Nipomo Project

" Nipomo Vista"

12" x 16" Oil on canvas

I was one of 12 artists asked to participate in an event sponsored by the Dana Adobe in Nipomo. They asked the artists to paint a scene of Nipomo past or present. I opted for the present but had a great time researching the town of Nipomo. It seems one of the most famous images out of the depression was photographed there by photographer Dorothea Lange. This is Mrs Lange posing on her car with her big box camera......
The pic she took while stopping in a farm workers camp was known as "Migrant Mother"...you might recognize it....
Lange took a group of photos of this woman and her children. One of them included the tent and some background where she was at while waiting for their car to be repaired on their way to Oregon.

Here is a pic of nipomo today with the same eucalyptus trees in the background...as you can see this area hasn't changed much....

These eucalyptus trees provided shade and a place to camp while working the farm fields of Nipomo. From this shot below you can see some of the pea pickers with the hills of nipomo directly behind them. At the time Dorothea Lange stopped it was because she had saw a sign that read "Pea Pickers Camp".

Anyway....I like history, especially local history! My grandma & grandpa broke horses and picked pecans during the Depression in Oklahoma and Texas. They met at a dance on a saturday night for the pickers...That was a tough bunch of people who made it through that. Next time you sit down to have a fancy coffee drink at Starbucks just think about what some of those people went through....just to survive.