Layered Stories: Alumna Opens Private Art Gallery

Abstract acrylic painter Josephine Tournier Ingram’s (’00) growing art career eventually collided with domestic life. As demand for her work surged, canvases began taking over her home.

“Paintings were spilling into the guest studio,” she says. “And then I discovered spaghetti on one of them.”

Realizing her home studio had officially been outgrown, she knew it was finally time to secure a dedicated gallery space.

Moving into Gallery Josephine near the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens at 133 E. Anapamu St. feels like a sort of homecoming. She and her husband, Jared (’00), used to live a few blocks away after they graduated from Westmont College. The space is the former home of longtime flower shop Victor the Florist and, more recently, Parker Clay. The gallery, which is open by appointment, celebrates its first 1st Thursday Art Walk on July 2.

As an art major at Westmont, Ingram says all her classes came easy for her, except one: painting.

“That was a tough class for me,” she says. “I felt like my paintings were terrible.”

Her first break came shortly after graduation when she landed a graphic artist position at Powell-Peralta Skateboards in Goleta. After five years, she began receiving enough freelance work that she went solo.

From those challenging painting class days, she held onto some small canvases through a couple of moves.

“Jared kept telling me, ‘You should just get rid of these, you’re never going to paint on them,’” she says.

But once they bought their home and their second child was born, something shifted.

“I put him in the BabyBjörn, I pulled out my acrylic paints and did a layer, let it dry, moved on, did another layer,” she says.

Her second son, who is now 12, is neurodivergent and a talented, creative illustrator.

“I don’t know if it was because of him, our connection, but everything flowed out of me, and I started painting, painting, and painting,” she says.

Ingram, raised by French and German parents in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, hung her first painting in 2014 at her house and proudly posted a picture of it on social media. A professional ski racer near her hometown saw it and commissioned her to make another one just like it. The client then ordered a second one.

“That’s honestly how it started,” she says. “Jared told me to not do it for money, keep it as my passion, do it for love when I want to, so I have no pressure.”

She describes her paintings as an exploration of light, transformation, memory and place through layered abstraction. She also considers herself a storyteller, reflecting the persona of her patrons in her work.

“That’s what’s so fun about commissions, it’s not about me,” she says. “I’m inspired by them, by the colors of their house or their stories, and honoring those stories is a cool experience.”

She regularly donates her artwork to local schools and nonprofits, including CALM, which holds its annual Calm at Heart luncheon on Nov. 6 at Rosewood Miramar Beach. There, the winner of her auction lot will be able to choose their custom painting at the gallery during a private champagne gathering with friends.

Ingram serves on the Westmont Art Council and regularly keeps in touch with her mentors: art professors Scott Anderson, Tony Askew, and Sue Savage. Chris Rupp (’00), interim director of the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, installed the art at the gallery, while Kristen Walker (’08) serves as Ingram’s graphic designer.