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

Summer heat has arrived. The sizzle of August meets us before sliding into fall.

It has been such a mild summer here on our piece of coastline. I’ve been wondering when the hot days would arrive. So often we get a good blast of heat in October and as the summer ticked away, with cooler than usual temperatures, I kept wondering if September and October were going to be blazing. The heat always shows up, it’s just a matter of when.

Evening Sizzle, 14x14”, oil on birch panel

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.

Post Show Disappearance

My show concluded at the end of September of this year and what an amazing show. I felt like I ran a marathon at a sprint putting together the 54 pieces that were delivered to the gallery in July.

By the end of the show all the gas had been consumed from my tank. My normal pattern would be to celebrate by traveling somewhere and filling my eyes and heart back up before returning to the studio. Alas, it has been another grounded year.

Life continues and despite being home there are shows still on the horizon. Right now at Sullivan Goss you can find my work in both the annual 100 GRAND exhibition as well as the Winter Salon.

Sky Sea 40, 4x4”, Gouache on Arches Board - 100 GRAND Exhibition at Sullivan Goss Santa Barbara

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I hope the season finds you all well and thriving. May your creativity find you hard at work. Happy Holy Days.

Campus Tide 5, 28x40”, oil on cradled birch panel - Winter Salon, Sullivan Goss

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!

BLOOM at Sullivan Goss

BLOOM will be part of SEA CHANGE opening a week from today at Sullivan Goss. Hope to see you all around the gallery.

Ode to the Pacific

I’m in the final stretch of creating a new show for Sullivan Goss that will open at the end of July. The weeks are ticking away.

I fell in love with the color charts I was making last year and it has influenced the new paintings. I was looking for light and joy in the confines of the quarantine.

Summer Salon at Sullivan Goss

I love to be hanging with friends and beloved colleagues.

Coastal Fog can be viewed now at Sullivan Goss through July 26, 2021 beside the works of John Nava, Nathan Huff, Patricia Chidlaw, Phoebe Brunner, Angela Perko, Colin Campbell Cooper, Lockwood DeForest and many more.

Left to right, Nathan Huff “A Sudden Lurch to Help”, Angela Perko “Refugio Beach, West End #2”, Nicole Strasburg “Coastal Fog” and John Nava “Summerland 4-2”.

January Passing Storm

January Passing Storm installed in its new home in Santa Barbara. It’s always wonderful to see work placed in such beautiful environments. The paintings sing in a new way when they move from the studio into living spaces.

Save the Date - Summer 2021

Sullivan Goss will be hosting my first solo show in 5 years this Summer. I know! right?! Where did the time go? I’m sure some of you remember The River’s Journey, a huge endeavor and project that resulted in 4 individual exhibits spanning from February 2018 through June 2019. I was preoccupied and absorbed and then, you know, life happens. It’s not that I haven’t been working but other things needed tending and now my studio is bursting. I look forward to sharing new work again and I’m sure by the summer there will be several shows worth. Good luck to Susan sorting and finding the show within the piles.

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

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