Patricia Weiss’ work highlights Sea Cliff

Every two months the Sea Cliff Arts Council holds an art show celebrating the works of local artists in the village library. For July and August, the artist was none other than Sea Cliff’s own Patricia Kaegi Weiss.
Weiss, who is originally from San Francisco, has been a resident of Sea Cliff since 2008, and her work has primarily focused on life in the seaside village. She claims to have always had a deep interest in art, taking some courses in college, and after graduation she studied textile design at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.
This led her to working at a textile house in New York, where she met her husband, Adam. After moving to Sea Cliff and starting her family, Weiss explained that she began to really focus on her artistic endeavors, to the point where she began to truly consider herself an artist.
“Once I had kids, I began to teach art and started to paint more and finally began to consider myself an artist,” Weiss explained. “I feel like to finally call yourself an artist is a big step, or at least it was for me.”
Weiss’ work focuses on life and scenes in Sea Cliff, and she says her textile background continues to influence her artistic style even to this day. The backgrounds and larger shapes are intentionally more two-dimensional and less detailed, allowing viewers to focus on the scenes themselves.

Weiss tends to use watercolors when painting as well as wash, a water-based paint which uses more opaque colors. She has also dabbled in acrylics and oils as well, although she says that she prefers the water-based pieces as oils can be hard to use in small spaces due to their smell.
According to Heidi Hunt, co-chair of the Sea Cliff Arts Council, Weiss’ work was chosen for the July and August slot because of the vibrancy of her style. Weiss’ focus on painting the village and local events also helped make her the council’s choice for the end of summer, as it captures life in Sea Cliff during some of the most beautiful and relaxed seasons of the year.
“She was chosen specifically for the summer months because her work is so vibrant, it’s so in tune with the sunny days and the bright things that summer has to bring,” Hunt said. “She incorporates so many people into her pieces, and so many of those people are actually local residents.”
Her paintings for this show all focused on life in Sea Cliff, with paintings of barbecues, houses and other aspects of village life. Weiss traditionally releases a yearly calendar of 12 paintings to the Sea Cliff community. In her show at the library, she is including some of what she called her “secret paintings,” those which didn’t make it into the calendar.
Weiss cites artists like Henri Matisse, Maira Kalman and Frida Kahlo as a few of her influences, all of whom used bright colors with apparently simplistic designs to create dynamic scenes. She also mentioned her love for creating scenes within scenes, so that every section of her paintings tells their own unique stories while contributing to the larger canvas.
“When I’m creating a scene, I try to get details that you kind of have to search for,” Weiss explained. “The more you look at the painting, the more you see there’s lots of little details in there.”
Kathleen DiResta, another co-chair of the Arts Council, said they are excited that they can share Weiss’ art with the community.
“Her style is so unique, and it covers our community so well,” DiResta said. “We’re so happy to have the chance to highlight her amazing work.”