Guest post: The Artistry of California Ricelands

By Dolores Mitchell, Fine Artist

Six years ago I began painting rice fields in the Butte County communities of Richvale and Durham. Their changing colors attracted me—neon green in spring, gold in autumn, and mirrors to the sky when flooded in winter. The flatness of the fields presented a compositional challenge. I welcomed into my paintings the Sutter Buttes (the world’s smallest mountain range), as well as anything else vertical—silos, cattails, harvesting equipment, a rare tree. Yet, it was the very flatness of the fields that encouraged me to lay on great swaths of color, and this flatness led me to define clearly the elements of earth, sky, water and man made structures.

"Tranquility: Sutter Buttes with Flooded Rice Fields," Oil.

Over the years I have filled three notebooks with on-location sketches of rice fields, irrigation canals, weeds such as wild mustard, and a great many birds including Tundra Swans and Egrets. I continue my sketching expeditions until something I want to express becomes clear, such as the urgency of rice plants seeking the sun. Then I start painting in my studio, striving for a poetic response rather than documentation.

"Sutter Buttes, Rice Fields and Autumn Rain," Oil.

As a teenager I attended Saturday classes at the Chicago Art Institute. We were encouraged to sketch and paint ordinary life around us, derelict buildings, patches of weeds, kids playing ball, without looking for obvious beauty. I studied studio art and art history at UCLA, and then taught art history at California State University Chico for thirty years. I seldom had time or energy for painting while teaching.

“Almost Egypt,” oil

Now retired, I am a member of the Avenue 9 Gallery Art Guild. I will show some recent rice field paintings at my solo exhibit at Avenue 9, “Chico + 20 Miles.” It opens with a Friday, September l6 reception (5-8pm) and runs through October l6.

My paintings are also part of Chico Museum’s “Amazing Grains” exhibition; I will give a talk on my creative process at the museum on 2pm, Sunday September 25.

Dolores Mitchell
Avenue 9 Gallery, 180 E. 9th Avenue, Chico 879-1821 www.avenue9gallery.com