Be it fragile little creatures in wet nooks, grand vistas and everyday scenes caught with a paint brush, or broad nods to origins of physical might, life at the Channel Islands goes on in delicate forms and big-picture wonder. <\/p>\n
That's the common ground in three very different artistic impressions of the islands and mainland shoreline that are on view at the Museum of Ventura County in downtown Ventura. The three exhibits opened last month and run together through March 3. <\/p>\n
Photographer Dan Harding of Santa Paula reached into pools of seawater for the tiny yet vibrant life within, including an octopus with a head no bigger than a corn kernel. <\/p>\n
Sculptor Len E. Burge III of Ventura rolled some physics and imagination, along with a part from an Apollo mission and perhaps a dash of Hollywood, into his unique take on Santa Cruz Island. Meanwhile, Marla Daily of Carpinteria provided paintings and other artwork from her Santa Cruz Island Foundation that capture activity and landscapes at the islands from the 19th and 20th centuries. <\/p>\n
The tide pool guy <\/p>\n
Harding's milieu is the colorful and robust world of tiny creatures that people can see but often don't. He gives these familiar microscopic organisms their personal close-ups via macro-portraiture. <\/p>\n
The two-spot octopus on display has a head the size of a kernel of corn. Harding photographed starfish and other marine life so tiny that two or three of them barely fill a coin's surface. The 17 creatures in his exhibit could collectively fit in a film canister, he added. <\/p>\n
Many of these \"really small animals,\" he noted, are in between larval stage and adulthood. <\/p>\n
Thus, most people miss them in tide pools, those often-teeming puddles of seawater many shallow, but others larger and deep that are left behind in rocky outcroppings and low-lying spots when the ocean recedes during low tide. <\/p>\n
There, Harding finds a bonanza in miniature, mostly invertebrates such as shrimp, crabs and starfish. <\/p>\n
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Pools, paintings and physics -- art of the Channel Islands takes many forms<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Be it fragile little creatures in wet nooks, grand vistas and everyday scenes caught with a paint brush, or broad nods to origins of physical might, life at the Channel Islands goes on in delicate forms and big-picture wonder. That's the common ground in three very different artistic impressions of the islands and mainland shoreline that are on view at the Museum of Ventura County in downtown Ventura. Continue reading