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Capturing San Diego from a New Perspective Globally experienced and East Coast-bred, Anne Kullaf puts our region's consummate beauty on canvas A LOT CHANGED WHEN THE pandemic hit," says artist Anne Kullaf, a former painter-in-residence at New York City's Bryant Park. "I was teaching at a number of museum venues and leading plein air workshops in France and Italy for people who wanted to paint on location. But then, everything moved online." Kullaf 's husband, Will Rehm, an industrial designer, also found himself working remotely. Like many others at the time, the couple, who were then living in Philadelphia, suddenly came to the realization: "We can live anywhere." ey had often vacationed in Colorado, so in 2021 they relocated to Boulder, which had a huge impact on Kullaf 's work. "e scenery in Boulder is out of this world," says Kullaf, who grew up in the Tri-State area in Northern New Jersey and spent summers on the Jersey Shore. She graduated from the University of Bridgeport, where she studied graphic design and painting, becoming both a teacher and a fine artist. "Everything out west was just so much bigger and so much more grand than I was accustomed to. I started working on a much larger scale, using a palette knife for heavy applications of paint to capture the mountains and the magnitude of the landscape," says Kullaf. While on the East Coast and in Europe, she had focused on smaller, urban scenes that she painted on location. She still does her preliminary sketches and drawings in the field, working with pastels and watercolors. She also takes numerous photographs, which she uses for reference. Together, these become the basis for much larger oil paintings done in the studio. In terms of size, most of Kullaf 's Boulder clientele had large contemporary homes. "ey were looking for commanding pieces to set the tone when you entered a room," she says, and her new works met those needs. Still, while Kullaf loved Boulder's beauty, she did not feel entirely at home. "I'm used to being on the coast, even if I don't go to the ocean every day," she says. "I was feeling a bit isolated in Colorado, so when my daughter and her partner moved to San Diego during the pandemic, I took that as an opportunity to start visiting and painting here." BY BILL ABRAMS connect people ranchandcoast.com 98 SEPTEMBER 2024 RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE KOI POND: PHOTO BY KRISTEN REHM ALL OTHER PHOTOGRAPHY BY BAILEY ASHLYNN PHOTOGRAPHY