She sees the world as her canvas

For Petaluma artist Pat Smoot, the world has been her canvas. Smoot, who will celebrate her 84th birthday in October, has traveled the world, capturing everything from European castles to African camels in her colorful paintings.

She has visited 82 countries, drawing as she traveled. Once back at her Petaluma home, she translated her drawings into paintings that have earned her commercial and critical acclaim.

Although she has a degree in fine arts from the University of California, Berkeley, Smoot says being an artist just comes naturally, perhaps an inheritance she traces back to her grandmother, Beatrice Castro Smoot, who was a talented piano player. Her grandmother was a descendant of General Francisco Castro, the commandant of the Presidio in the 1920s.

Although born in San Francisco, Smoot grew up on a farm located between Bolinas and Olema and graduated from Tomales High School. She has fond memories of her rural upbringing, but says she never considered doing anything other than being an artist.

“Why shouldn’t I do what I do best?” she says of her life’s work and devotion.

She began her career as a professional artist drawing furniture for ads that appeared in Bay Area newspapers as a way to support her and her husband, who was still attending classes at Berkeley. After her husband graduated, she became a full-time freelance artist.

The marriage produced one son, Graham, who she proudly explains is president of Patrick Henry University in West Virginia.

Smoot visited Europe in 1962, and her career as a traveler/artist was determined. After her father died, she was sometimes accompanied on her journeys by her mother. “She had a great influence on my life,” the artist says. The two went to China in the 1970s, and the artist’s visit to the Great Wall remains one of her most vivid travel memories.

As her reputation grew, she found that art lovers were willing to help finance her trips by commissioning her to paint differing countries and cultures. Her travels have taken her to India, Nepal, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, China, Greece, Turkey, all through Europe, Alaska, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico, Central America, Norway and Russia.

They have also taken her near home to the Marin/Sonoma coast and almost in her back yard, where she loves to paint the area’s majestic oak trees. “I love to paint trees,” she says. “I’ve painted so many oak trees, I don’t know how many.”

Smoot’s home, inherited from her mother, sets halfway up La Cresta Drive, and offers a panoramic view of Petaluma below. It is filled with a museum-worthy collection of artifacts she has collected from her travels.

One table is covered with albums, notebooks and sketchbooks filled with drawings, photographs and notes made during her journeys.

Upstairs in her bright studio and an adjacent bedroom are still unsold paintings of buildings, animals and landscapes from near and far. Each is not only a tribute to Smoot’s artistic talent, but also a memory, and, with a little thought, she is able to place each painting with a place and time.

She is well aware of how fortunate she has been to have been able to travel and do what she does well for a living. “I guess it’s kind of amazing,” she says simply.

Although Smoot has done many small paintings during her travels, her usual procedure was to photograph and then sketch a scene she wanted to paint, make notes and then return home to do the actual painting. She begins by applying a burnt sienna undercoat on the canvas and then drawing the scene with ink and chalk before applying an array of vibrant colors.

Like all artists, she takes some liberties with her paintings. “I never wanted to be a photographic painter,” she explains. “My style has kind of evolved.”

(Contact John Jackson at acsports@arguscourier.com)