A Chrysalis Moment
Ojai’s Art Scene is Waking Up
COVER: CHRISTOPHER NOXON FROM THE R/EVOLVE EXHIBIT
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 18, 2026For much of the past year, I've watched something unusual happen in our local art scene. The artists were still creating. Galleries were still mounting exhibitions. Visitors continued to flow through. Yet sales slowed noticeably. People seemed hesitant to commit to purchases, especially those they considered nonessential. Art, for many, fell into that category.
The reasons were understandable. In a politically charged and economically uncertain climate, people were holding tighter to their resources. Conversations drifted toward instability, elections, inflation, and what might happen next. I felt it myself. There were moments when I found comfort in having extra cash on hand and my passport nearby, just in case. It sounds dramatic now, but anxiety has a way of shrinking our vision and convincing us that survival should come before everything else.
Yet over the past several months, something has begun to shift. As the Co-Founder and President of the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, I've had a front-row seat to a quiet but meaningful reawakening in our local art community. Through our last two exhibitions, I've witnessed art slowly and steadily finding its way back into people's homes, not just the homes of seasoned collectors, but those of everyday people seeking something that speaks to them.
CHRISTOPHER NOXON
Recently, friends visiting from Chicago stopped by Christopher Noxon's CGBF exhibition, R/Evolve. They spent time with the work, asked questions, and eventually purchased a piece for their family lake house on Lake Michigan.
"It's our happy place as a family," one of them told me. "This piece will fit in perfectly. Looking at it just makes you happy."
That simple statement stayed with me. In difficult times, we often convince ourselves that art is a luxury. But perhaps the opposite is true. Perhaps art becomes most necessary when the world feels uncertain. It provides reflection, joy, curiosity, comfort, challenge, beauty, and sometimes even hope. It reminds us that we are more than consumers of news cycles and political rhetoric. We are emotional beings searching for meaning and the possibility of resolution.
What has made our recent exhibitions particularly successful is that both artists, Christopher Noxon and Rosemary Holliday Hall, have created multiple entry points into their work.
CHRISTOPHER NOXON’S ROUND PAINTINGS
Noxon’s R/Evolve offered something for nearly every level of collector. Visitors could purchase prints and sculptural speaker pieces for a few hundred dollars, medium-sized paintings for several thousand, or larger-scale works ranging from $4,000 to $10,000. The exhibition's playful integration of painting, sound, technology, and light encouraged visitors to engage with the work on multiple levels.
ROSEMARY HOLLIDAY HALL | TRUCK / SOUND DESIGN: WILL THOMAS
Our newest exhibition, Bodies Become Dust by Rosemary Holliday Hall, which opened this past Thursday, follows a similarly inclusive model. Visitors can take home small ceramic works for as little as $50, while larger sculptural pieces reach into the thousands. Price alone does not explain the excitement surrounding the show. Rosemary's work, inspired by her CGBF residency at the Nemeth Art Center in Minnesota, occupies a fascinating space between sculpture, installation, performance, and mythology. One of the exhibition's most striking elements, envisioned with the help of composer Will Thomas, is a truck carrying what appears to be a giant cocoon in its bed, an image that immediately evokes transformation, emergence, and possibility. (The truck is only on view opening weekend, on the street next to the foundation space.)
Perhaps that is why these exhibitions feel so timely. Both artists embrace a kind of contemporary Renaissance spirit, blurring boundaries between mediums and combining sculpture, painting, ceramics, sound, light, and installation. Their work rewards casual viewers and serious collectors alike. There is always another layer to discover, another creative delight.
Perhaps that is what Ojai itself is experiencing. A chrysalis moment. Not quite an artistic rebirth, but the unmistakable signs of one.
After a year marked by hesitation and uncertainty, people seem willing once again to engage with art, not just as an investment, but as something necessary for living well in our Valley. They are bringing beauty into their homes. They are choosing objects that evoke joy, contemplation, and connection.
They are remembering that art is not separate from life. Art is one of the ways we make sense of it.
The renewed energy I'm witnessing across town (recently at the Black Barn Studios AV Walk, The Mega Gallery, BlancheSylvia in the Arcade, once a dress shop and now an art space, and the new Village Archive) suggests something larger than an uptick in sales. It suggests a community rediscovering the value of creative expression and the emotional nourishment it provides.
In uncertain times, we don't need art less.
We need it more.
Judging by what I'm seeing in Ojai, people are beginning to remember that.
