Ventura County Star


Water inspires Oxnard artist and provides her
subjects, too
By Nicole D'Amore, ndamore@VenturaCountyStar.com
March 10, 2006

Water has always been the backdrop for Susan
Ottevanger's life, and water and the life it supports are
often the subjects of her paintings.

"I am intrigued by the ocean, the tide going in and out, the
patterns and the consistency," Ottevanger said. "But every
day is different," she added.

Two of her paintings of sea life can be seen at the Ventura
County Maritime Museum as part of the International
Society of Maritime Painters' "International Waters Exhibit"
through April 2.

Ottevanger paints in acrylic and watercolor, and most of
her paintings are large format and in brilliant colors.
Looking at her paintings is like looking through a snorkel
mask at the blue depths.

"The subject is the water," she said. "The fish are in it — I
try to get the motion. What's going on with the plants is as
important as the fish," she said. "Why are they these
astounding colors?"

She couldn't live any closer to the ocean. She and her
husband, Michael, live on a 31-foot sailboat, "Talelayo,"
which means "water people" in Inuit, in the Anacapa Isle
Marina in Oxnard.

Although the quarters may be tight, the whole ocean is
their backyard, waiting to be explored.

"I watch the wildlife to see what is a possible painting,"
Ottevanger said. "I try to understand it, celebrate it and
share it." She points out bright orange starfish sunning
themselves on the rocks.

"Many people have only seen starfish in a gift shop," she
said. "The five-star ones are almost human. They come
out on the rocks, get in the strangest positions. Once I
kayaked out to the breaker at Channel Islands Harbor, and
it was just covered with starfish," she said. "They looked
like a garden, like they were rooted there, but the next time
I went out there, there was nothing."

For all her love of the ocean, Ottevanger was born far from
it — in Ann Arbor, Mich. She grew up near woods and a
pond, and her favorite pastime was filling a glass jar with
water from the pond and watching the creatures swimming
around.

"The best times were when we would go to one of the
Great Lakes," she said. She started painting at about 10,
when her grandmother gave her a paint-by-number set.

"I ignored the numbers and just started to paint," she said.

She was fortunate to grow up in a university town where
her high school offered a wide variety of art classes, she
said.

"The best course I ever took was in my last year of high
school, called ¿Creative Thinking,'" she said. "We just
thought out loud in a group of people. You learned to
suspend judgment, you thought laterally rather than
logically," she said.

She studied painting and biology at the University of
Michigan, earning a bachelor of fine arts degree. She
moved to Toronto on Lake Ontario and, putting together
her art and creative thinking skills, started working in a
prop shop, making sea creature puppets for a movie
during the day, painting at night.

She met her husband while taking sailing lessons. They
both hated the winter, and when the opportunity came up
they moved to Miami, on Biscayne Bay.

"I went nuts!" she said. "The parrot fish, the colors, I
couldn't believe it," she said. They lived there for 10 years
until Hurricane Andrew wreaked havoc with the tourism and
film industries, then moved to Seattle. But after two winters
there, they missed the sunshine and came to Southern
California, where they have been for 10 years.

Ottevanger continues to build props and special effects.

"I made the bow for the holiday Lexus commercial, oddball
things like that," she said. "I get these calls, ¿come and
figure out how to do this.' They are never exactly the
same, and you never know if it's going to work. It's
exciting," she said.

Painting can also be a challenge, and she estimates she
throws out five for every painting she keeps.

"This is a battlefield," she said. Once she got mad and
covered a painting with black paint, then added white. "I
thought, this works," she said. "It's like the light coming
through water."

The Maritime Museum is at 2731 S. Victoria Ave. Hours are
11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For information, call 984-6260.
Ottevanger's work can be seen on her Web site: http://www.
seewater.com.