O'NEALS -- It's amazing what crossing a cattle guard can do to your state of mind. Here you are on a perfectly ordinary mountain road, zooming along with your big-city concerns, and then you drive across those thin metal grates. It's like passing a border into a slightly different world. Suddenly the road seems a little dustier, the terrain a little bumpier, the wildflowers a little more wild.
Such is the experience when visiting the gorgeous mountain studio retreat of sculptor Lucy Hunt-Pierson, one of more than 90 artists participating in the seventh annual Sierra Art Trails.
The event, which unfolds Saturday and Sunday across the foothills of eastern Madera and Mariposa counties, is a chance to get up close and personal with some of the most fascinating and creative people you'll meet in these artist-choked hills.
Hunt-Pierson's stop on the Sierra Art Trails tour is a little more remote than most. And she's the only artist featured at that stop, which makes her location a little different from most of the other sites that clump together several participants.
But there's a strong payoff for negotiating those two and a half miles of bumpy dirt road off Road 200, which lead you into a little valley nestled along Finegold Creek in the hills of O'Neals, on the road from Fresno to North Fork.
Hunt-Pierson walks around her Sierra Nevada foothills home, one of the studios in the lineup of this year’s Sierra Art Trails.
A nearly 6-foot-tall bronze sculpture titled “Believing” is an attention-getter at Lucy Hunt-Pierson’s home
Hunt-Pierson, who sculpts exclusively in bronze, plans to greet visitors in her spectacular living room, which is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the 162 3/4 acres that she and her husband, Bobby, own. Alongside the massive stone fireplace that dominates the room, she'll show a number of her large-scale pieces. And she'll have a display set up to walk folks through the complicated process of creating bronze works -- all the way from the first steps of molding the Plasticine clay on a metal armature support to cutting, grinding and smoothing the casting.
She also plans to show visitors her workshop, where she does some of the more heavy-duty on-site tasks involved in the bronzing process. (You can also check out her husband's amazingly scenic pool table and collection of vintage record albums.)
The sculptor, who earned an art degree at California State University, Fresno, in the 1970s, focuses on figurative and representational work with "an occasional twist of fantasy," she says. She's been particularly successful selling her pieces in Carmel galleries.
There's a sense of floating -- of defying gravity -- in many of her works, a quality that gives the sculptures a grace and lightness that belies the fact that some weigh more than 200 pounds. (You can see examples of her work at lucyhuntpierson.com.) In her "Believing," a woman in a flowing cape rides a tautly muscled horse along a wave that spouts up from swirling vortex of water. There's a feel of forward-driving momentum and confidence even as the woman soars into the unknown.
Horses play a prominent role in some of her works but not other animals -- which is interesting because she considers herself an "animal person."
"I love cats," she says, stroking her golden Manx named Sunshine, who yawns and stretches contentedly in her lap. "Maybe someday."
She offers a piece of the clay that she uses to initiate a sculpture, and one touch confirms the material's tactile appeal. It's remarkable to think that this inert but pliable substance can be shaped into a form that captures movement, emotion and, well, life.
The privilege for an observer is to make the connection between artist and the work itself -- and to experience the environment in which it's made. That's one of the advantages of an open-studio tour such as Sierra Art Trails. This is the first time Hunt-Pierson has opened her home to the public, and she's excited about connecting with art lovers.
"The bumpy ride will be worth it," she says.
If you go
*What: Sierra Art Trails
*When: 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
*Where: Various locations in eastern Madera and Mariposa counties
*Tickets: The $18 catalog serves as your ticket (good for 2) and map to more than 90 artists. Catalogs are available at retail locations listed at sierraart trails.org and at Stellar Gallery, 40982 Hwy 41, Oakhurst.
*Details: sierraart trails.org, (559) 658-8844
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