Photos: Ojai, California’s artsy side

A Sandy Wolk sculpture titled “Love Between Woman and Horse.”  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A Sandy Wolk sculpture titled “Coming Home to Myself.”  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A sculpture by Sandy Wolk.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A sculpture by Sandy Wolk.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A peek inside Sandy Wolk’s home studio in Ojai.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A vintage photo of scholar of Indian Arts Stephen Hyler and the late artist Beatrice Wood at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts. Wood, Ojai’s most famous artist, died in 1998 at the age of 105.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Exhibits on display at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A wooden sculpture inspired by Beatrice Wood’s “The Blindman” drawing overlooks Happy Valley from the backyard of the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts. Art is everywhere in Ojai; it fills not just galleries but also restaurants, cafes and even dress shops. Seemingly every store in downtown Ojai displays local paintings, sculptures, jewelry or crafts.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A sign announcing the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts on Santa Paula-Ojai Road.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Artists Richard and Alice Matzkin in front of their home and studio. The couple specialize in art about all aspects of aging.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A Richard Matzkin bronze sculpture titled “Old Lovers Embracing.”  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A Richard Matzkin bronze sculpture titled “Fear of Alzheimer’s.”  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Alice Matzkin’s paint supplies and a couple of her works in the home studio she shares with sculptor-husband Richard Matzkin. Alice’s portraits are of friends and family, many of them at an advanced age. “There’s not much art today around old people,” Alice said, and Richard agreed. His recent work concentrates on elderly men -- touching and often amusing -- and lovers in tender embrace, all of them in the last decades of their lives.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Alice and Richard Matzkin’s living room and gallery.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

A snake painted on a rock in the yard of Alice and Richard Matzkin’s home and studio.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

The library at the Pepper Tree Retreat bed-and-breakfast.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Michelle, the “hugging innkeeper,” in the meditation room at the Pepper Tree Retreat.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)