Recent paintings in watercolors and oils by Ventura artist and teacher Michele B. Baggenstoss will be exhibited Aug. 21-Sept. 17 at Harbor Village Gallery in a show titled “Games People Play: You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore.”

She will be present for a reception from 5-8 p.m. Aug. 24, the Friday after the show opens.

As campus coordinator, Baggenstoss works closely with students and faculty members at Laurus College in Oxnard, one of four campuses of the postsecondary vocational school. Licensed by the state, it offers certification programs in several technical specialties, including 3-D animation, computer networking, medical billing, and web design, which Baggenstoss teaches. The school also is helping to sponsor her show.

“There is no separation between me being a teacher and me being an artist. An artist is what I am, not what I do,” said Baggenstoss. “I would miss art if I only taught, would miss teaching if I only did art.”

Her show theme resulted from seeing a piece by another artist involving flowers and a game board, which she said inspired her to go out and buy some antique games boards to pair visually with a variety of subjects. Her challenge, she said, was “working with the theme of this show, trying to create statements that work with everyday games that we know. But I have enjoyed working it out every step of the way.”

The subtitle, she said, alludes to the idea that, “When someone says ‘You don’t bring me flowers anymore,’ that’s one of the games people play.”

Baggenstoss said she wanted to be an artist since the third grade and earned a bachelor’s degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York City with the aim of illustrating books and record covers. As a child she was fascinated with the works of Michael Whelan on science fiction and fantasy book covers. These days her biggest influence is Georgia O’Keeffe, she said.

She also studied 3-D animation, earning a Master of Arts degree at New York Institute of Technology, where she learned Photoshop and multimedia computer applications that she uses in making her paintings. Baggenstoss manipulates one or more images with computer programs to create a new image, then paints from this design.
Preparing this show has been a long process, Baggenstoss said, “due to time spent thinking (and talking) about the show theme and ideas for the individual artworks, then developing the design on computer, then transforming the design into a painted image. Sometimes the design changes while I am working on the canvas.”

She works on her art at home for at least an hour daily and said she can usually tell in the first couple of hours if a painting is going to work out.

“I feel an inner peace when I paint — nothing else in the world matters — then a little bit of letdown when it is finished,” said Baggenstoss. “The transition between paintings is the hardest.”

Figures, florals and animals are her favorite subjects, she said, and “I will include flower pictures in the show. My animal portraits have been commissioned, so I don’t have any of these to bring to the exhibit.”
Computer expertise notwithstanding, Baggenstoss is a classic example of the shoemaker’s barefoot offspring in that she has no website yet. “I have been so busy teaching web design these days I haven’t had time to make my own.”

To see her take on “Games People Play,” visit the gallery in Ventura Harbor Village at 1591 Spinnaker Drive, which is open noon-5 p.m. daily except Tuesdays. For more information about the exhibit or the nonprofit Buenaventura Art Association, call 648-1235 or visit the website www.buenaventuragallery.org.