Dave Wescott: A passion for pastels

“It’s really important to me as an artist that I always improve my observations of what I see, which is then reflected in the quality of my art. That sense of ongoing improvement is incredibly satisfying!” – Dave Wescott

By TIM WILCOX
Special to the Alpine Mountaineer

Some artists create their works in carefully lit studios. Others, such as plein air painters and photographers, range far and wide to capture their subjects on site. During warmer months, at least, Dave Wescott favors an umbrella-sheltered table on the deck of his Lake Arrowhead home. It’s an enormously appealing setting overlooking the first fairway of the community’s country club. Coddled plants and tasteful background music complement the setting.

Dave is a well-known and widely collected pastel artist. The medium, originally introduced in the 16^th century, is celebrated for its vibrant colors and versatility. Made from finely ground pigments, pastels come in pencils, color sticks, pebbles and other forms. It’s a drawing medium, obviously, and it allows the artist to create works of exquisite detail.

According to Dave: “My personal journey in art really began with a visit to Santa Fe in the summer of 1995. This changed the direction of artwork I produced, after decades of teaching ‘everything.’ Working with Albert Handell, a nationally recognized pastel artist, I began to discover my own voice adding pastel to watercolors and started producing landscapes for my own pleasure.”

Pressed for more details, he continues: “A lifelong love of travel began with a trip to Greece at age 18, a picnic in the Parthenon and a beach on Mykonos.” Then, reflecting on his incarnation as an admired artist years later, he continues: “Because of the fragile nature of pastel, plein air wasn’t an option while traveling, and I soon realized that photos from these trips would give me an endless array of subject matter. I love the light of New Mexico and the Southwest, the hills of Tuscany and the coast of France, as well as the woods and meadows of Lake Arrowhead and New England.”

Roots in Southern California

Dave was born in Silver Lake, an east-central Los Angeles neighborhood, and grew up as an only child in Van Nuys. His father was a skilled architect/draftsman who helped design everything from warships in Long Beach for the Navy to department stores for Welton Becket, a prominent developer based in Century City.

“My dad’s older brother was a painter, while his younger brother was a professor of art at the University of Georgia, so it’s all on that side of the family,” Dave says of his affinity for art. “But my mom dabbled in watercolor, and I have one of her paintings in my bedroom.”

Dave earned an undergraduate degree in art at U.S. International University in San Diego (now Point Loma Nazarene University), emphasizing student teaching and projecting a career as an elementary school teacher.

“I really wanted to stay in San Diego and teach in one of the city’s schools,” he recalls, “but there were no openings in the early ’70s.”

So he returned home to the San Fernando Valley, intending to find a temporary job. In conversation with his mother, she mentioned a friend who taught school in Lake Arrowhead. With a chuckle Dave shares that he responded, “ ‘Where’s that?’ It just wasn’t on my radar screen at the time. But my mom’s friend told her the district was hiring.”

The upshot of this formative exchange? Dave visited Lake Arrowhead in the summer of ’73 and was hired by the Rim of the World Unified School District to teach elementary students. Later that summer, though, district officials asked if he’d be willing to teach 7^th-grade art at Mary Putnam Henck Intermediate School (MPH). He agreed and, for the next four years, taught his students in a former science classroom, a less-than-ideal but somehow workable setting.

Then in 1978 he took a leave of absence to pursue a master’s degree in art education, requiring district officials to “sign in blood that I’d have my old job when I came back to the mountains.” Armed with a master’s from Cal State Los Angeles, Dave returned to a new classroom at MPH and taught 7^th and 8^th graders there for the next 30 years. During those decades, he had the high privilege of helping to shape the attitudes and aspirations of more than 10,000 students. He was active and influential elsewhere as well.

Pressed again for details, Dave shares that “I was a consultant for the California Department of Education and the Commission for Teacher Credentialing. I also was the director of special programs for the California Arts Project.” So his expertise and influence extended far beyond the western San Bernardino Mountains.

Additionally, in 1992 he was granted a sabbatical by the school district and took an ambitious around-the-world tour focusing on art history. Overseas adventures remain a favorite pastime of this inveterate vagabond.

A fulfilling new chapter

Dave’s next career as a professional artist began when he retired in 2008. Initially, he experimented with watercolors and, extending his aesthetic vision, renewed his preference for pastels. He soon melded the two media, beginning with a watercolor base on 90-pound, hot-pressed paper (lightly textured) and then finishing the piece with his large collection of pastels. As a practical and convenient matter, Dave works from color photos he’s taken himself or that have been captured by others.

“A lot of my pieces are from travel, especially France and Italy,” he says. “I’ve been to both countries umpteen times and always find fascinating new subjects.” Santa Fe, N.M., is another prime destination. Of course, he’s also portrayed numerous local scenes – many of the Village and Lake Arrowhead. One pastel even depicts the lake’s noisy and sometimes aggressive gaggle of geese (familiar to longtime residents) with masterfully rendered breeze-blown ripples of water. Grass Valley and Green Valley lakes are favored subjects as well.

“I take pride in the accuracy of my works, the fine detail and precise coloring,” Dave says. Then, pausing for a moment, he adds, “But they’re not intended to be ‘photorealistic.’ ” Each piece is the artist’s own meticulously rendered interpretation.

Dave became a member of the Mountain Arts Network (MAN) and for several years showed his art at the group’s lakeside gallery. He served on the nonprofit’s board of directors for some seven years, two as president beginning in 2018. He also was a cofounder and debut director of MAN’s Community Arts Center, which is on the lower level of Lake Arrowhead Village, looking west toward the yacht club. Drawing on his years as an art educator and securing grants from many sources (including the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians), he took the lead in establishing workshops for children, adolescents and adults. Significantly, too, the center initiated a program of art for special-needs adults, which continues to be particularly successful.

Today Dave’s pastels are on display and for sale exclusively at The Lake House in Cedar Glen. “Showing at this location is by invitation only,” says Dave, adding that “because I’d resigned from the Mountain Arts board and stepped away from the MAN gallery, I felt it would be a fresh start with a shop that features quality artists from all over Southern California.”

Besides the patronage of collectors and appreciation of other pastel devotees, what does Dave find especially rewarding? He invests some introspective moments before responding: “It’s really important to me as an artist that I always improve my observations of what I see, which is then reflected in my art. That sense of ongoing improvemet is incredibly satisfying!”

For more information and commissions, contact the artist at dpwescott531@gmail.com.