Artist Inspires Laguna Blanca Students

Blackmore is also a very distinguished artist, with her pieces of art being sold at galleries and displayed in museums all over the country. Large-scale installations of her artwork hanging in fancy hotels all over the world.

Luckily Laguna Blanca, where her children attend school, will benefit from Blackmore’s talents in two ways this month: she donated her time working with early kindergarten through fourth grade children to create giant pieces of student art worthy of hanging on the wall, and she donated a piece of her artwork to the school, all of which will be auctioned off at the Laguna gala on Saturday, Feb. 27, at the Bacara Resort & Spa. Funds raised at the gala will go towards classroom improvements, professional development and enriched programming at Laguna, an early kindergarten through 12th grade college preparatory school with campuses in Montecito and Hope Ranch.

The donated piece of Blackmore’s work, called “Nerissa Amphitrite,” features her unconventional approach to reverse painting on glass. Abstract in style, it measures 40 inches high by 40 inches wide, and includes shades of blue, green and yellow.

“She has a true following – she really is unique,” said Ginni Drier, a Santa Barbara art collector who owns seven pieces of Blackmore’s work in addition to works by famous artists like Andy Warhol. “If you walked into my house, you would think she was the most famous artist in the world. I love her work!”

Blackmore is widely recognized for her pioneering style, in which she paints in reverse on glass, then shatters the glass and puts it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. The average piece of her artwork in a private collection (as opposed to huge commissioned pieces in hotels) sells in the range of $7,500 to $30,000. Her husband, Jon Blackmore, manages the sale of her artwork and the galleries they own in San Francisco, Seattle, Carmel and now Santa Barbara.

“We focus 100 percent on art – it’s a miracle,” said Blackmore of her work with her husband. “That’s why I’m working with the kids. I’m less interested in teaching them technique and more interested in inspiring them – that sometimes can be the missing link. It’s important to help them get a spark going.”

Born in California, Blackmore was the child of hippies who moved the family to a remote farm in Oregon, where they lived in a barn and became totally self-sufficient, doing such things as making their own flour and digging their own well. “My art is very process oriented, which is a reflection of the way I grew up,” she said. “We had to be very creative living off the land. Everything had a process, and creativity was integral to existing.”

At age 17, she left home to become the first person in her family to graduate from college. She eventually won a scholarship to the prestigious Pilchuck Glass School near Seattle, which was founded by famous glass artist Dale Chihuly in 1971.

Blackmore said that her art is inspired by her own difficult journey growing up. She had severe dyslexia, which was not well understood at the time, so she was always labeled “the slow kid,” she said. “I was always wondering why I wasn’t like the other students even though I tried so hard.” But it turns out that dyslexia contributes to what makes her paintings so special. “Reverse painting came naturally to me because it was visualizing a composition in reverse, just as letters and numbers are often flipped with dyslexia,” she said.

Other Laguna parents see Blackmore’s story as an inspiration. “I fell in love with her story. It seriously struck a chord with me,” said Cynthia McClintock, the Laguna gala chair. “It’s such a great message to show children that what we sometimes think of as a disability can turn out to be a gift.”

Blackmore’s art studio and gallery are on the first floor of a 1907 building near West Beach that was built by artists and remarkably was the place that famous artist Diego Rivera painted his well-known “Firestone Self-Portrait.” Her family, which in addition to her husband includes her children, Leona, 8, and Orion, 11, live on the second floor.

Blackmore’s work is already well known within the Laguna community – she is currently working on three commissioned pieces – so school officials expect a bidding frenzy over the Blackmore-inspired student artwork at the gala on Saturday night. Who will be the lucky winner? Laguna Blanca students and teachers!

For more information about Blackmore’s work, see her website, cassandriablackmore.com.