Paola Berthoin is an artist with a deep commitment to living in the Carmel River Watershed over the past fifty-two years. She was born in London, England and came to Carmel Valley in 1965 with her mother and three sisters. Paola is a graduate of Carmel High School and California College of the Arts where she specialized in printmaking, handmade paper and animal drawing. Additionally, Paola has studied ecological design and permaculture at Schumacher College in England and at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Northern California.
Tending the land on which she has lived for forty-three years and joining in multiple efforts to preserve wildlands has infused Paola’s visionary ways of interpreting the land through painting, writing, and advocacy for all the watersheds of the Earth. Working as pastry chef, Paola owned and operated the Coco La Fleur restaurant with her mother in Carmel Valley in the late 1980s. She served as Education Chair for the Carmel River Watershed Council in the late 1990s. She co-established RisingLeaf Watershed Arts, a non-profit organization, in 2001and taught her Watershed Arts curriculum in Monterey County schools. Paola completed the award-winning book Passion for Place: Community Reflections on the Carmel River Watershed in 2012. Through twenty years of co-organizing community arts events and projects focused on the Carmel River Watershed, Paola has planted many seeds of local and global ecological awareness.
Additionally, Paola has been involved in traffic-related issues including the preservation of Hatton Canyon, getting the first “Share the Road” bicycle sign installed on Carmel Valley Road, and being involved in the early days of the Monterey County Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Advisory Committee. Paola also served as secretary for the CVA in the 1990s.
Paola’s most recent project was to document the historic San Clemente Dam and Chinese Dam Removal and Carmel River Reroute Project through plein air paintings, photography and video. She is currently collaborating with blacksmith Richard Schrader to create a sculpture that will be made from rebar from the San Clemente Dam. It will be installed at the new MPRPD offices at Palo Corona Ranch/Rancho Cañada in Fall of 2017.
Through all Paola’s endeavors, she strives to inspire, educate and protect what she can through active caring for the land. Being on the CVA board is an opportunity to help fulfill the organization’s mission to preserve the natural beauty, resources and rural quality of the Carmel River Watershed.
