Standing in the front yard of her Carmel Valley home, Beth Jauregui takes a quiet inhale, followed by a softer exhale, and looks at the spectrum of green foliage quivering in the breeze, the riot of color blossoming therein, and the verdant Santa Lucia range in the distance, beneath a summer-blue sky. Grateful for the natural setting in which she lives, and the complement she and her husband, artist and builder David Jauregui, have created in their garden, in this moment, she is busy with being. An art instructor and educator on the Central Coast for more than 40 years, Jauregui found precious little time to pursue art, apart from what she introduced in the classroom.
Yet after retiring from elementary education in 2021, following 30 years at Carmel River School, she picked up a paintbrush. “Imagine how wonderful it is to wake up to a beautiful morning and come out into the garden to paint, with the sun passing over, shifting shadow and light,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes filled with light. “My painting requires a lot of time, so I could never do it during the school year.
Art is always around me, but I couldn’t commune with it.” She is, now. By the end of 2023, Beth Jauregui had not only been painting; she had published a book.
“Paintings from the Edge of the Santa Lucia Mountains: Sharing Environmental Studies Through Art” (Fulton Books) portrays the nature of her daily experiences in Carmel’s river valley, complemented by phrasing that creates a cont.