Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts

06/24/2026

A photo from back when the world was black and white and sometimes sepia.

06/22/2026

06/20/2026

A visit with Beatrice Wood in the early 1990s.

06/18/2026

Join us for this fun and informative workshop led by Amy Lynn Stevenson and create a portrait of your pet or pets.

06/17/2026

Beatrice Wood defines love.

06/16/2026

Alan Ho**er (1902–1993) is widely recognized for his role in the development of California cuisine, pioneering fresh, herb-forward, and vegetarian-friendly dining long before it became a mainstream movement. Operating The Ranch House in Ojai, beginning in the early 1950s, he introduced a lighter, vegetable-centric approach that helped define the state’s iconic culinary identity.
 
Long before fresh herbs were standard in American restaurants, Ho**er made them the centerpiece of his recipes. He transformed vegetarian food into fine dining, moving away from heavy, processed meat-alternatives of the era and instead utilized real butter, extra-virgin olive oil, and fresh produce from his own organic garden.
The atmosphere was also central to the experience, pairing Ho**er’s innovative, lighter plates with a bucolic, meditative outdoor setting, creating the quintessential relaxed California dining experience.
 
Perhaps his greatest contribution came from his self-published cookbooks, beginning with Alan Ho**er’s New Approach to Cooking (1966), which offered step-by-step guidance on breaking away from the standard American diet. His recipes taught the gourmet palate how to use garden-fresh ingredients.
 
Ho**er was a successful jazz pianist in 1949 when he and his wife Helen gave away their possessions and headed West from Ohio to be near J. Krishnamurti, bringing him into a circle of individuals that included Beatrice Wood – who painted the tables and chairs when they created the restaurant and created pottery for the dishes to be served on. She also illustrated his first cookbook.
 
The Ranch House restaurant ultimately attracted loyal admirers included chefs such as Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck, and Alice Waters as well as well-known personalities including Barbra Streisand, John Lennon, and Paul Newman – who famously declared The Ranch House to be “the best restaurant in the world” writing that there was “no 4-star restaurant in France as good.”

06/16/2026

A set of Beatrice Wood teapots from the collection of Gloria & Sonny Kamm.

06/14/2026

If you had attended our Encaustic Painting Workshop with Helen Dannelly, you would have enjoyed Chilled Beet Salad, Grandma Marie’s Potato Salad, Apple Slaw, Chickpea Salad, Green Salad with Tomatoes from Fillmore’s Beylik Family Farms, and Roasted Vegetables on a Bed of Pesto Orzo for lunch. Not to mention creating a lot of really cool work!