Artists create meaningful art at The Green Art House

The Green Art House in Fallbrook was started with a twofold purpose in mind: to provide a teaching facility for artists of all levels and styles to create whatever they wanted and to be eco-friendly while doing it.

Richard Stergulz and Leslie Sweetland co-founded the nonprofit about eight years ago with a vision to offer classes and events that promote art, art awareness and art education while encouraging and promoting public interest and understanding of art in its variety of forms.

Along with teaching art classes at the center, Stergulz is the Southern California host for an Australian-based YouTube art program called "Put Some Colour in Your Life!" that is hosted there by the program's CEO, Graeme Stevenson. The show has more than 100,000 subscribers and airs in more than 50 countries.

"We go to the artists' studios and film their process and a little bit of background about them," Stergulz said. "I was on Graeme's show about four years ago and got such a great return for it, I asked what I could do to be part of the team and get more involved."

He said he was floored when Stevenson asked him to become a host.

A Fallbrook resident, Stergulz met Sweetland when she took some of his classes. He helped her achieve her goal of having her work worthy of being shown in a gallery. After a year of effort and honing her craft, her work was in three galleries. During that time, they discussed opening an art school and shared a vision of having it be as green as possible.

"We incorporated our vision into the current center," Stergulz said. "We are leasing a (1,500-square-foot) building at Pala Mesa Resort and whatever we do over there, we are very conscious about it being eco-friendly."

Any harsh materials used at the school are picked up by a service that takes it away, including anything with paint on it. They use a product called turpenoid rather than turpentine because it is less harsh. Even the water that watercolorists use is put into buckets off to the side and an evaporative system is used to clean up everything, he said.

Stergulz said there is another art school in Fallbrook, but that he and Sweetland wanted to offer more of a place where people from all over the world could stay and take any class they want.

"I bring in professional artists from all over the world to teach some of our workshops," he said. "They come in and teach three- to four-day workshops. We've had some big names come in and that's something that's very popular. We did a lot of demonstrations and lectures and wanted to start hosting movie nights with the showing of an artist's movie out on the green at the Pala Mesa Golf Resort."

Although some of those plans and the school's workshops with master instructors have been on a hold since the COVID-19 pandemic shut things down in mid-March 2020, the center reopened with its local art classes June 1, due to student interest.

Amid safety guidelines of mandatory mask wearing, frequent hand-washing and tables set 6-8 feet apart, Stergulz said the desire for students to return was so great that the changes that had to be made were readily accepted and adhered to by all.

He said during the closure, students were constantly contacting the school to find out when classes would resume and after a few months, it was decided that the approximately 80 students should vote on whether to return with precautions. About 95% decided to return.

"The safety of my students comes first so if they don't feel comfortable being there, I'm OK with that. I spray the room down before and after classes each day. I think of our school as a sanctuary – you just come in and create; there's no judging," he said. "I have had students from 7 to 95 at all skill levels; no one is turned away. We are blessed with some incredible students that soak up everything and love to paint and love to be there."

Stergulz, who has been in the art business more than 35 years and teaching for more than 20, said good fundamentals is what they strive to teach most at the school.

"There's a certain order of fundamentals I always teach, and that's value, temperature and chroma (intensity or dullness of color). There are other compositional aspects, but I really dial in on those three to get everybody up and running. I start them with simple things like how to use a brush, how to mix paint, how to draw what they want to paint – basically, all they need to know from start to finish," he said. "I teach all my students as individuals; I'm not a paint-along type of teacher."

Sweetland, who is from Temecula, said she has always loved art and became a full-time professional artist after spending 30 years in the information technology field. Stergulz said they have a lot in common, but they also build on each other's strengths when it comes to operations as Sweetland handles more of the business end of things for the nonprofit.

"We help people paint whatever they want to paint from start to finish. It doesn't matter if they've never touched a brush before or already have their artwork in a gallery," Stergulz said. "I feel that the artist should get their hands wet and just dive in. If they make a mistake, fantastic – that's what they're there for. If they don't make any mistakes, they don't need me."

The Green Art House, 2001 Old Highway 295 in Fallbrook, can be reached by calling Stergulz at 951-526-8055 or online at http://www.thegreenarthouse.org.