Ojai Valley from Thacher School
Paul Gavin, CdeP 1971 Oil on canvas, 24" x 36", 2007 Painted in oil on location and in studio.
Original available. Contact the artist.
Thacher’s Outdoor Chapel provides one of the best views of the beautiful Ojai Valley. Students come here to enjoy the view or “get away” while adults visit the chapel to “look back” and remember. At the valley's edge in golden sunlight or during the "Pink Moment" we contemplate, immersed in fragrances of sumac, sages, citrus, sycamores and horses and serenaded by the Thacher “soundtrack” of horses, athletic teams, barking dogs, voices echoing within the dorms, the “Walker” and later frogs and crickets. All of this is little changed since our days here.
From a Fall 1988 Thacher News article about his Thacher Centennial Painting: Paul said, "Thacher was an inspiration on its own. It is rugged, and very colorful in obvious and subtle ways. In addition to being physically beautiful, Thacher symbolized dreams that could not only be dreamt, but could be accomplished as well. It is a personal school, with a history that someone like myself could relate to and share.” Paul believes that while at Thacher he was gathering impressions: “Breathing the air up there after a rain or smelling a wood fire, hearing the wind blow through the 'Coniferous Bosque' or just listening to Horn Creek; those things open the senses, make you aesthetically aware. My vision of what I wanted to accomplish always seemed so far off from what I could actually do that I hated to try. So while at Thacher, trying to capture the beauty of the School and the valley was a frustrating experience". He has also painted the Old Dining Hall. He's glad he stuck with it.
Each canvas giclee is custom printed, stretched and enhanced by the artist when ordered. If a gift or even if for yourself if you would like an inscription on the back please let us know. Allow 2-3 weeks for production. Shipping is calculated separately.
Gallery Wrap and Custom Framing available. Contact us for pricing.
Custom larger sizes are also available.
If you have a story or memory to share about the outdoor chapel please let us know via "Contact Us".
More about the Artist: Paul has a strong connection with Ojai and Ventura county. A 7th generation Californian through his family of Ventura County farmers and a Santa Paula rancher, hIs father’s mother grew up at the eastern end of Ventura Avenue, began teaching at San Antonio School in 1917 and told of Sherman Day Thacher inviting her students up to Thacher to play tennis. She later married and moved to Ojai where Paul’s father grew up and went to Villanova Prep where after WWII at a Villanova Prep social event he met his future wife and Paul’s mom. They married and after living in Northern California for a short while they brought their growing family back to Southern California. Paul and his brothers and sisters grew up spending most weekends and summers with their grandparents in Ojai and at the Ferndale Ranch in Santa Paula and he was also fortunate enough to attend Thacher where he fully enjoyed and appreciated the “Place”. Through the years he was thoroughly imbued with Ventura County’s unique and magical physical geography from the mountains to the sea and enjoys expressing it through the paintings of the area and he still drives his 1951 Ford Pickup he got from Ferndale Ranch, license plate 51 ARTRK.