Mining a new vein Sacramento Bee November 17, 2006 Five years ago, Julie Baker opened a gallery in the foothills, hoping to bring some of the sophistication of her native New York City to the Mother Lode. Instead, she was seduced by the charms of the Gold Country and the many fine artists she found there. While she still shows artists from both coasts and urban centers in between, she has mounted a show of more than 20 Nevada County artists to celebrate the gallery's fifth anniversary. All of the artists in the show either live in Nevada County or grew up there, says Baker. Many are transplants from the Bay Area and one, Julia Ruess, comes from Germany via Oakland. "The gallery was not intended to be a venue for local artists," says Baker, who at first focused on showing artists from across the country, but to her surprise, she found a number of artists in the Nevada City area who were doing the kind of work she wanted to feature. Kurt Steger and Matt Duffin are among the local artists making strong contemporary art that exhibits unusual approaches to process, imagery and media. While Steger had previously exhibited his work, including a show at Exploding Head Gallery in Sacramento, Duffin's surreal encaustic wax pieces had never been shown by a gallery. One of Baker's biggest success stories, Duffin is now sought out by top collectors across the country and has a solo show scheduled in New York this fall. The gallery started out in a small but flexible space in Grass Valley that became a destination for Northern California artists and collectors. Her current space is on Nevada City's quaint Commercial Street and has undergone a transformation. Finding that the majority of her sales were made at major contemporary art fairs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and New York City, and via the gallery's Web site, she had to make a choice. "I had to decide whether to focus solely on the Web site and out-of-town sales at fairs, or to add a retail component to the gallery," said Baker, who admits having a fondness for shopping. As a result, what was once a "pure" gallery site now features a shop carrying well-designed and crafted ceramics, clothing, jewelry, handbags and accessories, with an emphasis on up-and-coming San Francisco designers. Items for sale range from gorgeous clutch bags made of buttery leather to water glasses decorated with fern frond patterns to quirky stuffed toys that will appeal to children and their parents. While the shop, which occupies the front end of the gallery, has become a stopping place for tourists as well as local folks who appreciate contemporary design, the gallery continues to show art that Baker describes as "not just pretty pictures of the Yuba River." The anniversary show does feature an image of the river by David Torch, a photographer who also works for the local newspaper, but it's an ironic postmodern shot of ex-hippie bathers juxtaposed in a diptych with a photo of the down-home Nevada County Fair. The rest of the show ranges from Duffin's obsessively wrought, almost machined-looking, image of a figure wearing billboards as blinders to Tahiti Pehrson's giant cut-paper wedding cake with intricately razor-cut scenes that form an allegory of his life. The gallery's eclectic sensibility is evidenced by Erin Noel's painterly abstraction of jazzy forms; Faye Schoolcraft's fascinating figures made of straw and handmade wool felt; and Elizabeth Dorbad's eccentric assemblage of made and found objects. Unfortunately, the show is a bit too large for the space and feels crowded. On the other hand, it's nice that Baker has found so many artists on the gallery's home ground. Baker describes her artists as "essentially global but rooted in Nevada City." They are a part of a growing internationalism among artists who are connected to the larger art world via the Internet, art publications and graduate schools. Homegrown: A Harvest of Local Talent WHAT: Julie Baker fifth-anniversary show WHEN: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday WHERE: Julie Baker Fine Art, 248 Commercial St., Nevada City TICKETS: Free INFORMATION: (530) 265-9278, www.juliebakerfineart.com