Join us in the Martin V. & Martha K. Smith Pavilion at the Museum of Ventura County on Saturday, June 12, 2021 from 3-5 p.m. for the opening reception of The Weed Project: Outlaws of the Super Bloom & Crimes We Commit in the Garden. This new exhibit by the comical and brave Charlene Spiller features thirteen botanical paintings with an ecological message. There will be refreshments and a no-host bar. Visitors will also be able to explore the new and refreshed Children’s Garden. Admission is free with registration.

In the macro-style paintings of The Weed Project, Charlene Spiller draws a plumb line between art and science. She creates a new category of “bloom”, challenging the viewer’s expectation of what constitutes beauty. All the while, pollinating their mind with provocative thoughts about our health, the health of our planet, and the bottom-line of a multibillion-dollar corporation – with a multibillion-dollar legal-relief reserve – and places it all under our microscope. Deputy Director, Denise Sindelar states, “Ms. Spiller’s paintings highlight the beauty that exists in our fragile, and often forgotten natural world”.

Throughout the recent pandemic, and our governor’s Stay-Well-At-Home Order, Spiller has transferred to canvas a destructive environmental discovery, healing perspectives, and reasons to continue on, with vigilance – literally healing herself out of hospice care and advancing steadily toward wellness. Spiller says, “Herbicides are a dangerous game. Roundup, which came into being in the 1970s – first used as a chemical cleaner for pipes – is now sprayed on our food crops, almost un-checked. The Weed Project is one of providing awareness.”

Originally from San Francisco, Ms. Spiller studied at the California College of the Arts, Oakland, and the San Francisco Art Institute. She has lived in Southern California for 25-years, previously in the Palm Desert, and now, in the Hollywood Beach-area of Oxnard, where the beach meets the fields (or the ocean meets the glyphosate).

The Weeds Project: “Outlaws of the Super Bloom & Crimes We Commit in the Garden” will surprise Museum visitors with its vivid lines, vibrant palette, pollinating parts aplenty, and facts that just may save our lives.