‘Anything Goes’ and she just does it

That was her family ethos. You could sew or decorate things, as long as it was utilitarian. Not creating for the sake of just beauty. She told herself that, if she could, she would try everything.

As an adult she followed that maxim into business. With her husband she ran a well-known restaurant in Los Altos, Pacific Steamer. When that closed, Jochheim set up a firm that specialized in human relations for high-tech companies. Most of her career was spent in finance and accounting, until retirement allowed her time for herself.

Then she jumped into painting with both feet.

Today her artwork spans the spectrum from realism to nonrepresentational. You’re as likely to find a landscape as an abstract. Some come from her travels, California to Croatia. Others strictly from her imagination, however, you might think you recognize the scenes. Colorful still lifes of pears or portraits like Matisse, abstract patterns like Klee or Mondrian — good luck nailing down her style; she’s simply wide-ranging. She does try everything.

Jochheim also loves to “exaggerate color” like the postimpressionists. For her, color and texture are what it’s all about, and she certainly puts a lot of both in her artwork, whether painting in watercolor or experimenting with mixed media.

Experimentation is close to her heart. She has one unique technique of creating a monoprint from color combined with a clay slip painted on a plate of raw ceramic, which she presses onto a commercial filter paper material. Whew!

On other paintings she uses bubble wrap and cardboard to create interesting patterns. “You never know what you’ll get.”

The old saying among art teachers is that value (light to dark) does all the work, while color gets all the glory.

Jochheim heartily disagrees. “Color is not secondary. It’s what we live for.”

“Los Osos Superbloom” is a strongly saturated landscape that at first may appear fanciful. Yet if you have seen photos of that natural phenomenon, it’s not that exaggerated after all.

“Korcula” is a sun drenched wet-on-wet watercolor of the narrow streets of that small Croatian island town. It could be anywhere in the Mediterranean, a universal view.

The glowing sky reflected in the ocean in “Morro Rock” is stunningly colorful, as are the rocks themselves. An ethereal vision.

She drifts into pure abstract multimedia in “Persimmon.” A watercolor is overlaid with imprints of cardboard and bubble wrap, over-written in cryptically scribbled white ink.

The mottling on the skin of a pear in “Anjou Grace” is the result of very clever manipulation of the watercolor. She knows her craft well.

“Anything Goes” is a pure abstract, an explosion of colors and forms.

She brings her sense of whimsy to her art, and her business sense to art societies.

Jochheim has served as president of three painting groups: Society of West Coast Artists, Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society, and the Los Gatos Art Association. It’s the result of raising her hand as a total novice at a painting demonstration. She just did it and continues to do it.

Now that she paints regularly, she strongly encourages others to take the leap into creativity. She wants you to just play and have fun with it.

Do something for yourself and catch her “Anything Goes” show March 1-31.

Artist reception March 8 from 1-4 p.m. at the Portola Art League Gallery.

You Can Create Too: Atherton Art Foundation holds “Block Printing Exploration,” March 7.

RSVP: Patricia Larenas, plarenas.onpaper@gmail.com.

Portola Art League Gallery at the Allied Arts Guild, 75 Arbor Road, Menlo Park, (650) 321-0220, portolaartgallery.com.

Bart Charlow, author, artist and consultant blends over 45 years of painting and photography with narrative storytelling. Explore the intersection of observation and expression through his insights on the local art scene, find his books at bartcharlow.com and his art at bartsart.weebly.com.