A Special Event at Mulberry Gallery for Linda Pope
Join us at Mulberry Gallery Saturday, February 23,
from 1-4:30 p.m. for an art event celebrating Linda Pope
Linda Pope wanted to make Santa Cruz an art destination. And so she did. Linda was brave enough to open the Pope Gallery shortly after the 1989 earthquake. She worked at the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery at UCSC as Director/Curator from 1988 to 2012. Today we get to share her stories about the art scene in Santa Cruz, and especially, her personal art. Join us at Mulberry Gallery, February 23 from 1 – 4:30 PM, for a remarkable afternoon of “Pope Art and Pope Stories”.
Interview With Linda Pope
MG: Tell us a little of how and where you began your journey in the Santa Cruz art community.
LP: In 1935, several newly build structures, including a dance hall, were moved from the vicinity of Capitola Avenue and Stockton Street, and combined with the roller rink to create the Capitola Ballroom. One might say that it was there, at the Capitola Ballroom, my life began…, my father met my mother and the rest is history… my history.
My ART life began when, at age 5, my cousin Jane, who would later become a Watsonville High art teacher, gave me a spectacular set of colored pencils and a drawing pad. From then on I thought I was an artist. But my parents always said that I could not be an artist until I could afford to support myself.
I worked for United Air Lines for eleven years, saw many parts of the world, got married, gave birth to two sons, got divorced and went back to school. I took art classes. Eventually, at UCSC, I graduated with a BA in Fine Arts.
Plans can change. I started out to be a full time artist but in my last year at UCSC I was asked to take over the reins of the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery at Cowell College, UCSC. That set me on a different path, one that took me on a twenty three year journey in the service of ART, rather than in the creation of art. While I accepted that different path with enthusiasm, I still looked longingly down that other road.
MG: Can you share some of your favorite times during your Smith Gallery years?
LP: In my last year at the UCSC Smith Gallery, Provost Fay Crosby was instrumental in finding funding for an exhibit I had long wanted to present, “Origami: Art + Mathematics”. The exhibit opened in April of 2012 and featured internationally known origami artist David Lang. We had visitors of all ages and from all over California. During this ten week exhibit 5,041 people attended the exhibit. This was the largest attendance of my gallery career!
Roy Rydell was a local aficionado of the arts, a landscape architect and creator of the wonderful Santa Cruz Garden Mall that existed before the earthquake. When Roy passed away, I found out that he had named me responsible for selling his art collection. What an honor to handle the ancient Chinese and Japanese ceramics, his collection of rare Oriental and Renaissance fabrics and many other antiques. They were sold to benefit the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. This helped establish the Frances and Roy Rydell Foundation at the CFSCC which awards $20,000 to individual artists in Santa Cruz County every 4 years. “The Cultivated Life: Roy and Frances Rydell – A Memorial Exhibit”, was presented at the Smith in 2001. In the exhibit, I tried to replicate the feeling of his home, in color and objects and his own work. I think Roy would have been pleased.
MG: Can you tell us a little of your Pope Gallery years?
LP: I opened the Pope Gallery in hopes of making Santa Cruz an art destination. It was just beginning to happen when the landlord of the building more than doubled my rent and I had to close. There were great exhibits and well attended openings. We did sell a lot of art, but not enough to keep the gallery open with that large rent increase. I think of it as a bright and shining moment in the history of art in Santa Cruz County, when the city of Santa Cruz had a real professional gallery. C’ est la vie!
MG: Give us a little sample of your artwork during those Pope Gallery and Smith Gallery years.
I was once deeply into photography, with my own darkroom in a small closet off my kitchen when I lived in San Francisco in the early 70’s. I photographed this musician, and then solarized it in the darkroom. I love the musician, and the results. It reminds me of some of the psychedelic album covers from the same era, only this musician is playing a Renaissance instrument – the viola da gamba.
Don was one of my favorite professors. After I graduated we became friends and when I suggested we work together on a small book of his witty haiku and his mono types, he agreed. The exhibit at the Smith Gallery was titled “Don Weygandt: 30 Years of Painting and Drawing.” Don inspired me to try haiku, too.
Vase, pitcher, pot, bowl
Investigation of form
Weygandt monotypes
Taken on the occasion of art collector and superb party hostess, Patricia Lindgren’s 70th birthday party, and also celebrating her purchase of the Rydell House in Bonnie Doon. The setting had limited light, but I liked the ambience of the photo. I chose to further blur the faces and accented the attire of Ofelia, Cheryl and Lee, all local Santa Cruzans.
