Diana Caskey didn’t have to look far for a theme for her solo exhibition next month at the Buenaventura Gallery, but she chose an ambitious one. The Ventura painter, who often finds her art inspiration along the nearby shoreline, is calling the Aug. 14-Sept. 8 show “The Sea and Everything in it.”

“I hope that my show will evoke some of the wonder and majesty that I see in the ocean and the God who created it,” said Caskey, who will be at the downtown Ventura gallery from 4-8 p.m. Aug. 18 for an opening reception.
Her interest in creating art stemmed from watching her father, Marion “Pat” Patterson, paint colorful canvases during her childhood, she said. A construction tradesman and primarily self-taught artist, he joined the Buenaventura Art Association’s forerunner, the Ventura Art Club, after moving his family here in the 1950s and served as its president in the late 1960s. He’s now 94 years old and still painting.

“My father was such a quiet man that it was mysterious how to get his attention, so that (making art) is how I got his attention,” Caskey said. “I liked it and got praised for it, so I kept it up.”

She began studying it seriously in junior high school and majored in art at Ventura College in the latter 1960s with the goal of teaching it, she said. But life intervened, she became a social worker, wife and mother instead and put art aside for the better part of 30 years.

“Painting is what I should have done, what I needed to do for my soul, but I didn’t,” she said. “I was allergic to the oils. They made me sick. But then I saw my dad working in watercolors and I saw how easy and portable they were so I started painting again.”

Her return to the easel also drew her back to art studies at Ventura College, where she honed her skills by taking classes from 2000-2010. In both stints at the college, Caskey created award-winning art.

“I now am as conscious of my need to create as I am my need to eat and sleep,” Caskey said. “I am a lover of water and as such, the mediums that I use to express myself are typically carried in a water medium: watercolor, acrylic and collage.”

The works in this show featuring “everything related to the ocean” will be mainly acrylics and mixed media on canvas. Caskey employs a naturalistic palette to create well-thought-out compositions that colorfully convey her love of the sea. Examples of her work can be seen at http://dianagcaskey.zenfolio.com.

The Buenaventura Gallery is at 700 E. Santa Clara St. and its hours are noon-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, visit the nonprofit Buenaventura Art Association’s website at www.buenaventuragallery.org.