Young Artists Shine at Scotts Valley Arts Center Art Show

A constant trickle of young artists and proud parents went through the Scotts Valley Art Center Sunday to view the third-annual art show and contest. The proudest of all though was professional artist and teacher, Shirley Lehner-Rhoades, who greeted each student by name.

“For me, it’s very rewarding to see everything together,” she said. 

Lehner-Rhoades teaches about five art classes a day at her studio, to 5-year-olds on up to adults. She has taught small classes, as well as private and semi-private classes, for the past 11 years. They run the gamut from sketching and painting with different mediums, to mosaics, glass and metal work and gourd making. There will even be an Italian Street Painting class offered this summer.

 On Sunday the studio was converted into an impressive gallery of this year’s work, separated into sections according to age group. Paintings in oil, acrylic, watercolors, pastels and chalk lined the walls, and decorative gourds were displayed on tables.

The artwork was judged by professional artists and teacher, William Downey Dyer, who judges art at the Santa Cruz County Fair. Dyer also teaches a Thursday night oil-painting class for adults at the SVAC. Every piece of artwork received a prize, whether it was for placing, or for Honorable Mention, Most Improved or the Great Artist Award.

Students who went to see the artwork posed for pictures and modestly answered questions from Patch. 

“I thought it was really cool when she showed us what someone else had done,” said 9-year-old Solange Charlet, as she held the first decorative gourd she had made. The red-painted gourd featured a gold leaf bird on the front—her first experience using gold leaf as well. 

“It’s just really fun to paint stuff and look at it later,” said Abby Moerer, who painted her “Swan Lake” painting from a photograph in Lehner-Rhoades’s bin of photographs as a reference. “I chose it, because I really liked the reflection.”

“Swan Lake” was given an honorable mention award.

“I paint horses; sometimes I paint people,” said Abby’s older sister, Ally Moerer, whose water-colored self portrait won second place in the show. 

Lehner-Rhodes hung back smiling, and chatted with parents and students as they walked through. Her brother from Arizona handed out lemonade and jokes. Lehner-Rhodes, who studied art at the San Francisco Academy of Art and at Arizona State University, says she did not plan to teach art back when she was studying.

“I never thought I’d be teaching,” she said. “It started when a friend asked me to give her son lessons. Before I knew it, I had five people in my living room doing art.”

She now has about 60 students, and her classes go year round. 

Although Lehner-Rhoades enjoys teaching all age groups, she is continuously amazed by the youngest age group as they learn how to express themselves through art.

“I learn so much from them; it’s so refreshing,” Lehner-Rhoades said. “Sometimes I have to just step back and just let them do it and see what they do. It’s always more dramatic and imaginative than you expect. It’s good to let go of the control.”

Scotts Valley resident Denise Gurer raves about Lehner-Rhoades and her classes. “She’s a great artist in her own right," Gurer said. "She finds projects that the kids love and guides them. The stuff that they produce is amazing. And they just love it. She has sort of a sweet, gentle way with the kids; she’s very encouraging.”

Parents are grateful for the Scotts Valley Art Center, because it offers such a wide range of classes and a small teacher-student ratio.

“It’s nice to introduce them [to art] at school, but this is so much more in depth,” Kristen Collisaw said. "They learn to work with all kinds of mediums, like metal work and gourds. We’re just thankful to have her.”