Patti Jacquemain, the founder of both the Wildling Museum and Mission Creek Studios Art Gallery in Los Olivos, lives in the Garden of Eden. Her hideaway, not far from the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens, is perched on a fern-covered hillside, shaded by gnarled and ancient oaks. It is a haven for wildlife and even the fish in her pond have a sheltering rock where they can hide from the piercing eyes of wading egrets. Background music is provided by Mission Creek, tumbling over rocks and winding its way down the hill.
Patti is full of vibrant strength and enthusiasm, tempered by a sensitive appreciation of art and nature. Not only is she a creator of mosaics and wood block printing, but she’s a free spirit who once took off on a four year sailing jaunt.

  “I’ve lived on Mission Creek almost all my life,” she told me. In the mid-forties, her parents and grandparents pulled a trailer from the wintry climes of Detroit, Michigan to Santa Barbara and became so enthralled that they bought an 18-acre lemon ranch located on what is now State Street and Alamar, for $45,000. Her father was an attorney and became engrossed in the activities of the town, while her grandparents devoted themselves to tending the fragrant lemon groves. “I get my love of nature and growing things from my grandpa,” Patti said.
   As she grew up, another deep interest surfaced, and at UCSB she majored in painting. Then a trip abroad opened her eyes to the glories of the arts and architecture of Europe. She fell in love with the magical designs of mosaics and shipped home 2,500 kilos of glass tiles. Before she knew it, commissions began arriving for her mosaic work in churches and homes.
   A graduate program in printmaking at UCSB further stimulated her creative brain cells and then she was off on a new adventure. Patti became enthralled with the creation of wood cut prints or block prints which involves chiseling out designs on blocks of wood, applying paint and imprinting on paper or cloth. Every color requires a different chiseled block. Suddenly, Patti Jaquemain’s block print paintings were on exhibition in galleries across the country, including New York and Chicago.

  “I went all over the country with my portfolios and in New York, after three interviews, I was accepted into the Associated American Artists Gallery, on Fifth Avenue,” she recalled. “Then a second New York gallery wanted me. That was a proud moment, as New York galleries are known to be very difficult to get into.”
  Some years later, she had another inspiration. “I have always had a strong feeling that the land here, where my husband, David Gledhill, and I live, is a very special place.

Planting and working in the earth here at ‘Creek Spirit’ often led me to reoccurring concerns about the continuing onslaught of urban sprawl. I am also perturbed about the whole scene in America where wild animals are continually poisoned or killed. I kept wondering if there was anything that one person could do? Finally, the idea of a creating a museum dedicated to America’s wilderness formed in my mind.”
   Well, how in the world does one woman go about actually establishing a MUSEUM, for heaven’s sake?
   “After giving it a lot of thought, I invited eleven acquaintances to my house for a buffet luncheon, without telling them why they were coming. We all sat around this big table,” she explained, indicating the very spot where we were seated. “It was both men and women and included my former fine arts professor, Dr. Bruce McCurdy. I started telling them about how the wilderness is disappearing from America. I was hoping that there was something we could do to make people aware of the great beauty of our country.
   “Then Bruce McCurdy spoke up and said, ‘You have explained your concerns very well, so why don’t you call a meeting for a month from now and those of us who are interested will come back and the others won’t.’”
  All but one person came back and a full-scale onslaught of cogitation, lucubration and head scratching commenced. The Wildling Museum was about to be born! Monthly meetings brought forth valuable ideas, one of which was to immediately apply for their non-profit status, which was accomplished in 1997.
  “But,” said Patti, “after that was accomplished, we realized that we had no money, no location and no art! We further realized that Santa Barbara was already well stocked with cultural establishments, so an outlying location seemed the most reasonable. Los Olivos came to mind, as it is not only an art town, but also one of the gateways to the beautiful Los Padres forest and all its wildlife. We proceeded to explore the possibilities there.”
   Santa Ynez Valley residents Alex and Dale Rossi entered the picture when they told Patti and her husband, Dave, that Adam Firestone had transported an old house to a location near St. Marks Episcopal church that might be available to them. This was the old Hartley house, one of the earliest houses built in Los Olivos. When they went to look at it they found a structure surrounded by waist-high weeds, crumbling floors, walls with layers of old peeling wallpaper and with the sky peeking through the holes in the roof.
   “After conferring with Adam, we found that he had plans to put it in shape,” said Patti. “Then after getting our Board past the scary ‘before’ photos we had taken, the decision was made to make this antique structure our Wildling Museum’s home.”
   It was a fortuitous decision and it added immeasurably to the charm of Los Olivos when the Wildling Museum opened its doors to the public in April 2000. Each year, the Wildling has a series of exhibitions, lectures, lessons and activities, always with the theme of “Wilderness Across America.” These are organized and supervised by the museum’s capable and energetic Executive Director, Elizabeth “Penny” Knowles. One of their recent lectures featured North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty, who showed slides of over 100 site-specific, temporary structures he has created, utilizing only plant material growing at each site. He recently constructed a willow palace at the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens, which allows visitors there to experience his unique kind of creativity.
   Patti and her husband David Gledhill have the original Mission Creek Art Studio in their home, where they work and welcome visitors by appointment only. From Thursday through Sunday, they can often be found at the Wildling Art Museum or the Mission Creek Studios Art Gallery, which opened in May 2002 in Los Olivos. The Wildling displays fine art, while the gallery has fine art for sale, including two books and a calendar featuring Jacquemain’s prints. You might also find Patti at work there on a mosaic or wood block carving.
   The Wildling Art Museum’s present exhibit is a collection of paintings and sculpture owned by Museum members, which opened on March 20th and will run through June 12th. It features scenes of natural beauty in America by renowned artists, such as John James Audubon, Conrad Buff, George Brandriff, Benjamin Brown, Arthur Hill Gilbert, Percy Grey, Alfred Mitchell, Ray Strong, Mildred Bryant Brooks, Maynard Dixon and Fernand Lungren. The show also features sculptures by Jane Armstrong and John Cody.
   Other activities include a continuing “Birding Field Course,” on Tuesdays from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., and a fund-raising barbecue and fiesta on April 24. For more information, visit www.wildlingmusem.org, or call (805) 688-1082.