Author:

An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Friday, March 21st from 5 – 7 p.m. Drinks and appetizers will be provided, with a local taco truck on site serving tacos for purchase. Brett and Patricia will give an Artist Talk on Saturday, March 29, at 2 p.m. with Maria Salguero, a Senior Staff Attorney from the Immigrant Legal Defense Center. 10% of all art sales will be donated to the Immigrant Legal Defense Fund.

Photographers Clarke and Dicks have recently turned their reportorial lenses to vernacular architecture found on two different continents—taquerias in Central California and lunch bars in Western Australia.

The vivid colors and bold signage of these fast-food establishments situated on opposite sides of the equator are emblematic of how they similarly forge and fuel their communities.

Both are typically family-owned businesses that possess a dogged determination to withstand the corporate fast-food onslaught—an ethos that Clarke, who has lived and photographed in Santa Barbara for five decades, has long embraced:

“These are cherished places where one can find far more than basic nourishment. The sense of community and service, joyful music, bold decorations, and financially accessible meals expands our broader sensibility of not only what it means to feed oneself in America, but what it means to be an American.”

Dicks, a long-time resident of Santa Barbara, experienced a sense of dislocation after moving to Western Australia in 2019. He was attracted by the visual quirkiness and working-class vibe of the Lunch Bars there:

“Lunch Bars are uniquely Western Australia, mostly owned and operated by immigrants. In sustaining the working class, they offer hearty servings of tasty, filling food and community spirit in a state that has built itself on blue-collar values.”

In FARE TRADE Clarke and Dicks present examples of architecture that we may take for granted. The stark yet poetic compositions of each photographer ask us to look again and notice how the structure and character of each eatery is unique. Together, these photographers have created a compelling, cross cultural collection of images, each one brimming with vibrant hues and local flavor.

Patricia Houghton Clarke’s award-winning photography reflects her interest in culture, history, and human nature, and has been featured in exhibitions and publications in the U.S. and Europe. Her photographs of the 2007 Obama Presidential campaign and Election Night in Grant Park are included in the Barack Obama Presidential Library collection and the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the opening of COUPLETS, an exhibition featuring the work of Slingshot / Alpha Art Studio artists Michelle Oliner, James Jasper, and Tom Neumeyer. Slingshot is a progressive arts center that supports the creative practice and professional visibility of artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in Santa Barbara County. COUPLETS presents work from each of these artists across different media – printmaking, drawing, embroidery, and ceramics. An opening reception for the public will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Saturday January 11, from 1 – 3 pm. All are welcome.

Slingshot’s Gallery Director, Jessica Schlobohm, curated the exhibition. She will present an informal tour of the exhibition and an introduction to the studio’s progressive practices, on February 8^th at 2 pm.

COUPLETS takes inspiration from several different series of prints produced by Michelle Oliner during the past decade. These prints are created by drawing on a foam plate with a dulled instrument such as a pencil, pen, or sharpened dowel. After printing the plates, typically in black, she adds a colored pencil overlay to each successive print, creating a novel version.

The prints are presented as mated pairs to highlight the rhythm and meter of their relationships. The dynamics can be jarring, like a non-sequitur, but the totality is expressive and expansive, as the asymmetry invites a closer look and prolonged reflection.

James Jasper’s works on paper introduce another aspect to this discourse. His process is methodical but economical as he completes each composition in a single sitting, rendering his abstract portraits in permanent pen or thick, indelible charcoal, without hesitation. His meditations produce multiples (or series) that are linked through their shared referent – the image, subject, or themes his drawings point to in the world.

Jasper’s embroideries remain more mysterious as their designs seem to emerge from his memory, or other non-representational musings. Created sporadically over the course of many months, if not years, these works are defined by concentric rings of linear stitches and colorful patches of dense texture reminiscent of fields or farmland, seen from above.

Sharing these contemplative tones, Tom Neumeyer’s ceramic vessels belong to a more open-ended series. His strong glyphic markings mimic and dissect their ceramic shapes with deeply inscribed lines and grids that contain hidden figures, cryptic messages, and tessellating geometry. This visual theme is continually revisited throughout his practice in different media, providing a window into a complex world that is intricate and highly organized.

In its entirety, the exhibition presents the successive and repeated gestures of these artists’ sustained attentions. Their iterative approach reminds us of the unresolved nature of artistic practice and time. Actions or moments are strung together and made continuous even when asynchronous or lacking agreement.

Michelle Oliner, James Jasper, and Tom Neumeyer have been artists at Slingshot since the studio’s inception in 2013. During the 1990s, each made their way to the programs of the Alpha Resource Center (Alpha) where their individual artistic aptitudes were noticed and encouraged. Over the past decade at Slingshot, all three artists have developed their creative interests and individual practices with more focused attention.