campus point santa barbara

Strasburg Studio Archives: New Beginnings

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Strasburg Studio Archives: Rediscovery in the Stacks

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N E W B E G I N N I N G S
 

APRIL SPOTLIGHT : "Shape of a Pocket"
48 x 24", oil on birch panel, 2023.

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Thank you for joining me on this monthly trip through the archives of my studio. 

Shape of a Pocket, 48 x 24”, oil on birch panel, 2023.

With the arrival of spring comes a flurry of energy—windows flung open, the stale quiet of winter finally breaking as light and air rush back in. There’s a particular kind of magic that only spring can bring. It’s more than just a change of season; it’s a shift in the spirit. Possibility lingers in the air like the scent of blossoms. Trees stretch out tentative green fingers, new buds unfurling after months of hibernation. Grasses, in our typically semi-arid landscape, glow with a sudden and unexpected green, a color so vivid it startles the eye. It’s a reminder that even the driest seasons give way to growth. The transformation is powerful enough to lift even the heaviest hearts, striking a match of joy in even the most steadfast pessimist.

This month’s spotlight painting, Shape of a Pocket, which is now on view in the Spring Salon at Sullivan Goss, seems to belong to that spirit of renewal. Though not an older work, it’s one that, perhaps did not get the time it deserved in the spotlight. Created in 2023 for the solo exhibition SURFacing at Sullivan Goss, this piece was part of a broader dialogue—one that began with my 2021 show SEA CHANGE. Both exhibitions explored the local shoreline — the places where land meets sky and sea, where boundaries blur and freedom feels just within reach.

In these works, the horizon became both metaphor and invitation. At the time, we were all still processing the claustrophobia of Covid-era isolation, yearning for openness, for expanse, for breath. The ocean became my muse and mirror—offering reflection, rhythm, and the reminder that change, like the tide, is constant and inevitable.

Through it all—pandemic, political unrest, climate anxiety, personal highs and lows—there’s always been one reliable anchor: gratitude. I’m endlessly thankful for my health, for the work I’m privileged to create, for the love that surrounds me in countless forms. And always, always, for the land. It continues to speak to me, to inspire me, to center me. The muse doesn’t need to shout; often, it just quietly waits, like a tidepool at low tide, full of treasures if we only pause and look closely enough.

Shape of a Pocket, in many ways, captures that. It’s a small gesture, a held space, a gentle offering of beauty and hope—something we can all carry with us into this new season of light.

Images from SURFacing. 2023 exhibition at Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbarra.

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You can find my work with gallery Ocotillo at the San Francisco Art Fair next week.
The show runs Thursday evening April 17 through Sunday April 20, 2025
at the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion.

SURGE, 35.5 x 35.5", oil on birch panel, 2021

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 Strasburg Studio Archives: Rediscovery in the Stacks

 One treasure. One story. Once a month.


I look forward to sharing the hidden gems in my studio in this monthly series.
Feel free to forward to other treasure seekers and art lovers.

Strasburg Studio Archives: JUNE GLOOM

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Strasburg Studio Archives:Rediscovery in the Stacks
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J U N E  G L O O M  

Thank you for joining me on this monthly trip through the archives of my studio. 

June SPOTLIGHT: "Campus Tide 04", 40x40" oil on birch panel, 2005.

Campus Point, Santa Barbara California, original oil painting by Nicole Strasburg

Campus Tide 04, 40x40” ©N Strasburg

Oh May, you have been so drizzlingly damp and grey!

This month’s spotlight, Campus Tide 04, aims to inject a bit of summer sunshine into the dense marine layer that has enveloped the south coast for a month.

Traditionally, June rolls into Santa Barbara, fog shrouded, mist covered and dull, only surrendering to the sun late in the day.

 “June Gloom”, as the local forecasters love to pronounce, is a predictable summer staple on the south coast. Students excited about the end of school term have historically been met with cold weather and long stretches of wet soggy mornings, dampening the enthusiasm of summer break.

This year, May rushed in dragging the marine layer with it, leaving us enduring long days without a ray of sunshine capable of cutting through the wall of clouds. Winter seems to have stretched its long fingers into spring, holding on tight.

Campus Tide 04 is not representative of the dull colorless mornings experienced recently on the coast, but is a scene infused with the colors I experienced on my first visit to the Big Island of Hawaii. Everything is full volume in the tropical climate, the smells, the warmth of the air and the vibrancy of the hues that knock you down when stepping off the plane into the glow of island life.

I brought that heat and warmth home with me one winter and painted our local coastline with hints of the island still beaming through my memory. Sunshine radiates off the sand and cool blues remind us of the salty respite from sun drenched days spent at the shore.
 
Let’s hope the sun can soon shake off its heavy cloak of misty marine layer bringing with it warmth on the breeze of the approaching Summer Solstice. 

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Campus Tide 04, along with several of its siblings, were never formally exhibited. They were produced in my former studio/gallery, 30 Arlington, following my first exhibit, PACIFIC, at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara in June of 2004.

 October of the same year was my first visit to the Big Island of Hawaii and I arrived home brimming with ideas and salt from the islands still fading on my skin. Many of the paintings from this grouping were sold from the gallery as they were finished. Campus Tide 04 has travelled to outdoor shows with me and spent time on the wall at Susan Street Fine Art in Solana Beach before returning home to the studio.

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Locals Know:  Campus Point, home to UC Santa Barbara students, locals and traveling surfers, sits on the point of the UC Campus. The winter swell draws in hundreds over the surfing season. No matter your skill level or riding style, Campus Point and its surrounding breaks offer some of the best surfing. @ gogoleta.com

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 Strasburg Studio Archives: Rediscovery in the Stacks

 One treasure. One story. Once a month.


I look forward to sharing the hidden gems in my studio in this monthly series.
Feel free to forward to other treasure seekers and art lovers.

Remind me when we met?

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A week has passed since the opening of SURFACING at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara. With the show successfully launched, life now turns toward other, more mundane, pursuits; the long forgotten and neglected chores, the unglamorous tasks, that accumulate during the swirling excitement of completing a body of work and the subsequent installation at the gallery.

One luxury, post-reception, is time.

First to fill my calendar: take a long walk with a friend, followed by a plunge in the Pacific.

As we meandered the cliff and shoreline at Campus Point and while scurrying around the craggy rocks during the advancing tide, I was reminded of an image I painted from two decades ago. Still, this view surprises, inspires and holds my attention.

Every. Single. Time.

How does it do that?

Campus Point, Santa Barbara, CA, 2023

I created several versions of this view, small studies and a larger format oil painting, which caught the eye of my then “soon-to-be” husband. I created one last rendition in a size that would fill a wall in our dining room where it has lived for two decades, still bright, still shiny, still inspiring.

And, this morning, standing in front of the muse as it, once again, sparkled and posed, I caught my breath as the vision spilled its fairy dust reminding me that amidst the ebb and flow of life, some things always remain the same.

Point Break, 30x72”, oil on panel 2003