The Schenck Mansion Lingering Residents

One of Indiana’s most outstanding examples of the Second Empire style, the Schenck Mansion is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places. “The house on the hill” is located in the beautiful Ohio River town of Vevay. Built by Benjamin Franklin Schenck, son of a fabulously wealthy “hay king” of the steamboat era, this palatial mansion was the marvel of its time with its four storied tower, thirty-five rooms from basement to attic and five baths. This house was built in 1874 at a total cost of $67,000. Its four-story tower with a mansard roof measuring 74 feet tall, bay windows, high ceilings and spacious rooms are characteristic of the architecture of the time. The architect of record was George P. Humphries of Cincinnati. Amazingly, the original architect’s plans have remained with the mansion.

In November 1874, on account of failing health, he and his family spent the winter and spring in Florida. He was able to spend the next two summers in his newly finished mansion in Vevay, but returned to Jacksonville, Florida where he died in April of 1877 at the age of 42. Mr. Schenck died before his palatial home was finished. Mrs. Celestine Schenck lived in the mansion intermittently until her death in December 1885. A ghostly lady in white Victorian dress haunts the second floor. She is said to walk the hallways, taking no notice of anyone around her. Guests also have reported hearing voices, footsteps, and something moving in their rooms at night.

Haven

January 8 – March 5, 2020

 

 For this unique exhibition, artists were invited to create 10” x 10” prints inspired by the theme “haven” and each artist interpreted the theme in their own personal way. Look for images of the Central Coast, home, places of safety, landscapes, and even abstractions. Made with techniques ranging from intaglio, relief, screen printing, and monoprint, all the prints are unframed and affordable. Proceeds from the exhibition are distributed to the artists and to the Architectural Foundation to support their community programs for all ages. 

Santa Barbara artists Claudia Borfiga and Meagan Stirling developed the exhibition concept in collaboration with the Architectural Foundation and were joined by architect/architecture historian Jeremy White in jurying the exhibition.  

 The Santa Barbara Printmakers (SBP) is a group of artists dedicated to creating and presenting prints made using hand and press printing techniques: etching, dry point, monotype, monoprint, woodblock, collagraph, linocut, clay, lithography, serigraphy, transfer, and digital processes. This volunteer organization presents several exhibitions and newsletters each year through membership dues and the talents, skills, and energy of members. SBP welcomes applications from printmakers throughout California who use hand and press printing techniques. For more information, visit sbprintmakers.com. 

A House Alive With Whispers

A House Alive With Whispers

Whispers Estate was built in 1894,  a Victorian mansion located at 714 W Warren St in Mitchell, Indiana, has been proclaimed the most haunted house in the US. In 1899, Dr John and Jessie Gibbons purchased the house from the original owners, Dr George and Sarah White. Dr Gibbons was a prominent doctor in town, having his office in the 1st floor rooms in the house.

On its official website, http://whispersestate.com/ they say the Whispers Estate is a place “where the walls really do talk” referring to the multiple ghosts and spirits that are found living in the house, there are so many, that it even feels like they are continuously whispering in your ear and people who have visited before, even said that they felt like the whole house was stalking them.

Old World Charm and Ghosts in the Schenck Mansion, Indiana

One of Indiana’s most outstanding examples of the Second Empire style, the Schenck Mansion is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places. “The house on the hill” is located in the beautiful Ohio River town of Vevay. Built by Benjamin Franklin Schenck, son of a fabulously wealthy “hay king” of the steamboat era, this palatial mansion was the marvel of its time with its four storied tower, thirty-five rooms from basement to attic and five baths. This house was built in 1874 at a total cost of $67,000. Its towers, bay windows, high ceilings and spacious rooms are characteristic of the architecture of the time. The architect of record was George P. Humphries of Cincinnati. Amazingly, the original architect’s plans have remained with the mansion.

In November 1874, on account of failing health, he and his family spent the winter and spring in Florida. He was able to spend the next two summers in his newly finished mansion in Vevay, but returned to Jacksonville, Florida where he died in April of 1877 at the age of 42. Mr. Schenck died before his palatial home was finished. Mrs. Celestine Schenck lived in the mansion intermittently until her death in December 1885.

A ghostly lady in white Victorian dress haunts the second floor. She is said to walk the hallways, taking no notice of anyone around her. Guests also have reported hearing voices, footsteps, and something moving in their rooms at night.

Hollywood Hauntings at the Bern Harlow House In Beverly Hills

The chilling deaths of two of Hollywood’s power couples connected by one house...

Howard Hughes helped the young starlet Jean Harlow shoot to fame in Hollywood in the 1930s. He hired her to be the star of Hell’s Angels that was being converted to a talking picture. 

Harlow quickly became Hollywood’s original “Blonde Bombshell.” On film, she eluded a smooth, sexy attitude.

Jean, who never dated her fellow actors, shocked the Hollywood community when she became romantically involved with Paul Bern, an MGM executive. Bern was short, slight of build and 22 years her senior.

Paul Bern and Jean Harlow, in several accounts of their courtship it is stated that Harlow pursued Bern and not the other way around.

The couple married in 1932. Rumors began to spread that their relationship was a tumultuous one.

 

Just four months after their marriage, Bern alone at the house that he had given to Harlow as a wedding present, was found dead by the butler. Jean had stayed overnight at her mother’s house.

Bern’s body was found nude and lying on the floor dead from a bullet wound. He had bled all over Jean’s white bedroom. His body was drenched in Harlow’s favorite perfume. A suicide note was found in the bedroom.

Later one employee, Davis the gardener stated it was not Bern’s handwriting. Bern’s secretary, Mrs. Harrison, said she felt it was a murder. There was also a female bathing suit and two wine glasses left with a blood spot at the edge of the swimming pool–so it appeared Bern had entertained someone at the home after he had sent Jean to stay with her mother a second time in just two days.

Curiously, Harlow was not called to testify at the inquest into Bern’s death. Right after the murder, the police were told she was “too hysterical” to undergo questioning. Several accounts state Harlow supposedly tried to commit suicide after she heard the news. The butler after discovering the body actually called MGM before the police, so the studio execs Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg arrived first to the scene. At one point Mayer even took the suicide note–in an attempt to protect Harlow, but the man in charge of the studio’s public relations, Howard Strickling convinced him to turn it over to the police.

Quickly, rumors spread that Bern had not committed suicide but had actually been murdered by his unstable ex-girlfriend, Dorothy Millette, who he still supported financially. She committed suicide after his death. Was it a suicide, or was it murder? This remains a mystery.

Tragically, Harlow died just 5 years after Bern’s death in 1937 at the age of 26 from uremic poisoning. Rumors after stated that Bern had beaten her and injured her kidney causing it to fail five years later.Subsequent owners of the Bern-Harlow house all have felt the ghosts of both Bern and Harlow haunt the place. In one well know sighting Sharon Tate saw what she believed to be the ghost of Paul Bern. A struggling actress at the time, Tate was dating a Hollywood hairdresser, Jay Sebring.Sebring had bought the Bern Harlow house in the mid-1960s. He was the real-life character that Warren Beatty’s character was based upon in the film Shampoo. Tate staying in Harlow’s old bedroom awoke to see the apparition of Paul Bern. He was not aware of her and instead wandered around the room apparently in search of something. She quickly left the room. As she walked down the stairs, she stopped halfway down. She was shocked to see Sebrings’ apparition now tied to the stair rail. He was bleeding from several slashes to his throat and appeared to be struggling to stay alive. After this, when Tate and Sebring were murdered by Charles Mansion’s followers in 1969, many stated that Tate’s sighting was a premonition–a warning of what was to come–because when the murdered Sebring was found he was tied to a stair rail.

The Bern Harlow house still stands. It is located at 9820 Eastern Drive in Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills.

Hole in the Wall

July 16 – September 12, 2019

 

Hole in the Wall is a capsulized study into unnoticed aspects of the physical world as well as the dark corners of Michael Long’s mind. Blending aspects of real, typically local, architecture with images from his imagination, Long creates unique assemblage boxes that emit a preternatural vibe.  He draws from the twin wellsprings of his recurring childhood dreams, nightmares, and memories and his careful observations of actual buildings in Santa Barbara. These small, precisely constructed works are eerie reminders of forgotten spaces – both interior and exterior – surreal architectural fragments that evoke curiosity and a myriad of associations and feelings in viewers.

For this series, Long built his wooden boxes by hand and incorporated vintage papers as well as “discarded, recycled, and unwanted things”.  Each of these creepy yet elegant “dream boxes” conjures up a time and place that only exists in his mind.  Like miniature, psychological movie sets or weird, diminutive stages, they bubble up from the depths of a restless soul seeking and often finding a strange stillness and evocative beauty. 

Exhibition – THE PASSING LANDSCAPE by Cynthia Martin

May 17 – July 11, 2019​

 

The Passing Landscape highlights Cynthia Martin’s passionate concern for the fragility of the natural world.  Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, familiar California scenes and environmental disasters have always been her main source of inspiration.  Her recent series “contains glittering stripes of deconstructed colors that refer to pathways, roads, contrails, channels, and other evidence of a population constantly on the go.”

These elegant landscapes depicting earth, sky and water are abstracted from the familiar scenery of the South Coast.  Martin notes: “even if much of that landscape has changed, I am focused on my memories of its pristine beauty and my hope that we can preserve what is left.” Martin’s vibrant, saturated hues, layered in stunning stripes, are often coated with the hi-tech finish of auto paint, a salute to the surfing community and to California’s busy commuter life style. 

Graduate work with Ciel Bergman at UCSB propelled Martin’s decision to use painting to express her concern for the environment.   With a B.A. and two teaching credentials from UCSB, she began teaching in Santa Barbara in 1963 and has shown her work in many group and solo exhibitions.  She is a Fellow of the University of California’s South Coast Writing Project.  Martin helped initiate the teen docent program at the S.B. Museum of Art and serves on the boards of the S.B. Studio Artists and the Abstract Art Collective.

Exhibition – COLOR NOTES by Jimmy Miracle

March 12 – May 9, 2019

  

Color Notes highlights Miracle’s everyday wanderings around his neighborhood in Goleta and his fresh eye for color. Seeking neither picturesque nor unsightly subjects, Miracle freely paints his immediate surroundings with an open mind—landscapes, parking lots, isolated figures, and interiors. He paints from both memory and observation with an immediacy and vitality of color.  These small, intimate paintings are a celebration of the senses. They represent commonplace encounters imbued with human experience and perception. They all eschew the technological filters so often used today and instead rely on first-hand experience of places and people.  Miracle continually experiments in search of fresh, vital, visual approaches within the contemporary artistic dialogue. His recent oil paintings in Color Notes highlight a little-known aspect of his unique artistic career.

After receiving a B.A. in studio art from Belhaven College (Jackson, MS), Miracle spent ten years working and exhibiting his paintings and installation art in New York City, Washington, DC, and Germany. A recent graduate of UCSB’s MFA program, Miracle is currently a Teaching Fellow at the University. As a recipient of a “Humanities in the Community” grant from the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (UCSB), he is co-creating and exhibiting with artists who experience mental illness.

Abstract Trompe L’oeil

September 20 – November 14, 2019

 

Abstract Trompe L’oeil highlights Wilson’s deep interest in the interplay of colored surfaces. Her previous paintings were conventional still life paintings depicting recognizable objects with reflective, transparent surfaces that appear as small abstractions. Creating these paintings led her to the idea of creating purely abstract still life paintings. At first glance, her new work appears to be flat, hard edge, geometric and abstract. Upon closer observation, viewers are drawn in by the illusion of depth.

To create these unusual paintings, Wilson first constructs an abstract “still life”—a three-dimensional composition of opaque, translucent, and transparent papers, and colored gels.  After arranging lighting above to create a kaleidoscope of reflections, she paints the “still life” from direct observation, challenging herself to create the illusion of three dimensions and transparency using only opaque pigments.

Although the paintings are formal compositions, they evoke futuristic cities, outer space, and science fiction settings. Surface flatness and the illusion of depth coexist simultaneously, creating spaces where the interplay and fusion of saturated colors, abstract shapes and imagination magically coexist.

Wilson received her BA in 1979 from San Francisco State University where she studied with Robert Bechtle, a photo-realist painter. She completed her MFA in 1982 at UCSB where she studied with Ciel Bergman and William Dole. She has maintained a studio and residence in Santa Barbara for 40 years and has participated in many group exhibitions and several solo exhibitions. She currently teaches art classes at SBCC School of Extended Learning.

Exhibition – THROUGH-LINE: Brooks Institute, a culture for photographic education

January 24 – March 6, 2019

 

This exhibition looks at the experience of the school through the art of three alumni who became educators, bringing with them pieces of the Brooks’ legacy to be passed on in their own classrooms.

For over 70 years Brooks Institute provided a visual arts education to an international gathering of students in Santa Barbara. Brooks was unique in its immersive focus on imaging arts – photography, film, photojournalism – and in its educational philosophy of hands-on learning provided by practitioners in their field. 

Christopher Broughton, Christy Gutzeit and Ralph Clevenger came to Brooks with a passion for the art and craft of photography. What they encountered was an intangible mixture of location, pedagogy, and mentoring which fueled their unique professional paths.

Through-line showcases moments from each photographer’s career. Christopher Broughton’s photographic black and white series, “Anhydrous – Our Unquenchable Thirst”, explores the anthropogenic landscape shaped by our endeavor to control water in the west. Ralph Clevenger exhibits a selection of work that demonstrates the connection between the photographer, the subject, and the viewer. In this case the subjects are animals from around the world, each animal’s portrait revealing a story in a single frame. Christy Gutzeit’s personal work is inspired by the ebb and flow of the ocean’s energy, calm one moment and forceful the next. Using multiple layers of materials combined with photography, she explores the transient nature of the waves of water and the power they have to imprint and erase.

Each of these image-makers has continued the legacy of their education by becoming educators themselves, teaching craft and professionalism while imparting their passion for photography to new generations of students. Currently, they are all part of a new collaboration established by The Ernest Brooks Foundation called “Brooks at UCSB” which is hosted by UC Santa Barbara’s Professional and Continuing Education department.