by Mary Knippel

What happens when a housewife is mentored by a legendary artist? Well, magic happens when the housewife is Patricia Keefe and the legendary artist is Galen Wolf. “If hadn’t been for Galen,” Keefe said as we stood among her paintings, sculpture and pottery at the Coastal Arts League on Half Moon Bay’s Main Street, “I wouldn’t have done it. He gave me the confidence. He was a wonderful, gentle man with a real sense of art.” A San Francisco native, Keefe spent every Sunday afternoon as a child in a museum. “I played with paper dolls,” she said, “and crayons were big, but I never aspired to this.” 

Wolf continued to paint until late in life, when he was a “fragile gentleman,” Keefe said. “I think making art kept him young, and kept his mind active.”

When Keefe’s children started school, a friend encouraged her to call that old gentleman in Half Moon Bay to see if he’d be willing to teach her something. She called Wolf and even though he wasn’t teaching any more, Keefe was invited to come over and see Wolf’s artwork. “Bless his heart,” Keefe said, “he started to teach me watercolors.” Once a week for quite some time, Keefe’s Jeep would bounce along the road that winds deep into the hills, to the real Frenchman’s Creek. Wolf encouraged her to go back to school to learn more about art, but passed away before she graduated from the art department at San Jose State in 1980. She then continued on to receive her master’s in art therapy from Notre Dame and now works as an art therapist for the County of San Mateo at the San Mateo Medical Center.

“Art is a wonderful means of communication,” Keefe said. “Many of our population at the hospital do not speak English, but they understand art. I talk with my hands a lot. I guide them with the materials and they understand. I always feel that when your health has been taken away from you, you’ve lost a certain amount of power. And when you give someone a power, which is through the art they can do, or the mess they make, so that the creativity then comes out – you’ve given them some power. Whether within the hospital or not, art helps.” 

Twelve-year-old Galen Wolf was taught sketching and painting by Gertrude Boyle, a prominent sculptress who made busts of most of the California notables, including John Muir, Jack London and Joaquin Miller. The first man to process hemp in the San Joaquin Valley, Wolf spent 30 years in farming activities before he was able to take his painting seriously. He traveled to Europe to study the art of plein air painting — painting done outside rather than in a studio — in which everyday subjects in natural settings were captured in the colors of the changing light outdoors. Today, he is known as one of the foremost watercolor artists in the state. Choosing the beauty of nature as his subject, he painted over 400 Coastside scenes, mostly farmsteads, as well as some 70 scenes of the Sierra Mountains. 

“Galen was quite a mentor,” Keefe said. “When you went out with him you had to stretch your watercolor paper on boards and hope that you had the right colors to put it all together. Often we would go out and make sketches, then go back and fill it in later because you only have so much time with a watercolor. Everyone has their own techniques. Some artists like to write down things that they see with little notes on the side.  But if you want to try it, join a group, or take a friend, bring a lunch, and just get out there and do it.”

“Everything is so exact in our society with computers and all,” Keefe said, “that tapping into your creativity helps everyone in all aspects of their life. We have so many outlets for our creativity: arranging flowers, cooking, or even moving the furniture around.” 

Keefe, along with Maggie Graham and Susana Van Bezooijen, will be featured in an upcoming show, “3 Journeys: lenses, brushes and hands,” at the Coastal Arts League August 8 through September 8. Founded in 1979, the league is a non-profit cooperative gallery run for and by artists. For more information about the Coastal Arts League, visit www.coastalartsleague.com.