Rosemarie Gebhart: Unseen and Unheard: Accidental Musings

Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery

Opening Reception: Friday, March 16, 5-7pm

“Unseen and Unheard: Accidental Musings” evolves from Gebhart’s background in science and art history.  Her organic compositions resonate with sumptuous textures and images, meandering line formations and color transparencies.  Each work on paper is a unique, one-of-a-kind viscosity monotype—a printmaking technique that lends itself to the creation of luminous effects, chaos, and turbulence. Over the last decade, the topography of the Southwest influenced her horizons, undulating lines and explosions of color.

Educated first in the health professions, Gebhart then went on to learn art history and printmaking.  After attending Immaculate Heart College, she earned a BA in Art History at the California State University in Los Angeles, followed by art classes in Santa Barbara and workshops in traditional etching techniques at Crown Point Press in San Francisco.  She makes annual visits to Santa Fe to develop her skills in printmaking and is a Docent at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

FACEBOOK Event Here.

KDA Sketch Session at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse!

Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara & Kids Draw Architecture 

Saturday, April 14, 1-3pm, 1100 Anacapa Street

Join us for the second Kids Draw Architecture Sketch Session of the year at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse!

Sessions are FREE and drawing materials will be provided.

Local architects, artists, designers, and volunteers will be on hand to offer guidance. We encourage all to come. Bring your children, your nieces, your nephews, your granddaughters, your grandsons and enjoy a beautiful Saturday afternoon outdoors.

Check our Kids Draw Architecture tab under Educational Programs for more information.

KDA Gallery Opening & Holiday Party

Kids Draw Architecture: Gallery Opening & Holiday Party

December 4, 2017 – January 7, 2018

Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery

Opening reception: Sunday, December 3, 2017 2-4 pm

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present you the annual Kids Draw Architecture Gallery Opening & Holiday Party.

This year KDA sketched La Cumbre Jr. High school and the Santa Barbara Cemetery.

The exhibition will feature a collection of drawings from KDA’s 2017 program showcasing a representative cross-section of illustrations from all age groups and drawing abilities.

The AFSB Gallery is located in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Regular gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 pm and by appointment (please contact the Executive Director at 805-965-6307).

Madeline Garrett: Industrial Strength


Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery

October 3 – November 16, 2017

Industrial Strength connotes “extremely powerful, intense, durable, more concentrated than the standard brand.” In Garrett’s recent work, protests and prayers are woven into multiple layers of hand-painted papers. They also include stenciling, reduction techniques, and torn images from her archive, 30 years in the making, of street photography focused on chaotic urban environments. Demolished walls, raw graffiti, and gritty patterns all make their way into Industrial Strength.

A professional artist for 25 years, Garrett has a degree in Sociology from Eastern University in St Davids, PA. She has traveled and studied art across the country: oil and cold wax techniques in Wisconsin and Ghost Ranch, NM; encaustics and monotype printing in Santa Fe, NM; and painting at The Art Institute of Chicago, thanks to a merit scholarship. Garrett is represented by galleries in Vail and Santa Barbara and has collectors across the country. She paints full-time and teaches workshops in Santa Barbara, CA. For more information please visit www.mgarrettstudio.com.

The AFSB Gallery is located in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Regular gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 pm and by appointment (please contact the Executive Director at 805-965-6307).

 Observed / Observer: Photographs by Matthew Straka

Observed / Observer: Photographs by Matthew Straka

Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery

August 18 – September 28, 2017

Opening Reception: Friday, August 18 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present Observed / Observer: Photographs by Matthew Straka. The opening reception will take place on Friday, August 18th from 5 to 7pm. Admission is free. All are welcome.

Observed / Observer is a collection of photographs concentrating on California land use and the relationships of individuals with the environment. Straka documents mundane and sublime aspects of the landscape, with a special focus on abandoned and industrial subjects. With the advance of smart phones, he has become intrigued by how ordinary people, situated in everyday surroundings, create unique tableaux and document it using their mobile devices.

Drawing inspiration at an early age from set design and film, specifically disaster and zombie films, Straka was led to search out and explore lost byways and dead ends throughout California, seeking images and scenes that imply unwritten, enigmatic narratives. “That set design of abandonment was a magnet for me. The left-behind shoe, a small pile of trash in an alley, a car left by the side of the road [they] all told stories….This was a different practice for me, trained as a photojournalist: to not include people to tell the story but to rely on the physical evidence instead.”

Within this time frame also came the rise of the cell phone as a means of photography: “It was hard not to include that in my photographs as it was multiplying so fast. It became a counter balance to my increasing body of work of abandonment–people interacting with their surroundings like never before. Living through your screen and sharing it with the world has become the norm and I felt it was necessary to include this in my documentation.”

Matthew Straka is a Santa Barbara native. During the past twenty-six years he has worked as a photojournalist, a commercial photography assistant, and chiefly as a color lab technician. He studied photography at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and journalism at Santa Barbara City College. His photographs have been exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions throughout California including: Celestial Bodies, The Essential Worker, Pilgrimage and Notable Rejects. He currently works at Grace Design Associates, a landscape design company in Santa Barbara.

The AFSB Gallery is located in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Regular gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment (please contact Amy Collins at 805-965-6307).

“Gehry’s Gambit: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao” A lecture by Dr. Allan Langdale, Art & Architecture Historian

“Gehry’s Gambit: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao”

A lecture by Dr. Allan Langdale, Art & Architecture Historian

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Reception 6:00-7:00pm / Presentation 7:00-8:00pm

Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara

229 East Victoria Street, Santa Barbara, CA

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce a lecture by historian Dr. Allan Langdale.  Dr. Langdale will present an illustrated talk entitled “Guggenheim Bilbao.” There is a suggested donation of $10.00 to attend the lecture. There are 32 seats available for the lecture. Tickets will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis via Eventbrite.com, at the door, or by calling 805-965-6307.

Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is one of the key monuments of recent architecture. Built in the final years of the 20th century, its revolutionary form presaged the 21st. This lecture presents the building as expressive of the concept of ‘gestural architecture’ and examines the building in its role as a destination piece, placing a previously unknown port town squarely on the map as a cultural center.

Allan Langdale is an art and architectural historian, filmmaker, photographer, and travel writer who received his Ph.D. in art history from UC Santa Barbara. Allan has taught courses in Italian Renaissance art, Byzantine art, East Indian art, and Islamic art and currently teaches art history at UC Santa Cruz and film studies at UC Santa Barbara. His travel blog can be found at ‘Allan’s Art and Architecture Worlds’:  https://allansartworlds.sites.ucsc.edu/

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is located at the historic Acheson House at 229 E. Victoria Street. The primary entrance on Garden Street is ramp accessible.

Art Gallery Reception and Show

Stretch: Wall Sculpture and Paintings by Barbara Flanagan

barbara-flanagan-festoon_habeo

July 1 to August 7, 2017

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery   

Opening Reception: Friday, June 30 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm

Artist Demonstrations/Conversations on Saturdays: July 1, 8, 29, and August 5 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm.  Visitors of all ages are invited to stop by for demonstrations and conversations about Art, Architecture, and Beyond.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce a new solo exhibition: Stretch: Wall Sculpture and Paintings by Barbara Flanagan. The exhibition consists of innovative wall sculptures made with industrial aluminum and colorful paintings formed with synthetic liquids.  “Stretch” refers to the uncanny malleability of Flanagan’s various materials and to her unique experiments, which are designed to provoke neural surprises, both tactile and visual, while evoking a range of feelings.

Festoons, Flanagan’s aluminum wall sculptures, have their beginnings at a New England mill that custom rolls and slices aluminum into strips—typically, for a minimum order of 13,500 linear feet.  Based on her prototypes, metallurgists at the mill provide technical assistance on alloys, temper, gauge, edge, and finish.

More mercurial are Flanagan’s painting projects made with synthetic coatings of many colors, transformed by casting, pouring, and curing, then playfully layered into intriguing compositions that challenge the formalities of traditional paintings and archival paint formulas.

Flanagan lives and works in downtown Santa Barbara, overlooking the new Lagoon District and equidistant to East Beach, trails, and art venues. “Visitors to my studio tell me my outdoorsy life shapes my art making. Sounds right. I ocean swim, grow food, and make art–my favorite kinds of work/play, all very sensory. Immersed in the cold Pacific, an unpredictable wilderness, I’m awed, humbled, and overwhelmed. In my garden, I collaborate with my plants, as I prune, feed, and coax them to bear fruit. In my outdoor studio, I pour, squeeze, and bend industrial materials–mimicking the gorgeous sinuosity of nature–as I pretend to control the process. In fact, I’m always surprised by the results, for better or worse, and that’s the condition I seek: hard-won suspense with a chance of joy.”

Flanagan holds a Masters of Architecture from Yale University, a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Certificat in sculpture from ENSAD (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, in Paris). For over thirty years, she has worked as an independent writer and product designer while making her own art. After her early years as an architectural designer in San Francisco and L.A., Flanagan was invited to write about design and architecture for The New York Times and Metropolis Magazine. She has contributed to a dozen national publications and published two books on design. Since 2002, Flanagan has designed products for the MoMA’s Design Store (NYC).

For more information, please see: barbaraflanagan.com and freshpaintart.com.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery is located in the historic Acheson House on the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara at 229 East Victoria Street. Regular gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment (please contact Amy Collins at 805-965-6307).

Summer Camps

Upcoming Summer Camps at AFSB:
summercamp2017_house

A few spaces are still available for the 2017 Summer Camps!
Sign up for Architecture, City Planning, Inventions and Economics w/LEGO presented by KidZ Engineering 101, Inc. and held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara – 229 E. Victoria Street,Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Level 1- Architecture Engineering and Design/Build with Real Building Material
August 7-11 1:00-4:30 Age 9-15 Fee $245
Make a mini architectural model with wood framing, truss, concrete and seismic tie-down applying structural design concepts. Practice geometry in building a staircase. Learn the various careers involved in designing and building a new home. (see Interior Design, separate class)

Level 2- Architectural Renovation and Addition, Electrical and Landscape Design (For Previous Students) Using Real Building Material
August 7-11 8:30-12:00 Age 9-15 Fee $235
Just like in real life, dream homes are always a work in progress. You always want to upgrade, renovate or sometimes have an extreme make over. Due to popular demand, this class was designed for students who have attended previous classes and want to come back for more.

New Lesson: Basic residential electrical layout and wiring diagram. Create lamps and chandelier to light up your house and install real light circuits all attached to the main control panel.

Addition and Renovation: You will be rewarded with additional piece of land to landscape and perhaps build a dog house, a gazebo, outdoor furniture, playground or simply add a room.

Interior and Furniture Design
August 7-11 10:30 – 12:00 Age 9-15 Fee:$120
Learn the basics of Interior and Furniture Design and build your dream home.
Access our unique and fine material specially picked to make your project look real.
Build furniture using leather, wood, varnish, elegant fabric and a load of other unique and fine material specially picked to make your dream house look like a model home designed by a professional interior designer, and that would be you! This makes a good supplement to your new house or extreme makeover.

For more information or to register:
http://www.kidzengineering101.com/summer-camps-santa-barbara-and-buellton-ca

Previous Art Gallery Exhibition

kinetic

It’s About Time:
A Kinetic Installation on the Illusive Nature of Time
by R.T. Livingston

May 12 to June 21, 2017
Architectural Foundation Gallery
Opening Reception on Friday, May 12, 5-7 pm

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present It’s About Time: A Kinetic Installation on the Illusive Nature of Time by conceptual artist R.T. Livingston. A participatory Opening Reception is planned for Friday, May 12 from 5 to 7 pm. All are welcome…and, everyone is invited to wear a watch with hands—in order to compare time’s uneven path!

The installation, It’s About Time, is a visual metaphor demonstrating how our perception of time, with its accordion-like expansion and contraction, is constantly changing while systematically going around in circles. Livingston observes that: “The notion of time begins in our guts then moves to our heads before entering the space of our lives.” Like the earth spinning every 24 hours in its yearly rotation around the sun, a clock with hands follows the earth’s movement as it makes its rounds. Earth and clock move in sync giving us a poetic connection to the cosmos and the space-time continuum where notions of time travel, memory and déjà vu boggle the mind.

Together with video and sound, It’s About Time consists of some eighty 4” x 4” battery-powered clocks with the words ‘time is a man made Illusion’ handwritten on each. Several layers of iridescent paint partially obscure the writing, which creates movement through the play of light. The uniformity of the square clocks creates a structural matrix in which each clock runs at its own pace, not unlike the movement of our own lives.

R.T. Livingston studied painting with Elizabeth Murray in the Fine Arts Department of Daemon College in Buffalo, New York. Graduate work in the History of Photography took her to Princeton where she studied with Peter Bunnell. While working on a Ph.D. in Art History at Rutgers University, she joined the curatorial staff at the University’s Zimmerli Art Museum. In New York, Livingston sat on the Boards of Franklin Furnace and was a charter member of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival Producers’ Council.

In 2003, after 30 years living and working between studios in Lower Manhattan, Springs-East Hampton and Woodstock, New York, Livingston was commissioned to create several large outdoor installations in California. Additional projects brought her back and in 2006 she moved to Santa Barbara where she continues to spin ideas and make art.

The AFSB Gallery is located in the historic Acheson House on the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday to Thursday, 10 am to 2 pm and by appointment. Please call Allison Marcillac at 805-965-6307.

2017 Design Competition Winners

winners-photobylindawang

2017 Santa Barbara County High School
Architectural Design Competition Winners

Name School Grade
Honorable Mention
 Allison Larinan Dos Pueblos 12
First Place Annebel van der Meulen Dos Pueblos 12
Third Place Sullivan Israel Laguna Blanca 10
Second Place
 Blanca Diaz St. Joseph’s 11
Honorable Mention Vivian Zhan Dunn School 11