Support for art made Plein

On behalf of art teachers in Valley schools, School Superintendent Louann Carlomagno accepts a $79,000 donation from Plein Air Foundation founder Keith Wicks. Dozens of recipients attended a brief ceremony Friday morning at district headquarters.

The money will help offset drastic budget cuts that have endangered or eliminated arts and music programs throughout the state.

A Sonoma artist, Wicks created the foundation to help restore school art instruction – something that was a key to his own success in school and beyond. “That’s why I became an artist,” he said, crediting art education through grade school and into high school.

To raise money into the foundation, Wicks created the annual Sonoma Plein Air Festival, for which 35 artists capture outdoors scenes in quickly produced paintings, up to 15 in one week.

The paintings are sold from a Plaza exhibition in May with a large percentage going to the foundation for distribution to art programs. “It’s specific to arts education for children,” Wicks said.

In addition to area schools, recipients this year included the Arts Guild, Sonoma Community Center and the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art.

“Plein Air has done so many things for art in our district,” Carlomagno said. “It’s a blessing. They make things happen that would never have been possible.”