Celebrating Local Life and Culture
After the success of São Paulo, shown in December, 2011, Brazilian-born photographer and filmmaker Ciro Coelho presents Paris, the next installment in The Travelbooks series.
The Travelbooks films are poetic visual chronicles of world capitals and their citizens, projected onto a wall-sized screen inside the El Presidio Chapel during 1st Thursdays in Santa Barbara.
Thursday, April 5, 5-8 p.m. at El Presidio Chapel, 123 E. Canon Perdido St.
Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery presents Anders Aldrin: The Red Line with an opening reception on 1st Thursday, April 5 from 5–8 p.m.
City View c. 1941 by Anders Aldrin, oil on canvas, 20 x 26"
Swedish born Anders Aldrin (1899-1970) moved to Los Angeles in 1923 with a passion for painting that had been suppressed for most of his life. An artist with limited financial means, Aldrin could only paint when he had spare time. Without a car in a famously unwalkable city, he would hop on the Red Car Line and paint the cityscapes, people, and bridges of the modern wonder that was Los Angeles. As the glamour of Old Hollywood gave way to the power plants and steam stacks of the imminent future, Aldrin succeeded in preserving a historic record of this shift in industrialization through his expressive and boldly colored paintings.
Clearly inspired by Matisse’s early Fauve paintings like “The Red Room (Harmony in Red),” even though we was never able to see such seminal works in person, Aldrin was 15 to 30 years late and 7,000 miles away from the birth of the French movement, Aldrin should be considered one of the truest Fauves. Like Matisse, Aldrin’s use of red is both prominent and crucial to his compositions. The Los Angeles art critic Arthur Millier noted that “to Aldrin the world is dominantly red and green, but how he makes these colors sing!”
The work will be on view through July 1 at Sullivan Goss-An American Gallery, 7 E. Anapamu St. 805/730-1460, www.sullivangoss.com.
Let Your Words Escape You at April’s Poetic 1st Thursday.
Here’s what the Downtown Organization’s Kim Mercado has to say about some of the highlights of April’s 1st Thursday:
Visit Downtown Santa Barbara for 1st Thursday, an evening filled with FREE art, culture, music and fun! The April 5th event will include more than 30 cultural art venues eager to show off exciting new exhibits, welcoming artist receptions, intriguing demonstrations and energetic live music.
Poetry is not only for the young or old, nor big or small. Poetry comes in all shapes and sizes and is a perfect outlet to let your imagination run wild. Get inspired at this month’s art walk as many venues highlight poetry in honor of National Poetry Month.
Embark on your stroll throughout Downtown at Lola Boutique to explore the work of Dan Levin who gravitates towards materials extracted from beaches, streams, mountains and deserts as he comments on the mysteries of the natural world. He is driven to orchestrate relationships between objects, forming a singular composition or metaphorical device. Walk on over to the Channing Peake Gallery where the Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Paul J. Willis will host a poetry reading that will include an array of poets that is a must see. Cross the street to visit the Faulkner Gallery East at the Santa Barbara Public Library where Loree Gold invites you to enjoy a visually poetic and colorful body of work that explores the collective memory of road trips past. Get into the poetic spirit and write your own words that will be collected at the end of the month.
Continue your 1st Thursday trek as you stride over to Artamo Galleries to meet artist Janet Bothne while her Driving Force exhibit will be on display. Bothne layers scraps of paper from divorce papers, wrappers, personal documents and paint sample chips as the work becomes an unintentional journal like map pins plotting out her recent experiences.
Next, walk through La Arcada Court to Santa Barbara Arts to explore artist, Christopher Clark’s Amused exhibit that features his edited images of an amusement part outside the city limits of New Orleans, abandoned after Katrina, which is poetic in itself. Make sure to stop at Jodi House to for live music and to support a local non-profit and local artists, surrounding the theme of poetry.
While 1st Thursday offers extraordinary exhibits and paintings indoors, be sure to check out the demonstrations, performance art and live music outdoors. Stop by the corner of Anapamu and State Street to experience The Lexicon of Sustainability Exhibit which is a unique pop-up art show of visually packed collages created by the students in the SBCC Projects in Sustainability class that gives the tools and knowledge necessary to create a healthier safer food system in America.
Want to join in the poetic fun? Visit The Poetry Booth on the Marshall’s Patio at 900 State Street where you can contribute to an interactive public art installation and collaboration space for experiencing and creating poems. The poetry booth provides all the resources, all you need to do is sit down and share some words.
Carry on and venture over to the El Presidio Chapel at 123 East Canon Perdidio Street for a viewing of the next installment of The Travelbooks series, Paris. These films are poetic chronicles of world capitals and their citizens projected onto a wall-sized screen. Draw a close to your evening at the Paseo Nuevo Center Court to listen to The Wha Wha’s who are growing quickly as Santa Barbara’s newest upcoming teen band.
All of these attractions and many more are FREE during 1st Thursday on April 5th. With over 30 stops on this month’s 1st Thursday map, there is sure to be something for everyone. For more information and a complete listing of the specific programming offered at each gallery as well as all public performances and interactive exhibits, go to www.santabarbaradowntown.com.
If you’ve been curious to see what Ensemble Theatre has planned for the Victoria Hall Theater–we certainly have been–tonight’s the night to come check it out. As part of the 1st Thursday celebration Ensemble is presenting “Art in Theater,” which includes a look at the architectural plans for its new home, as well as a presentation of the scenic and costume design process behind its productions.
They’ll be serving wine too! 5-8 p.m. Victoria Hall Theater, 22 W. Victoria (between State and Chapala).
Sullivan Goss has a new exhibit of work by Surrealist, Organic Cubist and Muralist, Howard Warshaw.
Howard Warshaw: New Forms focuses on Warshaw’s concern with developing a new language of form. This exhibition introduces us to Warshaw’s peculiar and wondrous new vision through his work. He marries local imagery and California iconography to his vision of Cubism, creating something was sometimes called “cowboy cubism.” The exhibition is timed to coincide with the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time (PST), with an opening reception at 1st Thursday’s event from 5-8 p.m. The exhibit is on display from March 1- June 7. For more information please visit, www.sullicangoss.com/Exhibits/SGTV.
Up until now it’s been all about the girls at the Project –Fine Art Zone (740 State St, Suite 1, on De La Guerra Plaza), a collaborative non-profit art gallery owned by nine female artists–ERIKA CARTER, SUSAN TIBBLES, LIZ BRADY, LISA PEDERSEN, VIRGINIA McCRACKEN, DONNA ASYCOUGH, ASHLEY DART, THERESA CARTER and LLOYD DALLETT–who operate the gallery themselves and donate 20 percent of all art sales to Girls Inc.
The gals will still have their art on exhibit in February, but starting this month they have invited some guys to show off their work—and match their commitment to donate to Girls Inc.—in the Zone gallery within the gallery.
Up first is Dan Levin, an assemblage artist who typically integrates man-made artifacts that have been discarded as no longer viable. Levin says that recently he has gravitated primarily towards materials extracted from beaches, streams, mountains and deserts.
Whether commenting on the mysteries of the natural world or simply producing an abstract that is aesthetically pleasing, Levin is driven to orchestrate relationships between objects that may never have been in close proximity – forming a singular composition or metaphorical device.
His exhibit at the Project, “My Mother’s Sun” is collection of what he calls “fibercations,” pieces that incorporate embroidery into the assemblage work, a new technique for Levin. “Since the ladies were gracious enough to let a male artist exhibit, I thought I’d try something different,” he says.
Levin will be the first of five “calendar boys” to exhibit at the Project, says Erika Carter. They have also selected Philip Koplin to exhibit in March, Rafael Perea de Cabada to exhibit in April, Dug Uyesaka to exhibit in May and Hugh Margerum to exhibit in June.
This week’s 1st Thursday reception is on February 2 from 5-8 p.m. TheProject –Fine Art Zone is also open Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. For information call 805/895-7759 or visit www.theproject-fineartzone.com.
The Santa Barbara County Arts Commission is proud to announce an evocative exhibition, Threshold, with water-themed photography by Allan Hancock College film and video instructors Michele Simonsen and Tim Webb. The exhibit will open on January 30 at the Channing Peake Gallery and a reception for the artist will be held on 1st Thursday, February 2, from 5-8 p.m. in the gallery. The reception and exhibition are open to the public.
Threshold explores the beauty of light flowing through the water in the Trinity River in Northern California. Over the years, the couple has taken hundreds of images of the river. Simonsen traces the lure of the Trinity River back to her childhood when her parents purchased property on the river. Once the couple met in Arcata after college graduation, they discovered a shared love of photography and filmmaking, and Simonsen introduced the Trinity River to Hancock. During breaks from graduate school, the couple would escape the city and the technology of filmmaking with tranquil visits to the Trinity River property, where they took dozens of photographs exploring personal themes through portraiture and experimental photography.
After the couple obtained their graduate degrees in 2000, both taught at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore, Southeast Asia’s only film school. While there, both husband and wife explored many nearby islands. In Malaysia the couple first took their cameras into the water and began exploring the beauty of light flowing through water.
Upon their return to the U.S. in 2002, they began this same exploration in the temperate waters of the Trinity river and other Northern California rivers. Webb uses natural light and a Nikonos III, an older 35mm underwater camera using traditional film, to capture the experimental underwater landscaped in both black and white and color, while Simonsen moves weightlessly in the cool water. The ongoing project has been a family affair since 2002 when the couple’s daughter, Ula, was born. The family visits the Trinity yearly, and Ula is a subject in many of the images taken over the countless hours under and over the river.
The exhibition will be open January 30 – April 13, Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the Channing Peake Gallery on the 1st floor in the County Administration Building. On 1st Thursday’s, March 1, at 6 p.m. a walk-thru gallery talk conducted by the artists will be held.
Large Drypoint #3 by Marie Schoeff
Check out the first show at Jane Deering Gallery’s new space at 128 E. Canon Perdido St., featuring Santa Barbara artist Marie Schoeff with “Traces,” an exhibition of trace drawings and dry point prints.
This show will be on exhibit through January 29.
Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery presents the inaugural exhibition from the Estate of Leon Dabo (1865-1960)—The Drawings of Leon Dabo, with a reception on 1st Thursday, January 5th.
The Drawings of Leon Dabo
Leon Dabo’s progressive aesthetic sensibilities in the nineteenth century ushered in new forms of visual expression for the twentieth. The artist was instrumental in bringing a Modern sensibility to America’s artists, curators and patrons through organizing the famous “Armory” show in 1913 – the first major exhibition of Modern European and American art in the US. Dabo not only hosted meetings for the committee to organize the exhibition in his studio, he exhibited at the show.
Early tonal drawings in charcoal, blue conté, teal conté and red conté, and Provençal landscapes will be shown alongside later floral drawings reminiscent of the Symbolist imaginings of Odilon Rédon (1840-1916) in a special installation that will take viewers back to a quieter time in history.
Dabo’s work is in the public collections of the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Metropolitan, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian.
Opening Reception: 1st Thursday January 5 from 5 – 8 p.m.
Also on view: Jon Francis: Paintings from the Drive Home through February 26, 100 GRAND, and Nicole Strasburg: Islands, Valleys, Home and the Winter Salon through January 29.
