prior.

Yes, California’s beauty is of mythic proportions. It is only fitting it would take such a spectacular moniker of mythic origin. Its state seal is also quite fitting. Quite simply it states “Eureka.” Upon learning this, my thoughts drifted to a special place in California where golden blossoms burst forth ubiquitously every spring. The State’s flower, the California Golden Poppy, ravages the hills of the high desert near Lancaster where the California State Parks System maintains the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. A morning shower sprinkled the valley as I was en route to visit the poppies. When I arrived at the reserve, the storm left in its passing a half rainbow arcing across the backdrop of distant foothills as I stood perched on high ground with a beautiful panorama splayed out before me. After completing the subsequent painting of that visit, I wrote a long poem that serves as the conclusion to my book “California: Through an Artist’s Eye.” The last stanza of the poem concludes:

An inspirational surge welled up inside my heart

This great state my soul sought from the start

I reflected on the California state seal

“Eureka!” It proclaims with a discoverer’s zeal

On this birthday and millennium begun anew

I, too, shouted “Eureka!” painting a hilltop view