Art and stroll

Chula Vistan Jon Barnes moved to San Diego from New Jersey 13 years ago to play beach volleyball and ended up becoming a computer software engineer and a fine-art photographer.

Several of his poignant landscape portraits will be on sale/display at Mission Federal ArtWalk April 29-30 in Little Italy. The 17-block-wide event features more than 350 local, national and international artists participating in a free two-day art festival with live entertainment, food and drinks.

Born into an artistic family, his great-grandmother did hundreds of paintings, Barnes said her spirit has carried over to other family members.

He noted his mother has “really” taken art to the next level, “being published for her work several times, as well as having her paintings hung in several Philadelphia area and New Jersey shore galleries.”

Barnes credited friend Dan Cleary, whom he traveled with cross-country, for his photographic “conversion.”

“We shot about 20 rolls of 35mm film on the way out,” noted Barnes, who’d sold his home and came to San Diego to stay with his sister until he found a job. “A year or two later I bought a nice Nikon digital camera.”

Barnes’ and Cleary’s photographic cross-country odyssey inspired Barnes’ stylistic genre: landscapes.

“I like shooting ocean seascapes, landscapes with sunsets and cliffs,” said Barnes, whose work is currently on display at Sparks Gallery in the Gaslamp Quarter.

Barnes prints his fine-art photography “mostly on aluminum.”

“It’s a different finish than glossy or matte, and really just gives a luminescence that jumps out,” he said. “The colors really pop. I was one of the first people to do that with aluminum, and now it’s really grown.”
Barnes, the father of a 2-year-old daughter, goes on annual photo shoots to scenic locales, like Utah or the rolling hills of South Dakota, to capture inspiring natural landscapes.

“There’s so much to draw inspiration from — there’s so much out there,” he pointed out.

The professional photographer does art walks, like Mission Federal’s in Little Italy, because “its fun, as well as the exposure I can get.”

Though he’s done several other art walks, Barnes said Mission Federal’s “is special.”

“It’s one of the biggest art events in San Diego,” he said. “You get lots of passersby. I really like that.”

Barnes said he’ll be offering framed aluminum prints for sale in various sizes that are signed and numbered and come with a certificate of authenticity.

“I just like to share,” said Barnes of his photographic work and why he does it.

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Tijuana native and stay-at-home mom Czarina Scolari found her passion as a painter in-between taking care of her four children.

“I knew once I started — I wasn’t going to be able to stop, so I held off until they (kids) were older,” said Scolari who’s novel first name derives from “an eccentric grandmother” who liked the moniker, which has since trickled down to other family members.

Scolari’s impressionistic paintings will be on sale/display at Mission Federal ArtWalk April 29-30 in Little Italy. The 17-block-wide event features more than 350 local, national and international artists participating in a free two-day art festival with live entertainment, food and drinks.

Eyes are a focal point of the art of Scolari, who has a background in fashion design and has “always liked painting and drawing. It kind of evolved from there, drawing little body figures in dresses to more facial expressions.”
Scolari talked about her affinity for eyes.

“My inspiration comes from my children,” she said. “They have pretty much every color of eyes — green, hazel, gray steel and light blue. I started with that.”

Asked about the symbolism of eyes, Czarina said, “They’re the window to your soul. When you look into someone’s eyes you can see a lot.”

Discussing one of her impressionistic portraits named “Under My Skin,” Scolari noted there’s a half-black face, whose other half looks like “somebody just splashed white paint in her face.”

The artist notes this quality in her work has “a touch of pop art.”

“I paint whatever pops into my mind at the moment,” said Scolari noting she starts with eyes on a blank canvas then manipulates other facial features.

“I do big hair, big eyes, big mouths,” she said.

Her paintings feature another artistic quirk.

“My paintings always have one earring,” she said explaining that’s partly because “I was told when I was little, ‘You’re not dressed properly if you forget to wear your earrings.’ ”

“I work on one painting at a time,” she said. “That way, my head doesn’t get cluttered with too many ideas.”