Tag archives: arts

This week’s Society Edit is full-on-art! Are you watching Paris Fashion Week’s SS26 and pining for the Impressionism that came out of SS25? Are you recalling Women’s Wear Daily and Artnet presenting Impressionist artists Monet, Manet, Vincent van Gogh, and Pissaro in the couture designer fashion books, and that art literally printed on the fabrics?  […]

Another longstanding Santa Barbara-based chamber music program also launches its new season this weekend, as the Santa Barbara Music Club opens its 56th series of concerts featuring purely pianists. The “Six Hands at One Piano: Romantic and Modern Perspectives” program, slated for 3 pm on Saturday, September 27, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (4575 Auhay […]

The SCAPE artist group, aka Southern California Artists Painting for the Environment, held its annual juried exhibit in Lehman Hall at the Music Academy of the West Montecito (MAW) on Friday, September 12 – Saturday, September 13. The artists participating in the show render original works depicting the Central Coast of California, local landscapes created […]

For most of its history, the UCSB Arts & Lectures-produced program ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! operated under the radar of the usual A&L events. That wasn’t an accident.  The idea was always to cater to the Spanish-speaking segment of the community, one that frequently might have been overlooked not only by A&L but […]

Chaos meets curation at CAW, as the exhibition Little Shop of Hoarders opens this weekend. The show brings together 10 local assemblage artists whose work will be on view from opening night on September 12 through the 21st. But the first Saturday morning (September 13) is what gives the show its extra oomph, as CAW […]

The glorious shades of Santa Barbara’s midsummer madness, the pinnacle being the traditional colors of Fiesta Week, seemed a little less bright this year. Could this have been the grey skies and minimal sunshine that dampened the landscape or … could it possibly have been the deeply felt absence of the person who embodied the […]

Twenty-eight fine artists will once again throw open the doors to their home studios over Labor Day Weekend for the Santa Barbara Studio Artists’ 24th annual Open Studios Tour. The tour, a much-anticipated event on the yearly art calendar, allows art lovers across the spectrum to step inside the normally private workspaces, offering visitors a […]

If all 30-plus shows that make up Ventura LIVE ‘25 at the Rubicon Theatre sold out the venue’s 110 seats, the total audience wouldn’t even reach the capacity of a single concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl. But the breadth and depth of talent coming to the intimate theater in downtown Ventura from August 20 […]

A notable new arrival now graces Westmont’s campus: Maternity, a nearly 2,000-pound bronze sculpture by renowned South American artist Fernando Botero. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art has loaned the work to Westmont from the collection of the late Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree. Standing about nine feet tall, the piece – in Botero’s self-definitive style of […]

With its 2025-26 season UCSB Arts & Lectures is now offering more classical music events than any other programming organization from fall to spring, with a full 14 concerts on the slate for their 66th season. Recitals dominate the schedule, with performances from pianists Daniil Trifonov, Víkingur Ólafsson, Van Cliburn Gold Medalist Aristo Sham and […]

The Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art is keeping the celebration alive. While the party to honor Judy L. Larson – who retired after 17 years of directing the museum – has concluded, the sizable exhibition, Building A Collection: 2008-2025, continues through Saturday, August 2. Interim Director Chris Rupp has scoured through the 2,500 art objects […]

John James Audubon’s painting of the American Bald Eagle feasting on a catfish was made in 1828. It was originally engraved for his famous work, The Birds of America, by Robert Havell in London. In 1858 the work was printed in New York by means of chromolithography for the Bien edition. Audubon described the bird plummeting to […]

As aftershocks of the June 29, 1925, 6.3 earthquake continued to rock the town and the waters from the broken Sheffield Reservoir still muddied the waterfront, representatives from the Community Arts Association met to discuss Recreational Activities that would, according to CAA member Mrs. Charles W. (Lucy Russell) Dabney, “have a beneficial psychological effect upon […]

Coast Village Road is home to artists, merchants, and creatives alike who strive to uphold the spirit of our community. Coast Village Association’s own Beth Sullivan is determined to capture this energy and use it as inspiration for the heartbeat of Coast Village Association’s events. At the start of 2023, Beth was hired as a […]

My two grandchildren (both under six years) are now old enough to experience an art museum; thus I “family” membershipped the Santa Barbara Museum Art, the Maritime Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. I am ready for my second set of new eyes with which to […]

Marianna Victoria Mashek is a Santa Barbara native, a Santa Barbara High School Don, and studied Studio Art at UCSB. She later studied Arts Administration at Antioch University, worked for the Santa Barbara Arts Council and Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, and Santa Barbara City College. If you detect a theme you’re not mistaken – […]

Dozens of people packed into the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum on May 15 to see Adam Belt’s selections for On the Edge and hear the winners of the Tri-County artist exhibition.  “This a very vibrant arts community – you can see all the support that you share for each other,” Belt said. “It was a privilege […]

Eight talented young musicians and vocalists took home a total of $36,000 in scholarships after competing in the annual music contest organized by the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation. A professional panel of judges selected first and second place winners in the Adult Instrumental, Junior Instrumental, Adult Vocal and newly added Junior Vocal categories. Fourteen finalists […]

Montecito’s longest running juried exhibition for tri-county artists will run from May 15 – June 14 in the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. A public opening reception for On the Edge, featuring juror Adam Belt, is Thursday, May 15 from 4-6 pm. The museum received a record 458 entries by 216 artists. From these submissions, […]

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, UCSB Reads’ 2025 selection, is a New York Times bestselling collection of essays – written daily over the course of a year – celebrating small, ordinary wonders. Gay’s humorous, poetic and philosophical essays cover a wide range of topics, with vignettes that include such luminous oddities as sharing a […]