Courtesy image.
OXNARD — The Channel Islands Maritime Museum (CIMM) is proud to host a Coast Guard Art Program (COGAP) presentation featuring award-winning artist Karen Loew at its Speaker Series on January 19, 2022. This evening will also be the opening reception for the Museum’s latest temporary exhibition “Coast Guard Art” in the Museum’s Brenda and Gary Farr Gallery.
Ms. Loew will be illustrating her presentation with images of selected works from the COGAP Collection. As chair of the Coast Guard Art Program, Ms. Loew has traveled across the globe to document activities of the Coast Guard and display her work. A recipient of the Coast Guard Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest recognition given to those who have made outstanding contributions in advancing the Coast Guard’s missions, Ms. Loew has had thirty paintings accepted into the Coast Guard Art Program Collection. Ms. Loew as an artist has received COGAP’s top honor, the George Gary Award for Artistic Excellence, for her work “Harbor Rendezvous” (shown below).
The Coast Guard Art Program artists, many of whom are professional artists, volunteer their time and talents to visually tell the Coast Guard’s story. They generously donate their works to the service—and by extension, to the nation. Their art educates the public through diverse mediums, and goes beyond the simple recording of events. Coast Guard Art is all about those who protect our shores. The images commemorate, instruct, document, and raise morale at home and at the front. Showcasing the very best of this collection, the new temporary exhibit at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum includes moving portraits, gripping search and rescue scenes, and depictions of everyday life during the maritime conflict. All of these masterful artworks reflect our complex relationship with the wild ocean and its abundant ecosystems and illustrate that indeed, the Coast Guard is always ready.
The CIMM Speaker Series featuring Karen Loew will be on January 19, 2022. Speaker Series attendees are welcome to visit the Coast Guard Art exhibition and reception starting at 5:30 pm before the Speaker Series presentation at 7:00 pm. Admission is: free for members, $7.00 for adults, $5 for seniors, and $3 youth (ages 6-17 years).
The exhibition “Coast Guard Art” runs from January 4, 2022, through March 25, 2022. Entrance to the exhibition is included in the price of admission to CIMM.
About Karen Loew: Karen Loew is a long-standing artist member of the Salmagundi Club and serves on the Board of Directors. The club is one of the oldest art clubs in the United States. She has also chaired the Coast Guard Art Program (COGAP) committee since 2001. As COGAP Committee Chair, Ms. Loew is the liaison between the Salmagundi Club, which sponsors the program, and the United States Coast Guard. Her recent deployment in December, 2019 was to the Maritime Law Enforcement Academy (MLEA) in Charleston, SC. Her mission was to document cross-border training between the USCG and Canadian law enforcement. The three paintings that she created from that experience were all accepted into COGAP Collection 2020. She considers her volunteer work as COGAP artist and Committee Chair to be the most meaningful of her art career. There are currently 30 works by Ms. Loew in the COGAP Collection and she continues to be a regular contributor of her paintings to the program. Her works are featured in numerous private collections.
About the Coast Guard Art Program: The COGAP collection comprises over 1,800 works capturing the daily missions the nearly 42,500 men and women on active duty in the Coast Guard perform, including homeland security, search and rescue, marine environmental protection, drug interdiction, military readiness and natural resource management. Through displays at museums, libraries and patriotic events, COGAP uses fine art as an outreach tool for educating diverse audiences about the Coast Guard’s missions, heroes and history.
About the Channel Islands Maritime Museum: Founded in 1991 and located in Oxnard’s Channel Islands Harbor, the Museum’s galleries feature rare and beautiful maritime paintings dating back to the 1600s, more than sixty world-class models of historic ships, rotating thematic exhibitions, and interactive exhibits that encourage visitors to expand their horizons about everything maritime. The Museum is currently open Thursday-Monday from 12 pm to 4 pm. The Museum is located at 3900 Bluefin Circle, Oxnard CA 93035. www.cimmvc.org