SIGHTS AROUND TOWN : Artists Tour Gives an Insight Into Lives : From one end of the valley to the other, there are scenes to delight visitors.

Art and life intersect daily at Chez Heino, where world-renowned potters Otto and Vivika have lived and worked for many years.

On their rustic, rambling hillside property in Ojai, huge kilns and piles of materials sit around, amid the more tender touches of landscaping. Numerous plants are in Heino-made pots. Peacocks stroll in a back-yard pen, and a pond where decorative koi swim is just outside a showroom full of Heino wares.

Said wares, strewn around the showroom and seen in varying stages of completion in the ample studio, are testament to the enduring beauty of precious objects made by hand. In the Heinos’ case, made by hand and at home.

A couple of weekends back, the walk-through traffic at the Heinos’ was much heavier than usual. The ninth annual Ojai Studio Artists Tour put them on the map of stops that stretch from one end of the Ojai Valley to the other.

As always, the tour proved to be more than just a casual stroll through local studios. It revealed something essential about the cultural life in this valley. The autumn affair allowed for public entree into the inner sanctums of 28 Ojai artists, with proceeds going to local art education.

Intrepid tourists trekked from the northern corner of Katrina Grey’s home-studio in Meiners Oaks to the southernmost studio, Nancy Whitman’s elegantly pastoral house up off California 150 on the way to Santa Paula.

One home studio already open daily is that of Ojai’s unofficial art world matriarch and saint, Beatrice Wood, also known as Beato. Her anecdotal prowess and historical/romantic linkage to the likes of Marcel Duchamp adds to her legend. She turned 100 this year and appropriate media fanfare followed.

A trip to Wood’s small showroom on California 150 is always rewarding, thanks to her remarkable technical facility as well as her mischievous, slightly salacious sense of humor. The world is her brothel.

Up Sulphur Mountain Road is the stomping ground of sculptor Theodore T. Gall, whose art requires welding masks and heavy metal tools. Somewhat oddly, Gall’s spectrum of work ranges from mutant, sci-fi figures to colorful American Indian lore.

To the south is Whitman’s house, fronted by a glassy pond and a creek. This year, Whitman showed an alarming profusion of neo-Fauvist paintings, scattered in virtually every room of the sizable house.

That old art/life intersection came into play here, with the painted ceilings and pink-hued decor reflected in her work, which echoes such models as Matisse and Bonnard.

At the other end of the valley, neon sculptor, multimedia artist and painter Jan Sanchez lured visitors into her Meiners Oaks house with outdoor sculptures. Frequently erotic and freewheeling, Sanchez’s work turned the home’s suburban decor pleasantly asunder.

Also in Meiners Oaks, Gretchen Greenberg showed sleek, canny wood sculptures, alongside Keith Buchan’s distinctive, custom wood furniture pieces.

A newcomer to the tour was Archie Bard, whose yard off rural Creek Road was full of arty blarney. Large constructions of metal, alabaster and cement, often with a satirical bent, made for an offbeat brand of sculpture garden. An odor of horse manure added to the sensory experience.

To get to Frank Kirk’s secluded studio, an enchanting work space south of Ojai, the visitor walks down a gravel driveway and past a lavish house nestled in the midst of a large orange grove. Fittingly enough, Kirk’s magical realist works depict scenes in which landscapes exert most of the personality.

Perennial favorite Christine Brennan has moved across town, to an ample barn space up on Foothill Road, where her images of mythical, dream-world animalia get ample breathing room.

Frances Johnson’s place, snug up against the mountains, was small but full of warm visions. The title “Hunting to Fill a Void” summed up the probing spirit of her best work. Even an innocent domestic image such as “Sewing Time” gained in evocative strength via the loose blitheness of its impressionistic approach.

The other notable regulars included Mick Reinman, who paints big, muscular, semi-abstracted celebrations of the cowboy life. Leila Kleinman’s big, open studio space housed a big, open selection of paintings, including a bold Mexico series, all bulls and crucifixes.

It’s almost impossible for the visitor to come away from this tour without being impressed, on both artistic and scenic fronts, which valley boosters keep shamelessly tagging Shangri-La. It’s enough to make a believer out of you.

GROUP ART IN T.O.

Speaking of celebrating the art of a given locale, this is the last weekend to catch the annual Juried Art and Photography show at the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery.

Paintings of note include Roland Roy’s deft, thoughtful images and Heidi Schipper-Hill’s palpable chaparral panels. G. Eric Slayton’s “Yellow Towel” is a frank portrait of a woman after a bath with a feel-the-brush-stroke tactility.

The photography selection ranges from David Hartung’s strikingly vivid yet eerie “Street Scene, Mexico, 1989,” to Mark Collins’ unabashed color rhapsodies on landscape themes, to William Zuehlke’s metaphorical “Little Big Horn,” depicting a tepee under dark clouds at twilight.

Springing refreshingly off the wall--in more ways than one--is A. A. Lundgren’s wonderfully loopy “Pancake Family.” Fashioned with paint and burnt flapjacks, it has the warped naivete of folk art from Mars.

Details

* WHAT: City of Thousand Oaks 1993 Juried Art and Photography Show

* WHEN: Through Saturday

* WHERE: Thousand Oaks Community Gallery, 2331-A Borchard Road, Newbury Park

* FYI: 498-4390