Ruth Carroll's Paintings Light Up Lulu's Octagon

Even on a cold rainy day,radiates with sunshine. In a new exhibit by local artist Ruth Carroll, 15 paintings peer into local landscapes and vibrant still lifes awash with sunlight and shadows.

“I almost always paint where there’s dramatic light and shadow. That's really what I’m attracted to,” says Carroll, who began using oil paints five years ago after almost 30 years of working with watercolors.

The show, on display through mid-April, captures the rural farmland and rural scenes of southern Santa Cruz County and Corralitos, where the artist has lived for the last 20 years. Even her still lifes are local—like the plump heirloom tomatoes from a friend’s garden, or the locally grown satsumas, or seedless mandarins.

“I try to create a mood and atmosphere where someone can really feel something, maybe nostalgic feelings, or a place you want to go, to provoke a positive sort of response,” says Carroll.

Indeed, her paintings have a way of drawing the viewer into the time and place. Carroll paints most of her landscapes in plein air—on site in the open air. 

“You’re connecting with the whole atmosphere and the light changing. It’s kind of like a lesson in observation,” she says of the plein air landscape painting she has been doing more and more of lately. 

Carroll prefers to paint early in the morning, “when the light is good,” she says. Her painting “Country Road” was painted around 8 o'clock in the morning and shows just how well Carroll captures the kind of light that only appears in the early morning.

“It was just a little misty the night before, so the road was still wet, and the morning light was just coming over that hill,” she recalls, her eyes aglow.

But Carroll hasn’t always been just a painter. She began drawing at an early age and earned her bachelor's of fine arts degree in Life Drawing and Portraiture from the California College of the Arts in Oakland. Drawing is a foundation that Carroll says has been extremely valuable, not only to her painting, but to her work in wood and clay sculpture. Carroll worked for 10 years designing, carving and painting wooden carousel animals, which were shipped nationally and internationally. Although she enjoyed it, she says that working on commission just wasn’t the same as painting, which comes more from the heart.

Carroll’s work is also for sale at the Venture Gallery, a gallery in Monterey shared by 31 artists who all pay a portion of the rent and work one day a week there—something she says she would love to see happen in Santa Cruz.

The artist’s future endeavors include putting together some workshops or classes for locals who want to learn about drawing and painting. She also plans to submit a painting to the 81st Annual Statewide Exhibit. This year’s exhibit is Earth Portraits: Contemporary Landscape Painters of California. Carroll hasn’t started the painting she’d like to submit yet, but she keeps envisioning the wetlands of Moss Landing, where she says the light changes dramatically from day to day and the bird life is abundant.

“I get ideas for paintings, and they stay with me a long time," says Carroll. "Usually I know it's going to be a success if I can’t get it out of my mind.” 

Catch Ruth Carroll’s exhibit at Lulu’s at the Octagon, 118 Cooper St., Santa Cruz, until April 17. The paintings range from $375-$1,800. The exhibit is curated by Susan Hillhouse and Marla Novo of the The Museum Of Art & History.