Descanso highlights local artists

To watch sculptor/ceramist David Gilbaugh create, one might think he’s involved in an anger management course. The 51-year-old La Crescenta poet, photographer and artist grabs a handful of clay and slams it on the table, allowing the material to mold itself. Then he pushes and pulls with dowels at the natural indentations to “bulge it out” and make knots, crevasses, or holes.

Days — or in some cases weeks — later Gilbaugh has added his own artistic touches and formed a sculptural piece unlike any found in nature — and yet, resembling materials of which the clay has no relation.

Gilbaugh calls his art form “trompe l’oeil,” which means, in French, it fools the eye. It’s also a kind of “bio-morphic, organic and rustic art,” an art form worthy of its own label, he said.

“These are not techniques I was ever taught; I couldn’t find anyone to show me how to do this,” Gilbaugh said.

However, Gilbaugh isn’t untrained. He’s studied in numerous art and ceramics courses in colleges and community programs, and has incorporated a bit of his various teachers’ skills and creativity to evolve his own craft.

Gilbaugh is one of five artists and ceramists featured at the Descanso Gardens’ Carriage House Art Gallery now through Sept. 18. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and a reception with the artists is scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m., this Sunday (Aug. 31).

Also featured are: Karen Winters, of La Cañada; Laura Wambsgans, of Santa Clarita; Alyce Cox, of Montrose; and Don Siminski, of La Crescenta. Each of the five artists is displaying 25 of their art pieces.

This is Winters and Wambsgans’ third- time to show their art at the Descanso gallery. The two women share a passion for recreating on paper what their eyes behold. Influenced by the California impressionists, the women each paint in natural to bold colors, capturing with almost camera-like precision the local landscape’s tranquil beauty, shadows and light.

Wambsgans said her favorite artwork in the exhibit is a tree portrait by Winters titled “Tower of Strength.” The piece captures the magnificence of the branches and leaves, as well as the colors and texture of the tree’s bark.

“Painting a tree is like doing a portrait of a person, they all have their own character; it’s not a generic tree,” Winters said.