Calvin Hoff

My art studio is named Scraps. I create collage art from recycled magazines. Being an artist is my third career. After 20 years as a Presbyterian pastor and 22 years teaching theatre to high school students, I retired to take up the career I imagined as a boy. I've been creating Scraps art for over 35 years for family and friends, and I've made random sales on a sporadic basis, but now I want to share my art with a larger audience. As a first step I opened a studio/gallery in downtown Fresno to create a dedicated space for my creative endeavors. My second step is entering the world of online art sales.

My taste is eclectic and I enjoy finding beauty in a wide range of subject matter. I work with repurposed scraps of color and texture. My palette is created as I rip through many magazines at a time, surrounding myself with stacks of pages that find their way into file folders. Originally I worked only with torn scraps. Eventually I allowed myself the use of scissors, especially in human forms. At times the scrap I think I need is impossible to find. Improvisation then becomes the name of the game. Sometimes the best effects are the result of happy accidents.

I enjoy incorporating recognizable images into my collages. Have ...

As an artist I am largely self taught.

I'm grateful that as a kindergartner my father took a home movie of the mural of Santa and his reindeer I painted for a classroom bulletin board. He raved about my ability to capture the perspective of reindeer getting smaller as they flew into the distance.

My first teacher was Jan Darling. At the age of 7 I was part of a water color class for moms and kids. The first assignment was to create a mosaic from cut up magazines. Many years later that project became the inspiration for the collage art I do today.

I'm grateful to my mom for her affirmation of my talent. When I was 8 she drove me weekly to California State University Long Beach to be in an art class for children. I'm pretty sure we were guinea pigs for student teachers.

I was thrilled in junior high school to be able to take art as an elective for two years. Mrs. Rucksnaitis, besides having a great name, was my teacher who encouraged me to explore a wide variety of mediums to express my creativity.

I signed up for a summer school art class in high school. After the first couple of days, when the teacher was helping students understand the concept of a color wheel, I was invited to sit in an adjoining classroom and work...

Carpinteria Arts Center, Human Forms Exhibition, Summer 2021. My collage Faith tied for Audience Favorite recognition.

My collage 89 cents/lb. won Best of Show award in the art exhibit at The Big Fresno Fair in 2017.