campus point santa barbara

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