I love it that paintings have no expiration dates. Even though this was made following a 2009 excursion with beloved artist/writer Thalia Chaltas this painting quietly waited it’s turn to be out in the world in a bigger way.
Badwater, Death Valley was shipped off to Sundance for their catalog. I’m excited for this triptychs debut on the bigger stage this fall.
Badwater, Death Valley Triptych 29.5 x 58.5” oil on birch panel ©2009
Every day alchemy
details of new work with mixed color on palette
Color swatches from details of the new work coming soon to Sullivan Goss.
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.
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”.
Installation day
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.
Skye & Molly, Silkscreens by Teresa Zepeda
Two treasures made their way to me in the mail from talented art pal Teresa Zepeda. My two beloveds in small format silkscreens. Teresa is a star. These small gems are remarkable in their technique and Teresa’s skill at capturing the expression and posture is heart squeezingly beautiful. Pure gold winging through the US post.
Thank you to Caleb Wiseblood for the wonderful article in the Santa Maria Sun this morning.
READ all about the new exhibition at the Wildling Museum of Art & Nature. Exhibition includes artists Scott Chatenever, Dorothy Churchill-Johnson, Catherine Eaton-Skinner, Lynn Hanson, Karen Kitchel, Maria Rendon, John Robertson, Sommer Roman, Carol Saidon, and Nicole Strasburg.
Spring time means new beginnings. A new iteration of the Fox Tales windows arrives at the museum before the re-opening in April. The Wildling opened their doors again April 17th with two new shows and a refresh of the papercuts “wintering” windows. There are cubs at play and new color for daylight hours. STILL, the best viewing times are after dark when there is drama at play.
Wildling Museum of Art & Nature
1511 Mission Drive, Solvang California
Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts
Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts
Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts
Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts
Winter Reverie 18x40” oil on birch panel
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.
Weather Patterns project. 24 included in the Bio/Mass exhibit at the Wildling
Bio: Relating to life and living beings
Mass: A large body of matter crowded together
Artists are observers and interpreters of what they see around them, whether it is a social concern, the natural world, the built environment or their own unique vision. Often artists work in series, exploring a particular topic as they deeply observe their subject over time. For artists, this repetition can serve both as a meditative practice and a means of learning and understanding.
In this exhibition, artists were chosen who create work in series, examining some aspect of nature. They may be examining patterns in nature or the same location over a long period of time. Some combine and recombine singular elements that accumulate into a fascinating and revealing artwork or body of work.
These artists have transformed their fascination with deep observations of their individual environments into works that help us to see the beauty in the details of our world, celebrating both quiet and dramatic moments in nature.
Scott Chatenever, Lynn Hanson, Dorothy Churchill-Johnson, Karen Kitchel, Maria Rendón, John Robertson, Sommer Roman, Carol Saindon, Catherine Eaton Skinner, Libby Smith, and Nicole Strasburg.
In case you missed it, you can still watch the zoom presentations for The Nature of Clouds and Wintering: A Fox Tale on the Wildling Museum YouTube channel.
Thank you to the Wildling Musem as well as the Santa Barbara News Press, Santa Maria Sun and Lance Orozco with KCLU News for the wonderful coverage and support of the new installations at the museum.
Thank you to Caleb Wiseblood for his wonderful article in the Sun.
getting ready
There is always that revolving list of things that need doing around the house. Usually they can be easily tabled because life is busy and there are places to go and people to see. We’re coming up on a year in captivity and the excuses have run dry for NOT getting to that list.
It was at last time to finish choosing and hanging my ever growing collection. One of my reasons for not committing is that I have a huge map drawer (or two) of beautiful images collected over the years and I just couldn’t decide which ones would win the lottery and claim a space on the wall.
I needed to rip off the band-aid and just hang the work that was framed. It’s been a pleasure to finally have the work committed to the wall and to sit amongst so many friends in my reading corner.
What have you been putting off?
making a plan
Enjoy!
Detail work in progress
Frequently I’ve been asked “as an artist, how have you been affected by the pandemic? Has it changed your practice?” Most artists live a solo life in their studios, spending hours of time alone making, trying, striving to move their craft forward. In that regard, not a lot has changed. I am still in my studio every day but the one thing that is different is the lessening of outside distraction. There are no appointments to rush off to or times when a museum visit is scheduled, the days just melt into one another.
The downside for me, with all the solo hours regular studio practice usually includes visits with other artists to talk about work, travel to recharge the creative well, seeing other creative people in their pursuits of dance or music, writers talking of their craft. These pursuits are all ubiquitously missing. The resounding quiet does make it challenging on some days to find the creative thread.
Rather than dwell too long on the hunt for creativity I try to find ways to distract from what’s outside the studio door pressing in. I return to school days exercises like limiting your palette, changing substrates, or playing with color charts to keep the brushes fluid. Almost every time, when it comes to painting, I’m rewarded and I fall in love all over again.
Detail work in progress
color charts/color mixing
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
Wildling Museum unveils new Tower Gallery exhibition by Holli Harmon and window installation by Nicole Strasburg, encouraging sidewalk viewings during closure
Tower Gallery Exhibition: Holli Harmon: The Nature of Clouds | On view: Now through Fall 2021
Window Installation: Wintering: A Fox Tale by Nicole Strasburg | On view: Now through Spring 2021
Location: Both installations on view from sidewalk, Wildling Museum, 1511-B Mission Drive, Solvang, CA 93463
Accompanying the new Tower Gallery exhibition is a window art installation titled Wintering: A Fox Tale by artist Nicole Strasburg. The series of papercut fox silhouettes was specially designed by Strasburg to bring joy and wonder to passersby during the museum’s extended closure.
“We wanted to create something exciting for the windows that would let everyone know we were only hibernating, not closed forever,” says Strasburg. “With my love for animals and the fox being the Wildling Museum mascot, it seemed fitting to do something with a fox theme.”
Strasburg’s intricate papercutting technique transformed the museum’s windows into a dramatic winter landscape once lit.
“Wintering and hibernating are not always a dormant time, it’s also a time of great imagination and rejuvenation, a time to recharge,” says Strasburg. “Designing and cutting the paper images as well as configuring the armature to hold the creation were a wonderful way to pass the time in quarantine with the added benefit of bringing attention to the museum.”
The Sundance “Winter’s Thaw 2021” catalog is in the post with a couple beautiful rooms, including of few of my paintings. See all availalbe work ONLINE.
Left: Watering Hole 12x12” oil on birch panel
Right: Nestling 12x12” oil on birch panel
Sullivan Goss Gallery installation
Press release from the gallery:
Sullivan Goss is pleased to offer an exhibition devoted to quietude for the new year. Battered by the pandemic, a hotly contested election, and an atmosphere marked by dread and hysteria, Gallery curators felt that the world could use a space for peace and contemplation. Drawing from its artists’ studios, collector consignments, and its own treasure vault, Sullivan Goss was able to assemble sixteen works spanning from 1890 to today that invite a meditative or peaceful state of mind. Installed with ample breathing room in the Gallery’s largest exhibition space, Sullivan Goss hopes to offer a refuge to weary artists, collectors, and visitors.
Each work has been carefully selected both to typify the artist’s best work and to help viewers slip away into reverie. Stylistically, the works range from late 19th and early 20th century Tonalist and Impressionist evocations by National Academicians Leon Dabo (1864-1960), Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932), and Colin Campbell Cooper to midcentury and contemporary “spacey” abstractions by William Dole (1917-1983) and Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) to contemporary Tonalist and abstract works by Gallery stalwarts like Whitney Brooks Abbott, Meredith Brooks Abbott, Ken Bortolazzo, Susan McDonnell, Chris Peters, Nicole Strasburg, and Sarah Vedder.
Art can be an effective emotional trigger. High contrast works with bright, hyper-saturated colors and dynamic compositions can excite us – stimulating increased energy and mental activity. Paintings and drawings that use a more restrained and harmonized palette or whose imagery and compositions invoke the pastoral or the dreamy have the opposite effect. They calm us. They soothe. Those in search of peace & quiet are hereby advised: you’ll find it at 11 East Anapamu Street for the months of January and February.
Morning Estuary, 48x24”, Oil on Birch Panel
Sullivan Goss Gallery, 11 East Anapamu, Santa Barbara
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
Morning Tide 36x60” oil on birch panel, 2007
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
Pronghorn Siesta 1 3/4 x 2 1/2” Gouache on 6x4” arches board
The inspiration for these paintings was a wildflower tour on the backside of the Tejon Ranch two years ago during one of the California poppy super blooms. While on our way to the poppy fields we came across a small herd of pronghorn that reside on the Tejon Ranch.
Gouache is a paint that is heavier than traditional transparent watercolors and is centuries old. Its name, which rhymes with squash, comes from the Italian “guazzo” meaning “water paint.” It was originally used to illuminate manuscripts. Because of its opacity, gouache behaves in a similar way to oil painting with the ability to build layer upon layer of color.
I have always been drawn to miniature images, smitten that something so small could hold a world of information. Small also became important recently while helping out my aging parents. There were many days where long hours working in the studio was impossible, but having something that was fast drying and readily at hand allowed me to keeping my brushes moving and helped me stay centered. Pushing paint around even for 20 minutes reminded me who I was. These wee paintings were all about finding joy, no matter how small.
- Nicole Strasburg
All of the artwork in this online exhibition is available for purchase. For inquiries, please call 310-913-0749 or email at info@craigkrullgallery.com.
Spring Poppies 1 3/4 x 2 1/2” Gouache on 6x4” arches board
Selections from the 2015 Katmai series are also available the CK website.
Katmai 9, 4x6” Gouache on Arches Board