We will be sharing each of the artists participating in our current exhibition H2O through our blog series, Artists Sharing Artists, so you can learn a little more about them and their artwork. If you’d like to come see the show in person, please check out our pop-up event schedule and/or book a private tour with us! If you’d like to purchase work, please contact us!
About the Artist:
Mexico beckoned and Christa Assad relocated her home and studio south of the border in 2017. She was captivated by the small Pueblo Mágico of Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, with its colorful decorations dangling across the narrow streets, and one long dirt road out to her new land. Her desert hideaway now houses the only wood kiln in Baja, and there she enjoys experimenting with local clay and found treasures from her hikes in the dramatic landscape. She balances her time between potting and painting, beach combing and exploring cities on the mainland.
Assad’s work is in the permanent collections of The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Ceramic Research Center at Arizona State University Museum, and The Penn State Fulbright Scholar Collection, and is included in Garth Clark’s Shards, Kevin A. Hluch’s The Art of Contemporary Pottery, and Lark Books‘ 500 Teapots and 500 Pitchers. Her paintings can be found locally at Galeria Militar in central Todos Santos as well as by appointment at her studio in Las Playitas.
About the Art:
Have you ever done something and been surprised by how such a seemingly small act can affect so many other people or things? Like the tides shape the shoreline of our Baja beaches, one movement pushes and forms the next. The “ripple effect” is best known by examples such as a rock thrown in the water: the concentric circles formed around it continue to expand outward and distort according to any other forces at work.
Here in our beautiful desert of Las Playitas we have witnessed changes in the landscape resulting from the recent growth of the real estate market. Virgin desert forests are clear-cut to gain a better view of the ocean or to make way for a construction site. Roads are cut, widened and graded, fences are built, leaving less and less of a grazing area for the herds of cows and goats that rely on it for a good portion of their food source. Many species of animals, reptiles and insects lose their homes. Water paths and cycles are altered, and all of this affects the ecosystem and eventually our environment.
Having awareness of our actions, our words and our thoughts is crucial to how we affect our friends, strangers we encounter, the paths we follow, and in the long run, the planet. The ripple effect is physics – physical science – that we can actually see.
Art imitates life. This painting was made starting at the right-hand side with the light pink stripe. I tried my best to paint a straight, continuous stripe of the same width (based on the brush), trying not to lift the brush except to dip into the paint. When my hand wavered or I fumbled the brush, I let that be a record of the process – the accidents and missteps of life. With each stripe that followed in a different color, I followed the edge of the previous stripe so that, very gradually, the ripple effect emerged.
christaassad.com IG: @christaassad
Earth Art Studio believes in supporting working artists! Purchasing art work and/or contributing a donation for your visit to the sculpture trail helps keep our creative community thriving and making more art!
Currently, the studio is only open for scheduled events and by appointment.
Please contact us if you’d like to visit!
