Artists Find Canyon Is Picture Perfect

In the 1940s, Ansel Adams’ majestic photographs of Yosemite National Park were used to help sell a skeptical public on the national park system and the value of open space.

On Tuesday, watercolor artist Norman Kirk, 69, was trying to do the same thing--albeit on a much smaller scale--when he sat down by a creek to paint one of the hundreds of oak trees that grow wild in Palo Comado Canyon, just east of Agoura Hills near the Ventura County line.

“I certainly wouldn’t compare myself to Ansel Adams or any of the other artists who brought the beauty of national parks to the public eye, but anything that helps encourage people to get out here is positive,” the Ventura College art instructor said.

After years of sometimes tense negotiations, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in June bought the 2,308-acre area, formerly known as Jordan Ranch, from entertainer Bob Hope, saving it from development as a housing tract and golf course.

In turn, the conservancy sold the land to the National Park Service, which is trying to get the word out that the land, formerly the domain of cows, is open to the public. The official opening will be Oct. 31, when the works of Kirk and other artists will be displayed.

“We’re always trying to figure out ways to promote the parks, but because this one is so new, it is especially important,” said Garrie Mar, the conservancy’s director of development.

“People in Los Angeles don’t know we have this kind of open space,” Mar said. “But when we exhibit the artists’ work, people will see it and hopefully that will generate interest.”

Conservationists had coveted the land because they say it is an important corridor that allows wildlife to move between the Simi Hills and the Los Padres and Angeles National forests.

Now that it is in the public domain, the handful of painters and photographers who showed up Thursday for what the Conservancy and Park Service called a “Paint-Out” were free to use the area’s stately old oaks, golden grass, purple sage and gently rolling hills as subjects and backdrops for their art.

While contemplating just the right hues of brown and black to duplicate the texture of a nearby oak tree limb in watercolors, Kirk’s wife, Jo Ann, talked about the serene surroundings.

‘It’s nice because it’s an undeveloped area where we wouldn’t be bothered by a lot of distractions,” she said.