Art on the Lane, a fine art gallery, working studio and art school in the heart of downtown Danville, is an exquisite educational and holistic art school, where resident artists and college-trained art teachers exhibit cityscapes, local landscapes, seascapes, floral, equestrian art, portraits, handcrafted jewelry and resin-based works of art. Art classes are available at the studio for all experience levels and ages. Highly qualified and trained, practicing artists teach and work in various mediums including watercolor, oil, acrylic and drawing.
I admired the beautiful paintings and artwork in the Art on the Lanestudio, stepped inside, and introduced myself to one of the owners, Barbara Davies. We chatted for a while about the gorgeous paintings on the walls of her studio. Eventually we shared our stories of how learning about and experimenting in our respective fields in the arts changed our entire life paths. As a youngster, Barbara said that two things stood out as early passions in her life, art and horses.
Even though art was her primary passion, she fully realized that a career in art was a difficult path to financial success. Being both a smart and sensitive woman, she enrolled in college where she earned a degree in computer science. She worked in the high-tech industry for approximately 18 years. However, her love of art was still constantly beating an artful cadence in the back of her mind where the original passion persisted, frequently reminding her how much she loved and missed painting. She continued to paint in what little spare time she had left at the end of the day, but after many years of supporting herself in a far less rewarding environment, she decided she’d had enough. She subsequently quit her job and went back to school, graduating from the California College of Arts in Oakland California with a degree in painting and illustration. She then decided to add another year to the process in order to obtain the highly coveted CLAD credential (cross-cultural it’s talking Language and Academic Development Certificate), which is a cross cultural teaching credential. Barbara is credentialed to teach children in grades K-12, which has allowed her to teach art in the San Ramon unified school district for seven years. She then decided to rent her first commercial space to begin teaching her own classes for both adults and children. She teaches children and adult classes each week, on Thursdays. She limits her teaching classes to one day a week so that she can continue to produce the personal art that she loves most, work of her own, which she sells in her studio. The ages in the children’s art classes range between nine and 16. She dearly loves what she does now and it has worked out very well for her.
Barbara and I soon realized that we both have witnessed the joy, excitement, and personal growth that people have experienced through their work in art. She shared with me that she had a young student with serious ambulatory issues who started taking classes from her at about age 10 and stopped working with her when she was about age 17. Today this young lady is gainfully and happily employed, working for Walt Disney Studios.
Then, there was another young lady who was extremely shy, in fact so much so that she couldn’t even look you eye-to-eye when she was talking with you. She took Barbara’s art classes over several years, subsequently went to college in England, and now is fully engaged in drama writing and art.
Also, when Barbara worked at Rancho Romero school in San Ramon, she had one boy who was mainstreamed into the regular classroom even though he was dealing with a very high rating on the autism scale. He couldn’t even communicate verbally with his parents or anyone else. When Barbara came into his classroom to conduct the art class, his whole face lit up and he would become very animated. One day, Barbara walked into the classroom with a big picture book of Van Gogh’s paintings. At the end of the class on that particular day, he made it very clear to Miss Davies that he “really” wanted the book, so she gave it to him. He took it back to his desk and before long, he returned to her having made the most amazing “Starry Night” painting, although, upside down on the paper. It wasn’t until Barbara turned the picture upside-down again to look at it, that she figured out what a marvelous thing the young man had done. His parents were absolutely overjoyed at seeing this work. Barbara added, “in fact, a lot of the parents who come into the class tell me that they bring their children to the art classes as sort of an antidote to what’s going on in our society today.” “You see,” says instructor Davies, “art can be really transformative to young people and adults. Yes, art is just so important!”
This past week I sat in on the six-member morning class. For class-member Debbie, her forthcoming image of the Big Sur will be the object of her painter’s eye. Melanie is capturing a beautiful sunset patio on a lake surrounded with Wisteria. Gina was capturing the beauty of a lotus blossom and Donna was creating an impressionistic landscape. Debra, whose husband is an avid “precious metal” enthusiast (i.e.: classic car collector) is painting something very special for him as a birthday gift. During the afternoon student youth class, I met several talented young artists, including Vivian, who was creating a beautiful mountain waterfall. A couple of days later I managed to catch up with her good friend and fellow “Art on the Lane” classmate, Alexa, who was painting a beautiful and somewhat abstract mountain scene while standing in the lush green grassy knolls of Danville’s Oak Hill Park. In the back of the studio, Elizabeth worked on a colorful acrylic “abstract pouring” piece of art, as did Celine, and twins, Karina and Valerie. A day earlier, Sasha was found creating an ocean scenario, and Addison was painting a lovely lighthouse landscape.
All in all, this is a fantastic class in a close knit, loving, supportive and fulfilling teaching environment.
If you’d like to investigate your artistic abilities and ambitions, call (925) 683-0120 and ask for Barbara Davies, or email bdaviesart@gamil.com. Art on the Lane, 124 Prospect Ave., Danville, California 94526. On the web at bdaviesart.com
Author’s correction: My article last month listed an incorrect web address. The correct address is https://colorbundles.com
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