PAVEL GAZUR · CALIFORNIA SEASCAPE PAINTER
Seascapes of Big Sur
Original oil paintings of the California coast I've spent my life painting.
My New Book: The Light at Point Sur
In all those years painting this coast, I found a story I could not leave alone.
In 1935, the Navy airship USS Macon — nearly 800 feet long — fell into the sea off Point Sur. It is known to a few historians and to the people who visit the lighthouse, but almost no one else.
The Light at Point Sur grew from that forgotten history, from my paintings of Big Sur, and from the life I have shared on this coast with my wife and daughter.
HOW THIS CAME TOGETHER
I came to Big Sur for ruggedness.
The Big Sur cliffs, the lighthouse at Point Sur, the sea hammering the rocks. I've stood out there with an easel for years, painting a coast that doesn't hold still and doesn't forgive much.
Then I learned that in 1935 the USS Macon - a Navy airship nearly 800 feet long - went down a few miles off that lighthouse. One of the biggest things ever to fly, lost in twenty minutes in a storm. And outside of Point Sur and Monterey, hardly anyone has heard of it.
It struck me that this hard, beautiful coast had been keeping a secret, and that the wreck still sitting in the deep water had a story in it. So I wrote it. The coast I’d been painting for years turned out to be the setting for one of the great forgotten disasters and the story I built around it.
COMING SOON
The Light at Point Sur
A story of love, loss, and the Big Sur coast, inspired by the real 1935 crash of the USS Macon off Point Sur.
Available soon on Kindle, in paperback, and signed directly from me.SELECTED WORK
The Big Sur Collection
The same coast that runs through the book: Point Sur, Garrapata, Kirk Creek, Plaskett Creek, Pfeiffer Beach.
Kirk Creek, Big Sur, California | Painting by Pavel Gazur
Garrapata, Big Sur, California | Painting by Pavel Gazur
Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur, California | Painting by Pavel Gazur
Plaskett Creek, Big Sur, California | Painting by Pavel Gazur
Prewitt Creek, Big Sur, California | Painting by Pavel Gazur
Big Sur, California | Painting by Pavel Gazur
Why I paint, why I wrote the book.
I paint the California coast on location. I have to stand in front of it, see it, feel the wind and the cold, hear the waves crash against the rocks, before I can paint it.
Big Sur is the coast that keeps pulling me back: the cliffs, the fog, the waves below the bluffs, and the light that never holds still. I have returned to this coast with an easel for years.
Then I learned that in 1935 the USS Macon, a Navy airship nearly 800 feet long, went down a few miles off Point Sur. One of the biggest things ever to fly was lost in about twenty minutes, and outside of Point Sur and Monterey, almost no one remembers it.
That stayed with me. The same coast I had been painting for years turned out to be holding one of California’s great forgotten stories.
My own love of Big Sur, my fascination with the Macon, my marriage to Siobhan at Garrapata, and the trips we took here with our daughter, Vendela, all came together in The Light at Point Sur.
I carried this story for years, but the ending did not come easily. I rewrote it more than once, trying to find where the history, the love story, the coast, and the passage of time all belonged together. Siobhan and Vendela listened, imagined different endings with me, and helped me find the one that finally felt true.
The paintings and the book were both shaped by Big Sur, one of California’s great treasures, and most beautiful coasts.