Standing in the front yard of her Carmel Valley home, Beth Jauregui takes a quiet inhale, followed by a softer exhale, and looks at the spectrum of green foliage quivering in the breeze, the riot of color blossoming therein, and the verdant Santa Lucia range in the distance, beneath a summer-blue sky. Grateful for the natural setting in which she lives, and the complement she and her husband, artist and builder David Jauregui, have created in their garden, in this moment, she is busy with being.
An art instructor and educator on the Central Coast for more than 40 years, Jauregui found precious little time to pursue art, apart from what she introduced in the classroom. Yet after retiring from elementary education in 2021, following 30 years at Carmel River School, she picked up a paintbrush.
“Imagine how wonderful it is to wake up to a beautiful morning and come out into the garden to paint, with the sun passing over, shifting shadow and light,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes filled with light. “My painting requires a lot of time, so I could never do it during the school year. Art is always around me, but I couldn’t commune with it.”
She is, now.
A celebration of nature
By the end of 2023, Beth Jauregui had not only been painting; she had published a book. “Paintings from the Edge of the Santa Lucia Mountains: Sharing Environmental Studies Through Art” (Fulton Books) portrays the nature of her daily experiences in Carmel’s river valley, complemented by phrasing that creates a context for each painting.
“Once I retired and started painting in earnest,” she said, “I was amazed by what was coming up for me and all I had to express. Soon I had all these acrylic paintings of the Carmel river valley and wondered what I was going to do with them. Years ago, when I painted, I had connections with art galleries. This time, I decided to put them into a book and started writing. My words form the thread that weaves through the book, creating a storyline among the paintings.”
As her book began to take shape, any time she lacked the imagery to help convey her message, she paused to paint additional pieces to give visual continuity to her words.
Jauregui dedicated her book to all the students she taught over the years, as it was they she thought of while painting.
“In all my years of teaching,” she said, “I had to have a hook to engage my students in what I wanted them to learn. I often found it in a story I would read to them.”
When writing and when painting, Jauregui also looks for a hook, an idea that holds her attention and infuses significance into her work. So, when portraying the sun, she focuses not only on how it lights the garden but also the life force it provides.
“Each landscape study,” she said, “is meant to bring greater understanding of the complex and interrelated parts of how energy from the sun on trees, plants, water, clouds, and air is essential to the health of our living planet.”
Her words, as carefully chosen as her color palette, her brush strokes, her composition, create a poetic rhythm that moves past one painting, carrying her message on to the next.
“Solar energy radiates down through the atmosphere meeting the Pacific Ocean’s coastal landscape along the Monterey Bay. Trees and plants merge into the sunlight, unfolding a spectrum of colors over the landscape in a background of sky …” her text continues. “Together, with the energy of the sun, clouds, water, trees, plants, and air create the healthy development of Earth’s environment needed to sustain life.”
It’s in her nature
Growing up in the High Desert, Beth Jauregui had a special tree in the yard, a Chinese Elm with a swing hanging from a branch, and a sandbox around the base. Kids would come over to climb that tree, swing, and play in the sand. She loves the memory of that tree, which she recalls as she watches the morning light come in through the branches of trees on her Carmel Valley property.
Jauregui studied art among the redwoods in the seaside community of Santa Cruz, graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in two-dimensional art. She began her teaching career in the art department of her alma mater while pursuing her graduate studies, before embarking on a 40-year teaching career on the Central Coast. She always incorporated environmental studies, art, and children’s literature into her curriculum.
Even now, she continues to teach through a book created for children and all the people who will read it to them.
“Readers of all ages,” she said,” are invited to explore the phenomena of sunlight and climate, interacting with the valley’s oak woodlands, native trees, plants, and gardens, through the paintings.”
“Paintings from the Edge of the Santa Lucia Mountains: Sharing Environmental Studies Through Art” is available at River House Books at The Crossroads Carmel and at Pilgrim’s Way Community Bookstore, also in Carmel.
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