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 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.

Second Chances on First Thursday

SURFACING @Sullivan Goss

Second Reception: THURSDAY, September 7th from 5-8pm

September is widely recognized as the official kickoff of the art season. Some galleries, reopening after a summer hiatus, offer up fresh exhibitions curated during the period of August's scorching hot days. Artists and galleries alike, eagerly await the return of art enthusiasts who have been away on their summer sojourns.

And, as we transition from one season to the next, while children settle back into the routine of a fresh school term, it is an ideal moment to reunite with friends and explore the vast array of exciting new exhibitions on display.

September First Thursday events mark the launch of Santa Barbara’s own art season. SULLIVAN GOSS at 11 East Anapamu will host a brand new show in the main gallery titled SPACE while in the back and front gallery is the second chance to see my show SURFACING and Holli Harmon’s exhibit To Feast on Clouds. Most of the artists will be in attendance, myself included.

If you need some enticing JOE WOODARD has written a fabulous review of SURFACING in the Independent.

A Bit of Perspective 14x14” oil on cradled birch panel

Click to read the full article

Something's Brewing: Paintings will be on the move this week. Stay tuned!

The wait is nearly over, the paintings are ready to travel to the gallery in downtown Santa Barbara. They are making quite the racket in the studio, ready to leave the nest. The are dressed, raring to go and looking forward to their debut on the gallery walls.

Sullivan Goss will be sending out a preview THIS Friday, July 20. Click the link below to be added!

Radiant Heat 20x40” Oil on birch panel ©2023

SURFACING catalog preview

As with my 2021 exhibition SEA CHANGE, my current exhibit, SURFACING, will have a catalog to accompany the show. The layout is complete and the cover decided. I hope to have it ready by the middle of August if not sooner! It will be a beautiful companion to the first catalog, a match set, warm and cool, made up of the same subject, shore and sky, sand and sea. SURFACING will officially open at Sullivan Goss, 11 East Anapamu, Santa Barbara on Friday, July 28, 2023 with the reception on First Thursday, August 3rd from 5-8pm. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the gallery.

New Catalog Cover

“SURF: Once again, I am deeply engrossed in my longstanding relationship with the shoreline, entranced by the interplay of sand, sea, and sky.  My newest collection of paintings seamlessly continues the narrative established in my previous exhibition, "Sea Change," delving further into the exploration of color and composition, with an emphasis on the delicate balance between truth and memory.” (catalog excerpt)

Inside Catalog Page

Summer at Sundance

Summer Solstice marks the first day of of the new season, the season of blue skies, heat, and running to the shoreline, lake or mountain tops to cool from the radiating summer sun. Sundance has a new collection of paintings celebrating the season, big sky and cool ocean colors or mountain pines with night skies.

SEA CHANGE officially opens

Please join me in celebrating a new exhibit at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara. It’s been 5 years since my last solo show and I’m returning to the subject of a perpetual obsession, the pacific ocean. After the many months pummeled by news of the world and forced seclusion, I offer you color and vast horizons.

The First Thursday reception has been cancelled for August but don’t let that stop you from the respite that the show can offer, a traveling armchair, a breeze blowing onshore, sunshine radiating from the work.

A catalog for the show is also in the works, look for it mid month.

With hopes of seeing you around the gallery, be well, stay safe and let joy find you outside in the sun.

Gallery walls, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara

CATALOG EXCERPT:

SEA CHANGE: a profound or notable transformation, substantial change in perspective, transformation after undergoing various trials or tragedies. 

This body of work emerged after the long months of quarantine. We can all agree that the year 2020 altered the way we see and experience the world, a noticeable change in our work patterns, change in our socializations, change in emotional atmosphere.  

During the long seclusion I spent my time combing through old source material for inspiration. Reexamining photographs, I tried to recall the “aha” moment that captured my attention. Looking more closely at these images I was reminded how much information the camera records verses what our eyes are capable of seeing. I question how this influences my work in the studio, the actual verses the recorded, the recorded verses the perceived, all woven into the personal dialog with my materials.

This work represents healing in the making of marks, solace also comes to mind and growth after a long winter. The uncertainty of this past year is veiled as horizons beckon us forward, the passing clouds offer comfort and respite that the storm is moving on, leaving the glorious remains of being washed clean and full of hope.

SEA CHANGE catalog coming soon!

Wintering .... there is beautiful art to be seen.

Winter Salon at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara

February Storm Quad, 29.5x78” Oil on Birch panel

Sullivan Goss presents a curated selection of pieces from our inventory and recent acquistions.

February 5th through March 22, 2021 at Sullivan Goss

11 East Anapamu, Santa Barbara

open every day from 10-530

Holiday Gallery Cheer

If you are looking for some much needed peace and beauty Sullivan Goss has three terrific shows on the walls now and the doors are open to visitors. 100 Grand, the annual celebration of local art in small format, still has plenty of precious gems awaiting homes. And in the back room is the Winter Salon which features many new works by the gallery’s stable of artists. Tomorrow we are expecting the first rain of winter, what a great way to spend some time if you can’t be outside!

Works by Nicole Strasburg, Ken Bortalazzo and Patricia Chidlaw

Coastal Magic

A warm and hopeful wish this season for a prosperous new year. May we all find peace and joy while we wait for a vaccine that will restore us to a modicum of normalcy after almost a year of uncertainty.

I seek daily to find moments of glory, joy, peace and magic. Today without the gatherings of friends and family, the sharing of meals and stories of Christmases past I decided to seek warmth from nature. This time of year always holds the promise of a low tide and beautiful skies at the shoreline. Today was glorious and I was reunited with an old friend that I have not seen in a few years.

In 2007 I painted Morning Tide, an image from our local point during a minus tide. The sand recedes during the extreme winter tides revealing amazing rock formations. This one appeared looking like a lone dinosaur with it’s young on a beautiful morning beach walk. I was elated today to rediscover my friend waiting for me in the December tideline.

It wasn’t a hug from family or friends but it was a wonderful connection that reminded me of home, someone waiting to welcome me, the familiar that leads you to believing that everything is going to be okay.

Blessings and gratitude to friends and family near and far. May you all find the magic in the small moments this holiday.

Campus Point, Low Tide, December 25, 2020

La Paloma Cafe, Santa Barbara, California

Despite the current state of the State of California and the rolling shut downs, a new restaurant has been born, La Paloma Cafe. Words from their own website:

"We welcome you back in time, back in Santa Barbara history, back to La Paloma! After 37 years "the dove" will once again take wing on the iconic corner of Anacapa and Ortega. And like an old friend, the celebrated neon sign will once again state the original letters: La Paloma Cafe. Early in Santa Barbara's history, Ortega Street was "restaurant row" and a hub of activity. Opened in 1938, La Paloma Cafe was the premier Mexican restaurant on the strip and was frequented by stage and screen stars. During Old Spanish Days, vaqueros and cattlemen tied their horses in front of the corner bar building to wet their whistles. The old main house and patio buzzed with energy day and night where locals enjoyed the Luera family's hospitality delivered"

The new owners at Acme Hospitality have given the space a fresh clean face lift and added a second deck for outdoor dining (complete with heat lamps). The interior is spare and beautiful and many of my landscape paintings adorn the walls.

More on the restaurant HERE and to order take out check the MENU.

January Tide 40x40” oil on birch panel

Commission Installation - just in time for the holidays

Pacific Coast Fog 60x36” was recently finished and installed into the home of a happy client. They had been looking for the perfect something for this location and when they found it the painting was just too small. We figured out the perfect size and recallibrated the image for the new dimensions and zhuzhed up the color. Happy holidays from Santa Barbara.

Pacific Coast Fog 60x36”, oil on birch panel ©2020