HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS VALLEY ARTISTS INVITE THE PUBLIC TO STOP BY FOR A CUP OF INSPIRATION.

Byline: Carolyn Sinclair Correspondent

Sitting at the dining room table in his hilltop Encino home, Wayne La Com can lose himself in his latest watercolor painting or turn his gaze to his back yard and lose himself in the view. Both, he says, feed his creativity.

La Com, 82, is a career artist whose paintings have been exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and in museums and shows all over the Western United States and in Mexico. His wife, Diana, 73, is internationally known for her acrylics and watercolor pieces.

Their home studio, and those of 47 other San Fernando Valley artists, will be opened to the public as part of the third annual Valley Artists Studio Tour. The tour is designed to let the public meet the artists and view their works inside the setting in which they were created.

A vista to inspire

The La Com house is nestled in a lush nest of living green. The entire north side of the home is glass, giving an unrestricted view of the Valley below. Beyond their stone deck unfurls a steep landscape scene of old- growth trees, distant rooftops, winding roads and rock outcroppings. The Verdugo Mountains in the distance appear lavender-gray with muted edges through a hanging mist. And far below, the glittering traffic snakes along the Ventura Freeway in a sort of detached tranquillity.

``It's not an obtrusive house, not like some houses you see that are tall and dominating,'' explains Wayne La Com. ``This is a flat roof, one story, that kind of blends in with its surroundings. It fits into the environment. Rather than dominating it, it becomes part of it.''

Just as the architecture of the home harmonizes with the environment, there is distinct interplay between the decor and the mind set of the occupants. The walls are covered in art that documents a lifetime of extraordinary creativity and inspirational travel. Watercolor paintings of Maine are next to masks from Papua New Guinea. Nepalese tapestries, Indian temple carvings and giant pine cones make up an eclectic environment that the artists say feeds and is fed by their creative energy.

``I feel that if you live in a place long enough, it becomes charged with a certain energy,'' says Wayne La Com. ``A house is not just a piece of structure. It becomes a living thing. It has to be maintained, just as you maintain your body. In essence, it becomes an extension of you. When painting, the energy goes out, and there's a certain return of energy.''

For the La Coms, daily rituals in and around the home help refine the creativity in their lives.

``We both take a walk before breakfast, first thing in the morning on a (nearby) trail in the Santa Monica Mountains,'' says Diana La Com. ``I get to kind of clear away thoughts that intrude, and let them go. I try to focus, see what the day has to bring. I can't get too busy with what's going on in the world. If I do, it distracts me from what my personal focus is.''

That focus has thrived over many years. Despite the pressures of raising three children and running an art gallery for 20 years, the La Coms have kept a working artistic life. Evidence of fecundity is a work table cluttered with projects in progress, art supplies and dry paint palettes alongside finished pieces in soft pastels.

``You have to relate to whatever it is that you're painting,'' says Wayne La Com. ``In my case, it's nature. You cannot just sit down and automatically paint. You have to have a rapport with your energy going out and the energy from what you see returning to you. It's establishing a relationship.''

Home, they acknowledge, is a refuge from busy city life that allows them to recharge and keep creating.

``It's an urge,'' he says. ``If I don't indulge in some form of creativity, or do some writing, if I don't go along with that, then my life is not being fulfilled.''

He drags out a coffee table book titled ``California Watercolors 1850-1970'' that contains some of his paintings and his portrait. In the aged sepia-toned photo sits a 22-year-old version of Wayne La Com. He's in Mexico, dressed desert safari-style with lace-up boots. He's seated, overlooking a drop-off canyon vista, while balancing a canvas in his lap.

Now, nearly 50 years later, the La Coms are still inspired by a vista view.

``Somebody said to us one time that we should say thank you to the view,'' says Diana La Com. ``And in a way we kind of do. We notice it and feel very grateful.''

Waking to butterflies

Kenna Love sits at the edge of a pond in her Japanese-style garden behind her Sherman Oaks home. She dips her fingers into the cool, clear water to caress the gaping mouths of the fat ornamental goldfish and speckled red-orange koi.

``I'm out at the fish pond a couple of times a day because I feed the fishes,'' she says. ``Maybe it relates back to water. I love water. (In my) newer works, for about the last year, there are a lot of underwater elements.''

Love is a commercial and fine-arts photographer. She has had a succession of one-woman shows and two published books of her photos. Love will open her home studio as part of the Valley Artists Studio Tour.

``Galleries are very impersonal,'' she says. ``When you walk into someone's house, you instantly get to know that person a little quicker and a little easier. When (people) walk into a house, they instantly respond.''

But Love is well accustomed to nontraditional exposure of her work. One of her more illustrious projects, ``LA: A World of Difference,'' involved portrait photography of people to characterize neighborhoods all over the city. The images were displayed larger than life at bus stops, on billboards and at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

``It was like the whole city was my gallery,'' she says. Regardless of where her work is shown, most of the inspiration begins in the same place - her home studio. The house is perfectly ordinary from the outside but inside is a kaleidoscope of texture and colors, heavily accented in Asian motifs.

The decor ranges from eclectic to extravagant, but everything blends together. In the living room, the purple couches don't seem to clash with the portrait of a Buddhist monk taken inside Angkor Wat. The wall-size neon sculpture doesn't detract from a charcoal sketch of a woman who appears to be made of melting ice. But it's the piece that isn't boldly displayed that wins her deepest affection.

On her bedroom wall hangs one of her favorite works. It's an image of a bare-breasted woman surrounded by butterflies - some painted, some real, pressed into the paint. Love describes it as ``so full of life, so soothing and peaceful'' that she chooses to wake up and see it first every day. Love keeps her home as a nurturing refuge.

``You have to turn inward for concentration, and shut out the rest of the world to come up with something that's significant,'' she says. ``There's a kind of momentum. When you start and stop, it becomes difficult. Our house, in a sense, is fabulous because it separates the rest of the world around us. We're off the 405, and Coldwater (Canyon), but we are away from the madness.''

Love feels that the house is an extension of her artistic sensibility. ``I have interests everywhere, and my house reflects that and my art reflects that,'' says Love. ``Most artists select a scene or a subject matter in the same motif, but I have a very difficult time with that. I have such an array of subject matter in my photos. I have variations on many themes and the house is the same way. In that sense, it's similar to my artwork.''

IF YOU GO:

Today and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $25 per person, good for both days and includes admission to artist reception with entertainment and art sale. Reception, 7 to 9 tonight at the Canoga Park Youth Arts Center, 7222 Remmet Ave. [phone] or visit www.sfvartscouncil.com.

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(1 -- cover -- color) Picture this

Valley artisans open their studios to the public

(2 -- 3 -- color) Photographer Kenna Love will open her eclectically decorated Sherman Oaks home to the public this weekend as part of the studio tour. Visitors will have a chance to see her works, including ``Pasadena Bridge,'' right. ``I have interests everywhere,'' says Love, ``and my house reflects that and my art reflects that.''

(4 -- 5 -- color) Wayne La Com and his wife, Diana, above, will welcome visitors today and Sunday to their Encino home, where the walls bear evidence of their lifelong commitment to art, left. Their works - and tools of the trade - will be on display as part of the third annual Valley Artists Studio Tour.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer