Weaving Cultural Dignity Into Conceptual Works

The artistic impulse to celebrate and commemorate indigenous peoples is a natural one, especially as we search for roots in an increasingly rootless, restless age. But artists dealing with Native American lore in their work are grappling with a delicate subject, risking cultural misunderstanding or, at worst, exploitation.

Louisa Wallace Jacobs dedicates her series of works at the Ventura County Government Center to Native Americans, and has come up with a satisfying modus operandi. She works in a personalized, mixed-media style that pays homage to the imagery and spiritual fiber of Native Americana--but also acknowledges her distance from that life.

The Westlake Village-based artist’s aesthetic flair stems from a neat weaving trick. She combines stylized portraits of noble American Indian faces taken from vintage photographs with indigenous design elements and animal images. The combination of these elements represents the Native American philosophy of the integration of their culture with spirituality and nature.

Often, the imagery is repeated, a touch of Warhol that gives the artist more objectivity and distance from the subject. The “Two Hatchets” design with eagles presents a profile of a proud face in a mirror image, side by side in symmetrical accord. “Eagle Spirit Indian and Thunderbird” integrates a face, wood-grained texture and eagle wings in a single design.

In her repeating images of “Fool Bull,” with eagles tucked into the picture, Jacobs varies the watercolor hues and inserts a handwritten text: “Eagles are seen as holy envoys carrying prayers to the sky spirits and returning with power and guidance to enrich the Indian’s earthly existence.”

Jacobs’ background is in illustration, and her conspicuous design sense furthers the goal here. These are not earnest, realistic portraits of a great, buried culture, but conceptualized tributes. In this case, detachment equals dignity.

* Louisa Wallace Jacobs, through Oct. 2 at the Administration Building of the Ventura County Government Center, 800 S. Victoria Ave. in Ventura. Open 6:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday.

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Water coloring: Watercolorists and their aficionados know where to go in Ventura for inspiration. The Gallery Restaurant at the Doubletree Hotel is a kind of watercolor haven, best viewed between meals so as not to gawk over diners’ shoulders.

Currently, the California Gold Coast Watercolor Society is presenting a strong show under the title “Eclectic Watercolor.” Eclecticism is in the mind of the beholder: These artists pretty much traverse the mainstream, focusing on the standard watercolorist fare of landscape and seascape, and doing so with skill and gusto.

Paula Odor zooms in on plant life, creating atmospheric effects rather than focusing on specifics--savoring the forest rather than the trees. “Tangles” is a thicket of foliage, “Blooming Eucalyptus” a close-up of sprinkled blossoms, and “Blue Pot” is an oblique view of a houseplant.

Ruth Margarete Butler, too, likes to burrow into macroscopic views, whether the fruity view in “Citrus Delight” or the voluptuous blossom of “Pink Elegance.” “After the Storm” celebrates the fact that Ventura is blessed, and punished, by wintry weather, if only in a small way.

Birds are the main interest for Barbara Shaw, whose fastidious “Spotted Towhee” is a dignified ornithological portrait. Susan Stoutz, meanwhile, goes for a more impressionistic haze in her pleasant, unpretentious seascapes and landscapes.

These four artists have a fine field day with the watercolor medium.

* “Eclectic Watercolors,” through Sept. 30 at the Doubletree Hotel Gallery Restaurant, 2055 Harbor Blvd. in Ventura. Call 643-6000.