The Lighthouse Lecture Series Features Lauren Sinnott At the Point Arena Lighthouse January 21
The Lighthouse Lecture Series at the Point Arena Lighthouse in January features Lauren Sinnott presenting “A working artist’s life and how one magic intersection birthed a living-history mural painting full of portraits of people you know!” The lecture will be presented on Saturday, January 21 at 4:00pm in the Fog Signal Building Museum, 45500 Lighthouse Road just north of Point Arena. Admission is $5.
Sinnott is an artist, historian and former politician who loves western boots. It all started in Wisconsin’s dairyland, where she was raised by an artist mother and poet father. Her mom supported them on graphic design, and as a toddler she worked at a little table alongside her. Their house was filled with paintings and books. It was the Age of Aquarius and she knew she was supposed to be at Woodstock, but it was impossible. She was ten. Her senior year was spent as an AFS exchange student in Belgium, speaking only French and learning to take class notes in perfect outline form. She discovered the art of conversation, four-hundred year old homes and good coffee. At Rice University in wonderfully hot Houston, Lauren earned a BA in Art and French, a BFA in painting, and an MA in Art History. The subject of her thesis was a stroke of luck, a mysterious depiction of two men from Renaissance Venice, which is likely a double portrait of the famous artist Giovanni Bellini, together with his long-time assistant who painted the panel and may have been his lover.
In 1999, she and her young sons left Texas and headed west in a school bus outfitted with beds and a woodstove. They lived in their bus on the ridge for a year. When they moved into Point Arena, she paid the mortgage with jobs ranging from business signs to ornate murals, from tombstone design to painting a high school mascot on the basketball court floor. Lauren sewed a life-size torso with female reproductive parts for a doctor and created the Velvet Vulva line of purses for feminists, therapists and brides. She painted curbs and hemmed pants. The house was teeming with the boys and friends, and yes, it is full of paintings and books.
Her career crown jewel, the huge historical narrative mural on the north wall of the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, is the result of these threads interweaving. Lauren used all her fine art training, knowledge of narrative art through the centuries, and experience as Point Arena City Council member and Mayor. This is a public work for everyone and about everyone. It contains over 200 portraits, and tells many stories of people who live here now.
But how it came about has to do with a particular intersection and how life and art entwine. The presentation tells that story, beginning with a baby saying goodnight to the Capital before bed. It contains an edible portrait, a marriage proposal, and art as a way to get through loss, tell the truth, honor its subject, and keep memory alive. See the whole project at historymural.com.
Information about all Lighthouse events is at PointArenaLighthouse.com.
Image: Baby Aiya admiring Sinnot's work at Ukiah Valley Conference Center.
