Linking art to the past

Young Chang

Tell Alexa Alexander that a place or a tradition will no longer be

-- that it might get discontinued or demolished or that people are

talking about doing something along those dooming lines -- and

that’ll be enough to get the Newport Coast artist painting.

Last year, when she learned that the Newport Beach boat parade

route would get shortened as of this winter and that the longtime

holiday tradition would now last five days instead of seven, she

picked up her canvas and oils and went out to the water and started

painting.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s part of Newport Beach history,’”

Alexander said.

She’s done the same for a buffalo ranch that used to be on

MacArthur Boulevard.

She’s working now on sketches of the Lion’s Club Fish Fry, which

is no longer a Costa Mesa tradition. She said she used to go to it

for years and years. She said she has a vision of the memory that she

wants to get down on canvas.

Most of her images make a second jump -- from her canvases onto

the covers of cards.

Two months ago, Alexander started selling her cards to area

stores. About 15 Newport-Mesa venues have bought her work. Recent

purchasers include the Marriott Villas in Newport Coast as well as

stationery stores in the community. Her sole Northern California

business, Pomegranate Publishing Co. in Sonoma County, recently

signed a deal to sell her Christmas cards in 2003.

Matt Keto, an employee at Francis-Orr Fine Stationery in Corona

del Mar, said Alexander’s cards offer something different from the

image Newport Beach typically promotes.

“This area comes off so often as so sophisticated and high end,”

Keto said. “But her cards have more of a sweet nature to them that a

lot of the other cards miss.”

Everything is done in what Alexander calls the “primitive” style.

“It’s sort of like Grandma Moses or other primitive painters,”

said the artist, who was recently hired as an art teacher at Corona

del Mar High School. “It has an old-fashioned, historical feeling

about it and it’s not threatening. People like looking at my work and

they don’t feel I’m making any big statements or that I have to

explain.”

Alexander will only paint what were once real slices of life. Most

often, it’s a slice of California life. About a third of her work is

of places and events in Newport-Mesa.

“I look around and if I see something that I feel I need to record

because I’m sort of interested in the history of it, then I end up

painting it,” Alexander said. “My art is saying this is how it was

this day or 20 years ago, but definitely at some place in time.”

She’s painted the fireworks show at Castaway Restaurant, the Dory

Fishermen, the Crab Cooker, the harbor entrance channel, orange

groves that are no longer here, farms that are now buildings, local

oceans and even a scene involving umbrellas at Big Corona Beach.

“I feel almost obligated to paint these paintings,” said

Alexander, who is also a history buff.

A quick scan of her bookshelf at home reveals 10 volumes of the

“Macaulay’s History of England,” a hardcover of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”

a book on Adolf Hitler and volumes 1 through 6 of Winston S.

Churchill’s “The Second World War.”

“I love history,” she said. “It gives me a connection.”

Gesturing to the artfully cluttered studio around her, Alexander

said she wants to play a part in connecting the past to the present.

“I feel that if I do this, it links us,” she said.

Alexander, though happy about her large hometown following, has

also exhibited around the country at venues including the San Diego

Museum of Art. She has also commissioned paintings to the Capistrano

Mission, the Belvedere Winery and other businesses.

A common response to her paintings and her cards from buyers is

that they make them “happy.”

“They’ll say, ‘I remember that place,’ ‘I remember that ocean,’ ‘I

remember that happened to me,’” Alexander said. The works “bring back

memories for them and they’re usually glad ones.”

Keto added that both Alexander’s everyday cards as well as

Christmas cards afford more than just a close-to-home feel.

“They’re popular images, but here’s a little different take on

them,” he said.