Open Land

open land

Kit Cossart has spent a lot of time visiting and painting the ranches and backcountry of Santa Barbara County, and yesterday we went to the opening of an exhibit of his most recent landscapes at the Grossman Gallery in the Lompoc Public Library. Most of the properties depicted are working ranches and conservation easements not generally accessible to the public, and the exhibit implicitly acknowledges the contributions that local landowners have made in the preservation of open space. Kit's gorgeous renderings give us a glimpse of an old California that is alive and well in hidden corners.

Having lived in Gaviota for most of his life, Kit is familiar with the gold of grassy hills, rocky ridges fading to a haze of distant mountains, the almost unreal glow of a certain kind of light at a moment in the day. He captures it in his own style, at times a kind of abstracted rendition that becomes breathtakingly three dimensional viewed from a few steps back.  

Alongside each painting a little card offers some specifics and anecdotes about the place and his visit there, just a few words, almost like a poem.Kit's work reminded me yet again what an extraordinary part of the world this is.  The exhibit will be there until the end of this month. Wander in for a look beyond the pavement's end and a fuller appreciation of what's happening--and not happening--around here.