Exhibition – Sommer Roman: Portals

Exhibition - Sommer Roman: Portals

September 9 – November 4, 2023

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce Portals, a solo exhibition of two- and three-dimensional works by Sommer Roman.

Portals is a solo exhibition that brings together various works from three different threads of Sommer Roman’s larger body of work: new textile-based wall sculptures and “Brain Scan” colored pencil drawings are paired with “Cell Portrait” ink drawings.  This grouping of work sheds light on themes and forms that appear and reappear in Roman’s work repeatedly: namely, the biological cross-section and the circle. 

In bringing these threads of her work together, Roman re-examines and re-envisions them as portals, portals that draw us into places of deep knowing and innate wildness within ourselves.  Through evocative color, organic forms, materiality, and the universal circular form these unique, multifarious configurations invite viewers back to the realm of interconnectedness, playfulness, the wild feminine, and the body as potent sites of knowing and knowledge.

Sommer Roman was born and raised in California and has lived in France and on both East and West Coasts of the US. She received her BA from UC Santa Cruz (2004) and her MFA from UC Santa Barbara (2014).  Roman maintains a multi-disciplinary art practice and exhibits regularly in group and solo exhibitions.  She currently lives on the Central Coast of California with her two children and teaches in the Art Departments at Cuesta College and Cal Poly.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Images shown:

Internal Portal II
8″x8″x3″
Post-consumer clothing, paper clay

Brain Scan A
22″x30″
Colored pencil on pape

Exhibition – A NATURAL CURIOSITY by Nadya Brown

Exhibition - A Natural Curiosity by Nadya Brown

June 3 – August 12, 2023

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

Opening Reception with the Artist

Friday evening June 2, 2023 from 5-7 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, A Natural Curiosity, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Nadya Brown.

An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Friday evening, June 2nd from 5-7 p.m. 

In this series of lush paintings, Nadya Brown creates illusory, imaginary three-dimensional spaces that entice viewers to enter, explore, and examine closely. Through realistic drawing and highly saturated colors, these highly original depictions of decorative objects, flowers, birds, domestic spaces, and landscapes (often combined in a single painting) evoke time, light, and memory in a slightly surreal manner. Brown’s travels in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Mexico, plus living and working in different cultures provided much of the inspiration.

“As subject matter, I often use objects that I own, that I have seen in museums and on my travels or photographs I have taken for specific information. This information is imported and combined in my paintings to create geometrical and aesthetic compositions.”

Brown’s work is both a celebration of nature and of civilization. An example is her large triptych, Simonetta’s Library: A Brief History of Nature, a project completed over a year’s time during the pandemic. Brown states her concerns: “As questions arise about climate change, and consequently drastic changes to our land and marine environment, I focus on nature as subject matter and what it has to offer, and also how it is abused; these are issues that have gradually entered into my work.”

Nadya Brown was born and raised in England. She has since lived in Italy and Spain and now, Santa Barbara, California. After studies in Painting and Printmaking at Goldsmiths College, University of London, she received her MFA from Ohio University. She has exhibited her work extensively in solo and group shows both in the United States and the UK and she has taught at numerous universities and colleges in the U.S.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Images shown:

Simonetta’s Library
48″x72″ Oil on canvas
Triptych

View of the Mountain with Tulips 
20″x30″ Oil on canvas

Exhibition – NATURAL INTERPRETATIONS by Holly Hungett

Exhibition - Natural Interpretations by Holly Hungett

March 25 – May 20, 2023

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

Opening Reception with the Artist

Saturday afternoon March 25, 2023 from 1-3 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Natural Interpretations, a solo exhibition of acrylic and gouache paintings by Holly Hungett.

An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon, March 25th from 1-3 p.m. 

In this series of semi-abstract landscapes, Hungett works within self-imposed constraints—limited colors, or monochromatic and muted palettes. Her work relies on strong compositional structure. Painting primarily on location, Holly relies on her connection to the environment for inspiration. She reduces the number of shapes and eliminates extraneous details to create engaging and calming images. For the viewer, these paintings offer a moment of respite from our overstimulated world. The influence of Holly’s yoga and meditation practice of over thirty years is evident in this work.


Noted Santa Barbara artist and teacher Libby Smith, comments: “Holly Hungett is a painter who likes to experiment. She changes media, subject matter, points of view, and pushes personal boundaries. I like that.” 


Garrett Speirs, another revered Santa Barbara artist and teacher, adds: “Holly Hungett’s work is a wonderful balance between the specific and the general. Her work captures the essence of her subject without feeling overly beholden to her topic. Her color palette is both rich and subtle.”

An active member of Southern California Artist Painting for the Environment (SCAPE), The Goleta Valley Art Association (GVAA), and The Abstract Art Collective (AAC), Holly has participated in group and solo exhibitions since 2003. Her works enrich private collections in California, Washington, South Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Poland, and Australia.  Holly received her BFA from the Maine School of Art in Portland, Maine (1981) and her MFA from UCSB (1987).  Starting in (1995) she taught Yoga at SBCC’s Adult Education program for 25 years.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Images shown:

Solar Variation
8″x10″ Acrylic on Panel

Confetti Fields 
6″x6″ Acrylic on Birch Panel

NEW DATE February 25, 2023 Exhibition Art Talk – Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper by Mayela Rodriguez

Artist Talk - Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper by Mayela Rodriguez

New Date February 25, 2023 at 2pm

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

NEW DATE: February 25, 2023, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present an artist talk by Mayela Rodriguez on her exhibition Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper. 

Join Mayela Rodriguez to hear how explorations of her family history led her to create her exhibition of photography, video, text, and installation art. She grew up hearing mysterious stories about a distant uncle, Aurelio Rodriguez, who lived in Cananea, Mexico and loved to pitch rocks into the Buenvavista del Cobre mine nearby. Later in life, this uncle became a professional baseball player for the Detroit Tigers. Her curiosity about Aurelio set her on a lengthy path to explore her own evolving identity through the lens of copper – “mining” her questions, thoughts, and insecurities about being a Mexican American.

Due to limited outdoor seating, reservations are required: 805.965.6307 or molly@nullafsb.org. Santa Barbara County Covid guidelines will be followed.

The Architectural Foundation Gallery is located at 229 East Victoria Street, Santa Barbara at the corner of Victoria and Garden streets.

Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Click here for the Voice Magazine article

Images shown:

Current exhibition installation: Metaled Ghosts & photographs

Artist’s collection of Aurelio Rodriguez professional baseball ca

Exhibition – VEINS: Mining Family History Through Copper by Mayela Rodriguez

Exhibition - Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper by Mayela Rodriguez

January 14 – March 11, 2023

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present the exhibition, Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper, a solo exhibition of photography, video, text, and installation art by Mayela Rodriguez.

The exhibition expands upon Rodriguez’s prior explorations of her lineage and her father’s family, whose members are from Cananea, Mexico where the Buenvavista del Cobre mine is located. For this exhibition, she uses the theme of copper as a lens into her own evolving identity.

In 2017, when Rodriguez was an MFA student at the University of Michigan, she wrote to the Buenavista del Cobre mine requesting information about her distant uncle, Aurelio Rodriguez. She had grown up hearing intriguing stories about this uncle who, allegedly, pitched rocks into the mine as a child and later in life became a professional baseball player for the Detroit Tigers. After many months, Rodriguez received a package from the Buenavista del Cobre mine that contained a 13″ x 18″ sheet of copper wrapped in plastic.

Carrying the copper with her, Rodriguez then embarked on an ambitious pilgrimage to sites that she and her family have called home. She explains “I was interested in discovering what it meant to simply exist with my copper. How could our pilgrimage both transform it and me? By developing a relationship with my copper in this way, I realized that the copper was not just a slab of metal excavated from the depths of Mexican earth but a vessel to hold all my concentrated questions, thoughts, and insecurities about my identity as a Mexican American.”

Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper expands on recent work by contemporary artists who use globally traded commodities as visual metaphors for ways that personal identity inhabits and is shaped by sociopolitical contexts: Minerva Cuevas, Kara Walker, and Minga Opazo whose AFSB exhibition, Siempre Más/Always More (2020), featured weavings and textiles made of found and recycled clothing.

Mayela Rodriguez is an artist and educator who positions art as a collective, inclusive, and healing process. By facilitating the production of community-made collections, she seeks to remind participants and students of the inherent power of their creative voices in making change. Most recently, Rodriguez has worked on collaborative projects with Latinx communities in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor in Michigan and New Cuyama and Santa Barbara in California. Rodriguez received her BA from UC Berkeley (2015) and MFA from University of Michigan (2019). Rodriguez was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. (mayelarodriguez.com)

An Artist Talk will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon, February 11th from 2-3 p.m. 

Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Images shown:

Copper from the Buenavista del Cobre mine

Artist’s collection of Aurelio Rodriguez professional baseball car

Upcoming Exhibition – Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper by Mayela Rodriguez

Upcoming Exhibition - Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper by Mayela Rodriguez

January 14 – March 11, 2023

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

Opening Reception with the Artist

Saturday afternoon January 14, 2023 from 1-3 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper, a solo exhibition of photography, video, text, and installation art by Mayela Rodriguez.

An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon, January 14th from 1-3 p.m. 

The exhibition expands upon Rodriguez’s prior explorations of her lineage and her father’s family, whose members are from Cananea, Mexico where the Buenvavista del Cobre mine is located. For this exhibition, she uses the theme of copper as a lens into her own evolving identity.

In 2017, when Rodriguez was an MFA student at the University of Michigan, she wrote to the Buenavista del Cobre mine requesting information about her distant uncle, Aurelio Rodriguez. She had grown up hearing intriguing stories about this uncle who, allegedly, pitched rocks into the mine as a child and later in life became a professional baseball player for the Detroit Tigers. After many months, Rodriguez received a package from the Buenavista del Cobre mine that contained a 13″ x 18″ sheet of copper wrapped in plastic.

Carrying the copper with her, Rodriguez then embarked on an ambitious pilgrimage to sites that she and her family have called home. She explains “I was interested in discovering what it meant to simply exist with my copper. How could our pilgrimage both transform it and me? By developing a relationship with my copper in this way, I realized that the copper was not just a slab of metal excavated from the depths of Mexican earth but a vessel to hold all my concentrated questions, thoughts, and insecurities about my identity as a Mexican American.”

Mayela Rodriguez received her BA from UC Berkeley (2015) and MFA from University of Michigan (2019). She was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Images shown:

Copper from the Buenavista del Cobre mine

Artist’s collection of Aurelio Rodriguez professional baseball car

Kids Draw Architecture Gallery Opening and Holiday Party

Kids Draw Architecture (KDA) Gallery Opening and Holiday Party

Gallery Opening, Sunday Nov. 13, 2022 1-3pm
The Architectural Foundation Gallery

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce Kids Draw Architecture Gallery Opening and Holiday Party on Sunday, November 13 from 1pm to 3pm.

Kids Draw Architecture (KDA) program is designed to help the participants learn about architecture and the skill of drawing. This year, the sketch session took place on the lawn of the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. 

The AFSB Gallery will feature drawings selected for the KDA 2023 calendar and will be on display until January 4, 2023. 

The 2023 calendars will be available for purchase at the gallery opening, the AFSB office and local bookstores.

Announcement drawing by Chloe Gotsis, age 14

Exhibition Art Talk – Prayer Flags & A Tale of Longing by Mary Heebner

Exhibition Art Talk - Prayer Flags & A Tale of Longing by Mary Heebner

October 22, 2022 at 2:00 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

Artist Talk October 22, 2022, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present an artist talk by Mary Heebner on her exhibition Prayer Flags & A Tale of Longing.

Join Mary, a multi-media artist, published writer and book artist, to hear how her travels to Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, India became the foundation of this exhibition. She notes, “Our current era of planetary distress, combined with a desire for healing compelled me to write invocations to each of the life-sustaining elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Aether, inspired by traditional Tibetan prayer flags, as I understand them.”

Due to limited outdoor seating, reservations are required: 805.965.6307 or molly@nullafsb.org. Santa Barbara County Covid guidelines will be followed.

The Architectural Foundation Gallery is located at 229 East Victoria Street, Santa Barbara at the corner of Victoria and Garden streets.

Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Click here for the Voice Magazine article

Click here for the SB Independent article

Click here for the LUM Art Magazine article

September: The Architecturally Macabre Book Club

September: The Architecturally Macabre Book Club

WHERE ARCHITECTURE IS ALWAYS THE MAIN CHARACTER.

Hosted by AFSB Vice President, Selinda Tuttle.

“Personally, I prefer to read books—fiction or non-fiction—that feature the city as a character,” says the book club’s curator, AFSB Vice President Selinda Tuttle. “The only thing cooler than reading a book that reckons with a city is being able to talk about that book with people who find it just as worthy of conversation.”

 
September’s Book:
Twelve Nights at Rotter House by JW Ocker
6-8:00 PM Wednesday, September 28, 2022
229 East Victoria Street, Santa Barbara 93101
 

Gather with us for this FREE in person book club event at the historic Acheson House: the perfect venue to share the architecture of life, death, friendship, and suspense in Twelve Nights at Rotter House.

Join the private Facebook group (same name) to interact with more book lovers!

Happy Reading

Exhibition – PRAYER FLAGS & A TALE OF LONGING by Mary Heebner

Exhibition - Prayer Flags & A Tale of Longing by Mary Heebner

September 10 – November 5, 2022

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

Opening Reception September 9, 2022 from 5-7 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition Prayer Flags & A Tale of Longing, an exhibition by Mary Heebner. This exhibition is three-fold and consists of two-sided Prayer Flags, a spiral-bound artist’s book, A Tale of Longing and a booklet, Elemental Offerings, all originating with Heebner’s travels to Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, India to see how prayer flags were made.

An opening reception with the artist will be held at the Architectural Foundation Gallery on Friday, September 9, from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Mary Heebner has distinguished herself in Santa Barbara and beyond as a multi-media artist, published writer and book artist. Her artworks are held in numerous public and private collections, including Santa Barbara and San Francisco Museums of Art, The US Library of Congress, The National Gallery of Art, The New York Public Library, and UCSB’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum, and its Special Collections Library. Mary Heebner earned her B.A. and M.F.A at UCSB and has long been a noted member of Santa Barbara’s art community.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.

Images shown:

Top
Prayer Flags & A Tale of Longing

Bottom
Elemental Offerings