“Legacy in the Arts” Art Talk Slideshow with Erin Lee Gafill

Join us at the Morris Graves Museum of Art on Sunday, July 24^th at 2:00pm for Art Talk and Slideshow with Erin Gaffil  as she shares stories and pictures from five generations of California family history, as well as tales of growing up in Big Sur at Nepenthe in the 1960’s and 70’s. Erin’s exhibition “California Atmosphere” is on view at the MGMA through Sunday July 24^th.

Erin Lee Gafill is a fifth generation California artist and granddaughter of the founders of the Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur and is an artist-member of the Carmel Art Association. Her color-rich oil paintings are exhibited nationally, including several museum shows. Her previous exhibition “Color Duets – Kaffe Fassett and Erin Lee Gafill” with her uncle, internationally renowned designer Kaffe Fassett, was the Monterey Museum of Art’s featured summer show. Currently, Gafill’s work is featured at The Sea Ranch Lodge and is represented locally by Lyndon Design Gallery. In the July slideshow/talk, Gafill will share stories about growing up in Big Sur in the 60’s and 70’s, her encounters with the likes of writers Henry Miller, artists Emile Norman and Edmund Kara, and some of the Hollywood elite of the day including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Kim Novak. Gafill will present almost 100 images tracing her lineage in the arts back to her great-great-grandmother artist Jane Gallatin Powers, one of the founders of Carmel-by-the-Sea and the first artist to have a studio there. Powers won prizes for her plein aire work but found her artistic voice in European Modernism. It was the discovery of these forgotten paintings in a basement in Carmel almost 40 years after Powers’s death that ignited Gafill’s own interest in painting. The artist will also share her experiences of over a decade of painting retreats in Big Sur with her uncle Kaffe Fassett, the lessons she has gleaned from those special contemplative sessions, and how she weaves the threads of her creative and artistic family legacy into her teaching and community work.

For more artistic inspiration, join Erin and Tom for a two day Workshop, “Awaken the Artist Within”, July 21^st and 22^nd at the MGMA. Sign up for this workshop at humboldtarts.org/adult-classes

During this jam-packed two-day workshop you’ll explore a variety of mediums and techniques to find entry into your own creative expression. Together, participants will explore elements of design including line, proportion, texture, value, contrast, and color.

Learn more about Erin Gaffil and her fascinating history during Art Talk at the Morris Graves Museum of Art on Sunday, July 24^th at 2:00 pm!