Golden State Jewels

Golden State Jewels gathers small summer paintings of landscapes and objects that quietly define the Golden State: mission walls warmed by afternoon sun, historic gardens, canyon roads, flowering trees, and fruit ripening in summer light. These are not grand landmarks but intimate moments—easily overlooked, yet deeply characteristic of California.

This is the California of memory—the California I longed to come home to: sun-warmed, generous, and luminous, where history, nature, and everyday beauty coexist.

Following The Wash, a series inspired by the Los Angeles River and its concrete channels, these paintings turn from movement and impermanence toward the organic and what endures. They linger over the details that give a place its identity: the curve of an adobe archway, the shade of a garden path, the glow of summer fruit, and the distinctive clarity of California light.

Painted in oil, the works reflect a California that is both cultivated and wild, historic and contemporary. Together they form a portrait of a place shaped by history, light, and affection, capturing not only California itself, but the feeling of belonging to it.