by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Things tend to get a bit abstract when Paul Kittlaus touches a canvas.

“I like the abstract,” Paul Kittlaus said during a small October 31 art show at his Pilgrim Place residence. “I like things that are new, that are fresh, that are not planned, but just kind of spontaneous [in] movement.”

The show, part gallery sale and mixer with friends, dubbed his “10th anniversary sale” by his daughter Ann Kittlaus, featured some 66 pieces at 50% off. It was labeled as such as the 90-year-old recently clocked one full decade of creating abstract works.

“I didn’t start painting until I was 80,” the 90-year-old Paul Kittlaus said. “Every year or so, I have a show out here and let people see what I’m working on.”

The pieces that did not sell on Halloween will be available at this year’s 76th annual Pilgrim Place Festival, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday November 8-9 at 625 Mayflower Rd., Claremont. Paul Kittlaus’ works will be among those on display at Painter’s Guild, booth number 43, located on Leyden Lane in the retirement community.

A free shuttle will take visitors to and from the festival from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, 830 W. Bonita Ave., and Claremont Presbyterian Church, 1111 N. Mountain Ave. For more information, visit pilgrimplace.org/festival.

Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, Claremont Heritage, Claremont United Church of Christ, and the Claremont Chamber of Commerce have Paul Kittlaus’s work in their permanent collections. But  art was not his passion. That was as minister with the United Church of Christ.

“You started at 80 because you ran out of other things to do,” Ann Kittlaus joked.

The late bloomer artist is most drawn to abstract work, though not everyone is as enthusiastic.

“A lot of people, including other friends of mine who are residents here, have a difficult time with abstract,” Paul Kittlaus said. “They look to see a tree or a horse or something, and what they get is a splash of red, a splash of magenta, or something, and they don’t know how to handle that.

“I think this is a form of free expression. I think there’s a lot of freedom that I feel. There aren’t patterns I have to make my painting look like something else or look like a tree or, whatever. The freedom is one of the kind of themes and people who look at the art are free to search for anything they might find.”

He finds solace in painting. “It’s almost a form of meditation,” he said. “A sense that when I get painting, I’m not aware of anything else around me. And in political times that are full of stress like we have now, it’s nice to have a place to go in my studio and work doing a painting.”

His process is simple and led by his curiosity.

“I’ll see a painting in a magazine or online. I look at the work of other artists, and I’ll see something that is really interesting to me,” Paul Kittlaus said. “And it’s using colors that I like and using shapes that I like and then, I’ll get the paint out and get the canvas up and then I’ll start trying to reproduce what I see. But after five minutes, that’s no longer in my mind and I’m searching for something new that’s mine to put up there. So that’s as close to a process as I can, describe. I keep painting until I think, there’s nothing more I can add here.”

One charming aspect of Paul Kittlaus’ art is his prices vary depending on the size of the work. “I have, for the last three years, charged $0.50 a square inch,” he said.

To purchase a Paul Kittlaus original, or works from other artists, stop by the Pilgrim Place Festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. November 8-9 at 625 Mayflower Rd., Claremont. Other vendors at the event will be selling handmade collectibles, pottery, jewelry, baked goods, jams, woodcrafts, fabric and fiber arts, books, furniture, housewares, holiday décor, plants, clothing and more.

Proceeds from the free and open to the public event benefit Pilgrim Place’s Resident Health and Support Program.