A Madonna and Child Reunion

Mary Michel, a longtime Ventura County resident and artist, is known for creating large floral paintings in acrylic and for the Madonna-and-Child images that have graced her Christmas cards for more than 30 years.

An exhibit of her work opened Dec. 13 at the Ventura County Museum of History and Art. It is her first solo effort at the museum, said curator Tim Schiffer, one that is long overdue.

“Everybody feels like she should be recognized for what she’s done,” Schiffer said--not only artistically, but “for what she’s contributed back to the community.”

In addition to her artwork, Michel is known for her generosity as a teacher and as an artist. She has donated prints and other works to numerous organizations, and she has judged local art competitions.

During her 20-plus years as a teacher at Ventura College, where she worked until 1989, she served as a mentor to many students.

Michel produces large acrylic paintings, often of floral subjects, and serigraphs--artist’s prints made on silk-screens--of the Mother and Child.

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“I really like enough realism so I can communicate with the viewer,” she said.

Most of her work is commissioned. She goes into people’s homes and looks at the environment and lighting so “it will be a happy marriage between the piece and the people and will continually educate them,” she said. Her clients give her complete creative license.

Most artists, she said, have disdain for “painting a particular piece for a particular spot--or a particular sofa. I don’t have that. I just go at it from another angle.”

It was more than 30 years ago that Michel created the first of her Madonna-and-Child serigraphs for her annual Christmas card. Things took off from there, and now she sends between 350 and 500 of the cards each year. Although she offers some for sale, the majority are shared with friends and family.

“I do a different one each year,” Michel said.

At various times she has tried to convince herself that she doesn’t need to send them, but as Christmas draws near, she said, “It feels as though something is missing if I don’t send these out, so I keep on sending them.”

This year’s image, called “Heavenly Light,” shows the Madonna and Child in simple shapes and in bold shades of navy, magenta, gold and touches of green.

To get what she calls the “essence” of her subject, Michel sketches an image until she can abandon the detail in the drawing and reduce it to a shape. She then chooses a color palette and applies an extremely thin, nearly transparent layer of paint to achieve the desired effect.

Knowing the colors beforehand is essential, because in serigraphy, she explained, colors are layered--one at a time, one print at a time--to achieve a multihued effect.

“It took a long time for me to get the softness” of color, she said. “It’s a difficult and time-consuming process. But you get used to having patience enough; you get excited about what the results are going to be. It carries you through.”

Educated at the University of Minnesota, Michel said she ran her own fashion ad agency for a time before moving to California with her husband, Don. The couple have four children.

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Michel worked as a commercial illustrator and owned a fashion business with her husband before starting her current career. Time, persistence and teaching, she said, have helped her define herself and her art.

Her exhibit at the museum can be seen through Feb. 14. The museum is at 100 E. Main St., Ventura, and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

For information, call 653-0323.