Click the image below to learn more about my spring flowers coloring book!
"Feast of Creation" is at MYLR Gallery
“Feast of Creation” is on the move. I will be showing this body of work at MYLR Gallery in San Luis Obispo!
My paintings will be installed for all of January and February. You can purchase any of the paintings directly through MYLR Gallery during their open hours. Throughout my series I have been reflecting on this quote from Wendell Berry:
“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.”
“Feast of Creation”
By Molly Paulick
MYLR Gallery
2050 Parker St.
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
M-F, 9am-4pm
My feature in SLO LIFE Magazine
"Feast of Creation" at SLO Provisions
You are invited to my exhibition at SLO Provisions entitled “Feast of Creation”!
My paintings will be installed for the entire month of October and there will be a reception on Friday, October 7 from 5-8pm. Stop by and say hello and see what I’ve been working on. Throughout my series I have been reflecting on this quote from Wendell Berry:
“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.”
I can’t wait to share with you these latest oil paintings and hope to see you Friday, October 7th!
OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday, October 7th
5-8pm
SLO Provisions : 1255 Monterey Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93405
My first in-person art show in two years!
Come hang out with me at the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden inside the Oak Pavilion all weekend long! I have twelve new paintings, prints and greeting cards. This is my first in person exhibit in two years and my first one since I moved to San Luis Obispo. I’m thrilled to be a part of it! The level of craftsmanship at this show is incredible - over 30 artists of all mediums are showcasing and selling our work.
My Interview with SD Voyager Magazine
Today we’d like to introduce you to Molly Paulick.
Molly, before we jump into specific questions about your art, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’ve been painting for as long as I can remember. Fortunately, my parents were very supportive of my creative tendencies and they gave me a lot of freedom to explore different art mediums. I’ve always been an extremely tactile person, so I would paint or draw or make things out of paper, clay, sticks, and leaves. I learned how to oil paint when I was in middle school and have been hooked on painting ever since. To this day, I’ve never gotten bored with the physicality and motion of painting….
8 Commonly Seen Native Plants and Trees on Southern California Trails
Coastal Sagebrush / Artemisia californica
Lemonade-berry / Rhus integrifolia
Black Sage / Salvia Mellifera
Toyon / Heteromeles arbutifolia
Coast Live Oak / Quercus agrifolia
Western Sycamore / Platanus racemosa
Mulefat / Baccharis salicifolia
Laurel Sumac Malosma laurina
The Artists of the Artful California Native Gardens of East San Diego County Tour
Today would have been The Artful California Native Gardens of East San Diego County Tour through the California Native Plant Society. However, due to the global pandemic and rapid spread of COVID-19, it has been postponed until next year.
We were all going to spend the day exploring and learning from these gardens that illustrate habitat plants, dry streambed bioswales, adjacent natural areas, pool-to-pond conversions, water catchment devices, slope gardens, charming water features, bridges, sculptures and more. You would have meeting artists in many of the gardens who will be creating and selling their California native garden-themed artwork and crafts. Be inspired this Spring!
We had a handful of really talented native plant inspired artists lined up to display and sell their work at each of the gardens. To check out their work, I’ve linked their websites and Instagram handles below.
Marissa Quinn
San Diego based artist Marissa Quinn creates intensely detailed and intricate pen and ink drawings, based on personal visions and dream states. Her work narrates the cyclical stories of extinction and growth in nature, with an emphasis on native California flora and fauna. Quinn’s dramatic compositions seem to be caught in space and time, in states of either transformation or adaptation to current biospheric changes in our Earth.
She obtained both her Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art (BFA) and her Master's Degree in Fine Art (MFA) from Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles, California and is an Adjunct Professor of Art at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. Her work is currently in the Oceanside Museum of Art and in the private collection at the Lancaster Museum of Art.
Molly Paulick
Molly is an artist based in San Diego, California. Her bold and whimsical paintings explore the beauty and importance of the plants we often overlook within our urban environments. She is currently studying and painting California native plants in and around Balboa Park. Molly received her BA in Art at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles and is the recipient of the Business of Art Scholarship through the Studio Door Gallery in San Diego. She volunteers with habitat restoration in San Diego's urban canyons, and is developing a California native plant garden with her neighbors.
Amanda Kachadoorian
Amanda Rose Kachadoorian is an emerging Californian artist who was born and raised in San Diego, California. She is a graduate from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Art Practice. Her art practice has been focused on painting and drawing while experimenting with mix media, sculpture, and installation. Her body of work aims to express the notions of identity, psychology, ephemerality, and nature. Every concept has an underlying relationship with one another which she intends to create a dialogue around. She derives these ideas from the human anatomy, diverse plant life, and her multi-cultural background.
Yvonne La Chusa-Trottier
Yvonne La Chusa Trottier, Ipai, Mesa Grande Indian Reservation, works at the Shumup Ko Hup store and is an accomplished California Indian master basket weaver living in San Diego County, Southern California. IN HER OWN WORDS: "As an artist, I had always enjoyed painting and drawing as a child and have always been especially interested in Indian Arts, culture and the traditions of my own family as well as learning about other indigenous tribal cultures.
Barona Cultural Center
As San Diego County’s first museum on an Indian reservation dedicated to the perpetuation and presentation of the local Kumeyaay-Diegueño Native culture, the Barona Museum offers a unique educational journey for visitors of all ages. The Museum’s collection represents thousands of years of history—some objects dating as far back as 10,000 years—and it demonstrates the artistry and skill of the hemisphere’s first inhabitants.
At the Water Conservation Garden, Kumeyaay historical and cultural uses of native plants for baskets, housing, clothing, and traditional arts will be presented by Barona Cultural Center and Yvonne La Chusa-Trottier, master basket weaver.
Christine Waters
An enduring love of nature and art drives Chris’s pursuit of on-location (plein air) painting in watercolor. Carrying a bag of art supplies and paper brings the artist to a place where inspiration from exciting views can be captured in the moment. Fine art techniques acquired in earlier college years, more recent workshop studies and continued ed courses, provide tools used to translate the “in the moment” mood observed at locations ranging from urban to undisturbed nature. Christine paints in an impressionistic, expressive style with rich, flowing color. She credits this to the influence of the french impressionists (among many others). Her passion for nature also includes serving as an outreach docent at the San Diego Natural History Museum, educating local children through hands-on learning experiences.
Coko Brown
Coko Brown is a fourth generation native San Diegan. As a child she was fortunate to visit the Julian area regularly with her family. Her love of the area took her out of the city to live and pursue her art aspirations in nature. Eclectic in both her media as well as subject matter, Coko paints in oil, acrylic, watercolor and pastel. She paints on wood panels, canvas, paper, and guitars – as a musician she enjoys blending the two creative forms. Her subject matter includes landscape, portrait and still life, painted in a variety of genres that include realism, impressionism, expressionism as well as abstraction. Additionally, Coko is a Certified Master Gardener. She participates in many activities with the San Diego Master Gardeners Association as well as being a member of the California Native Plant Society, the Pacific Horticultural Society and the National Wildlife Federation.
Kathleen Cook
Kathleen Cook began weaving in 1998. Her botanical weavings incorporate California native plants, celebrating the natural beauty which surrounds us and expressing the interconnection we share with each other and with our environment. Her work is shown in Ramona and beyond. She has recently been awarded the Volcan Mountain Foundation’s Rubenson Artist-in-Residence Endowment for 2020.
Andrea Wagman-Christian
“Tree and Window Bling" contain Semi Precious Stones, Murano Glass, Pearls, Finest Quality Cut Crystals, plus Imported Beads and Mirrors. These exquisite creations respect nature by honoring the elements of sun and wind in our homes and gardens. “Sun and Wind Catchers" give immediate joy to those who set their eyes on the intense and colorful rainbows. Reflections are displayed on your walls and catch you in the eye. Light and Color Bounce Everywhere! When hit by the sun or light, “Tree and Window Jewelry” gives back day and night. Each is One-of-a-Kind and Hand-Made with the finest selection of materials from around the globe. “Tree and Window Bling" creates an environment that reinforces qualities of balance, joy and peace.
Margaret Gallagher
Margaret Gallagher’s detailed ink-and-watercolor illustrations highlight the intimate beauty of Southern California's native ecosystems. Long, quiet walks in LA's often-overlooked wild spaces provide inspiration for her drawings, which depict the hidden worlds of plants, animals, fungi, and invertebrates that quietly teem in the spaces around us.
Palomar Handweavers and Spinners Guild
For over 60 years, the Palomar Handweavers’ Guild has been supporting handweavers and handspinners in northern San Diego County. In partnership with the Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum, guild members helped construct the 4000-square-foot Weavers' Barn on the Museum grounds and have assembled a collection of hundreds of looms, spinning wheels, and fiber-related artifacts which we actively work on and maintain.
Sneha Kochuparambil
I strive to create art that is unique, to expand imagination. Working in abstract and nonrepresentational art means I have to elicit interest without context, using the pure elements of color, line, shape, form, space, texture and value to portray a dynamic piece to build a connection with the viewer. Through my work I hope to connect people to their instincts; not to form a connection they recognize but something that needs to been thoughtfully sorted. I have fond memories of creating when I was a child and started a formal education in community college where I had some memorable professors whose lessons still inspire my style today. I graduated San Jose State University with a BA in Art studying any art form I could, including weaving, glass blowing, ceramics, paper making and lithography. I use ink and acrylic in a watercolor style on circular supports which clarify and bring harmony to my work. Titles only exist as a means of identification and/or personal memento.
Carol Gross
There is something magical in taking a lump of “mud” and turning it into a functional and beautiful object. Mostly thrown on the potter’s wheel, then altered and carved to create pattern that gives a sense of movement, my work reflects my two passions in life: gardening and creating with clay.
Charles Turkle
Inspired by nature and architecture, Charles designs custom pieces to suit the individual. A color wheel provided inspiration for an artist looking to screen light coming from the road and the Rainbow Mountains of China created some drama for a geologist’s front entry. A snail shell creates an abstract spiral of color.
"California Floriography" at Artemisa Nursery
California Native Plant Society Winter Workshop
The First Exhibit of 2020 at The Studio Door
Introducing the first piece in my newest collection, "Love Thy Neighbor"
Introducing the first piece in my newest collection:
"Love Thy Neighbor"
36"x48"
Acrylic collage on wood panel
Location: Our shared re-imagined front yard
Plants represented: Palo Verde, White Sage, Apricot Mallow, Desert Willow, Our Lord’s Candle, & Shaw’s Agave
This piece seems especially fitting for our collective global outcry of heartache and fear. Instead of continued isolation and feelings of total despair and helplessness, let us pay even more attention to each other and the world immediately around us. And now…a poem!
-----
"Love thy Neighbor"
A holy discontent
A weary world
Divorced from nature
Isolated from one another
Turn from the shadows
And the idol of achievement
Resist the busyness and the distraction
Step off from the pavement
Come to the table
Come and rest
Lay down your burdens
Be filled with the best
Plant for today
Hope for tomorrow
Let your roots grow down deep
Even in the drought, fear and sorrow
Attend to the flowers
Attend to the trees
Look to the birds
The butterflies and bees
Pay attention to the eyes
The souls and feet
Of those immediately around you
The ones that share the name of your street
Happy New Year!
H A P P Y N E W Y E A R! As saying SEE YA to 2019 and HI, HELLO to 2020, I reflected on all that happened in my first year of being a professional artist! My word for this past year was agency because I wanted to take ownership over how I spent my time. This meant saying “no” more and focusing on my relationships, my neighborhood and, of course, my art. In doing so, a lot happened!
I created this instagram account after a 3 year hiatus - thanks or following me along!
Had a solo exhibition for “Let Them Illuminate the Lands”
Received the Business of Art Scholarship from the @studiodoor where I got to participate in the little Italy ArtWalk @artwalksd
Took a self-appointed artist residency where I threw myself into the world of California native plants, biophilic urban design and creating habitat where I live
Exhibited at the La Jolla Art & Wine festival
Featured in the cbs8 news story of my story and art!
Through all of that I got to be at the receiving end of incredible support from all of you. In the midst of a packed year, I learned how to slow down, pay attention to the world around me and resist the hurried-and-hustling life. This artist’s journey is not easy but it sure is rewarding - every word of encouragement and purchase means the world to me!
My word for 2020 is focus. Focusing on the opportunities ahead and on the specific route I’m taking as an artist. Lots of fun shows, commissions and activities in store. I can’t wait to keep sharing them with all of you!
I'm on CBS!
This was such a treat - read the whole story HERE! Thank you Paco and his team for letting me tell my story and turning my ramblings into a PIECE! I’m humbled and grateful and most importantly, I hope my story helps anyone going through any hardship to keep dancing.
Know the plants and people in your neighborhood
Knowing and loving my neighbors has been one of the greater joys of my life.
I moved to the little village of Hillcrest, San Diego in 2016 and over the past 3.5 years, the people I live around have become like family. I’ve learned the true meaning of neighborhood and what it means to be a good neighbor because of the people that live on our block.
The complex I live on has 4 units and a communal garden and outdoor living space. I don’t just call these people my neighbors, they also feel like my roommates as we share and spend time together regularly. Our next door neighbors, Anne, Eric, Dusty and Andi invite us over for holidays and cookouts and homemade pasta. My neighbor Linda down the block has become my guardian art angel as she lends me her upstairs studio as my art studio. Just because she’s generous like that. My dear friend and neighbor Meghan I get to walk with every Wednesday morning and have become her son’s godparent.
Our communal shared living space. Lots of fancy and fun dinners!
My godson, Thor, picking strawberries in our garden
I got to know the people fairly quickly in my neighborhood and have developed these friendships over the years living here. However, I just introduced myself THIS YEAR to the plants that have always called this place home. I know what you’re thinking…the plants!? Yes. The plants. Knowing the names of the plants that exist (or should / could exist) in our local canyons is the first step to becoming aware of our local ecology. And becoming aware of our local plants and animals will help us care for them even better. As Mary Oliver once said, “paying attention is the beginning of devotion”. Once we pay attention to the beauty and the life that happens in our own backyards we will in time love what’s happening in our own backyards.
Hanging out in the canyon with the art I created from it!
Knowing and studying and painting the plants around me has been an incredibly enlightening experience and it has been the final piece of making this block truly feel like home. On my quest to learn all about the California native plants that are native to my specific area, I discovered the California Native Plant Society of San Diego and became a member. They have this incredible tool called Calscape where you can type in your zip code and the plants that are native to that area pop up! You can learn all about them through that site then try and seek the plants out through my other favorite app called iNaturalist.
California Native Plant Society exists to help us not only become aware of plants that existed and thrived here pre-European contact, but they are in the efforts to actively restore vacant spaces and parks to native wildlife habitat - including our very own yards. Calscape is just that - a site where you can learn about each and every plant that actually thrives in your area due to climate, soil conditions and the local wildlife that it attracts. California butterflies anyone!? your very own super bloom of poppies and lupines and ceanothus?!
WANT TO KNOW THE COOLEST PART!? When we love and attend to our local plants and animals, that in it of itself is a way to love our human neighbors as well. “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” —Rachel Carson
My guardian art angel and neighbor, Linda
Thor and I in the canyon playing with the sycamore leaves
November is Native American Heritage Month
November is #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth. To celebrate and honor this month, here is my painting of white sage / salvia apiana, a keystone species of the Coastal Sagebrush community and an incredibly sacred and important to indigenous people on the pacific coast. However, due to the popularity with mainstream smudging in recent years, white sage has been heavily poached in the wild and is borderline endangered. To learn more, read this and the wikipedia page which is native monitored. Also, if you’re in LA, you can attend the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden workshop on the history of the plant and how to ethically cultivate it.
Who’s land are you on?
There is so much to celebrate and honor this month. The first way is to know which land you are currently standing on. Visit native-land.ca to find out and learn. My apartment sits on Kumeyaay land. It has been one of the great joys of my life to learn more about this nation through the food they eat from the plants they have cultivated for thousands of years, the stories they hold, the resilience they possess, their visions for the future and their necessary involvement in conservation efforts. If you are on Kumeyaay land, this documentary is a must-watch: First People: Kumeyaay
Listen to a variety of indigenous voices:
The second way to celebrate is to listen and read from indigenous voices. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch films, go to talks. Just listen. Below are a few I’ve been listening to and learning from:
Podcast:
All my Relations
Instagram accounts:
@illuminatives
@kaitlincurtice
@nativeapprops
@amrpodcast
@meztliprojects
Books:
There there by Tommy Orange
Braiding Sweet grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
This list by Kaitlin Curtice
Be an ally, but in the right way:
Changing the Narratives about Native Americans by Illuminatives
Learn about the plants and land you stand on:
learn about the plants that used to thrive in your neighborhood pre european contact by going to calscape.org and typing in your zip code! Another great resource if you are on Kumeyaay land is the book “Kumeyaay Ethnobotany”. It’s an incredible resource for native and nonnative people interested in learning more about the rich history of the Kumeyaay and the land they have survived on for millennia.
Keep learning and help to shift the narrative:
Friends, we have much to learn from these voices. It’s time to step aside. let’s honor and celebrate this month and start to learn about the history of erasure of native people all over the world, starting with who’s land you are currently standing on in this very moment.
Lots of fun at the La Jolla Art & Wine Festival {a video!}
Join me at the La Jolla Art & Wine Festival
Can you believe it’s almost October? Where has the time gone? Somewhere within the last five months I officially became a FULL-TIME artist. 🙌 Since then, I’ve been on a wild ride developing new artwork that focuses on California native plants and the wild spaces within urban San Diego.
I have been sharing bits and bobs through my Instagram, but I will have ALL of the new work available to see and purchase at the La Jolla Art & Wine Festival on October 12&13! 🌈
I would love to see you at some point that weekend and share with you in person what I’ve been up to. Oh, and there’s wine. 🍷Lots of it. So bring your buds—it should be a really fun time.
I will be at booth #273. Click here for the map to see where I'll be.
You can't make it but are interested in a piece? Immediately after the show, I will have any remaining new work up on my website for purchase. I can't guarantee the piece you are eyeing will still be available.
La Jolla Art & Wine Festival Info:
Where: Girard Ave, La Jolla
When: October 12 & 13
Time: 10am - 6pm (both days)
My booth: #273 (right by the wine & beer tent, map here)
Cost: FREE to attend! You can purchase drink tickets here
Parking & directions: info
Hope to see you then, friend. And bring your furry pal if you got one–they are welcome.
Below is a preview of the works that will be available for purchase - most of them shown for the very first time!
Prize the natural spaces
At the edge of University California of Irvine exists the neighborhood I grew up in - University Hills.
My street is an eclectic horticultural wonder–My parent's Cape Cod style home with English roses sits right next door to this modern desert beauty. Right across the street is a jacaranda tree, a thorny tree, and a toyon. The edge of our community backs up to an ecological preserve. The secret garden down the street is full of agave, Matilija poppies and mexican blue sage.
I'm eternally grateful my childhood was full to the brim with everyday “nature" encounters, thanks to this special community and parents that made it possible. My most vivid memories are learning about plants by dissecting them, staring at them, letting them cradle me, listening to the wind through the cottonwoods, slowly watching snails and lizards crawl on by through the lemonade berry, escaping to the nearby secret garden to get lost in another world, hiking around the trails of the chaparral preserve with my dad while keeping our eyes out for the endangered California Gnatcatcher.
I often wonder who I would be and what I'd be interested in if I didn't have this rich biodiversity all around me as the backdrop of my life.
I'm reading a book called “The Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv. He makes the case for a growing epidemic with our society today called Nature deficit disorder. We're not spending time outdoors as we should and we are facing the consequences.
“Prize the natural spaces and shorelines most of all, because once they're gone, with rare exceptions they're gone forever. In our bones, we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chaparral, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.”
So how do we do this? First comes awareness, then comes attention and observation, which leads to love and adoration, then comes the care, cultivation, and preservation.
In order for awareness to even begin to manifest into our communities, we need people actively preserving these wild and natural spaces, introducing them into our own yards and homes, especially in urban environments. As my friend Alan says, "As we restore nature, we restore our own souls."
I'm seeking to do that with my next body of work.
San Diego Art Walk!
