ART TALK with MINGA OPAZO: Siempre Más / Always More

JOIN US AS WE HOST THIS CREATIVE ART TALK!

Join us for this unique opportunity to listen to Minga Opazo discuss her work with Curator Yessica Torres.  Together, they will present Minga’s current solo exhibition at the AFSB Gallery as well as past collaborations, and offer a peek at new, joint projects. Friday, October 2, 2020, at 5:00 PM.

Join us on Zoom!

Minga Opazo is a fourth-generation textile crafter.  She examines the relationship between climate change, contemporary textile production, and Chilean textile history through weavings, sculpture, and installations to expose the unsustainable and dehumanizing practices of the international textile industry. Born and raised in Chile, she arrived in California at the age of sixteen. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a major in Art Practice, she moved to LA and had solo exhibitions at DAB Art Gallery and the Carnegie Museum of Art (Oxnard, CA). She was awarded Artist Residencies at the Banff Art Center (Canada), ACRE (Wisconsin), and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (Maine). She recently earned her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.

Yessíca Torres co-opened H Gallery + Studios in Ventura, CA in 2013 where she presented a progressive, contemporary program. In 2014, with the realization that art exposure need not be limited by physical location, Yessíca independently established the Dab Art Company.  Dab Art embraces the unceasing evolution of contemporary art by featuring experimental artists, highlighting innovative techniques and utilizing technological advances.

Dab Art’s long-standing partnership with the online art sales platform ARTSY has proved to be an invaluable resource, garnering views into the tens of thousands. With buyers from 130+ countries, 2.2 million+ visitors each month, and an average transaction distance of more than 3,000 miles, ARTSY provides the connections needed to grow the collector base.  ARTSY also partners with Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, and Simon Lee galleries.

Minga Opazo - Headshot
Artist: Minga Opazo
Yessica Torres - Headshot
Curator: Yessíca Torres

Siempre Más / Always More – Finally Back!

Minga Opazo’s Provocative Take on Textiles Today

September 19 – October 31, 2020
Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery

Untitled, recycle clothing weave, 22”x29”, 2020

Siempre más, recycled clothing, 30”x4”, 2019

Mejor que sobre que falte, recycled clothing, 10”x18”, 2020

After postponing Minga Opazo’s exhibition, Siempre Más / Always More, in July due to COVID-19 , we are now thrilled to announce that this vibrant exhibition of colorful, textile works will finally open on September 19 through October 31. Visitors are invited to view the exhibition on Saturdays, 1:00 to 4:00 pm and by appointment. The artist will be present on September 19 & October 24. (Self-screening, masks, and social distancing are required.) A live, online Conversation with Minga Opazo and Yessica Torres of Dab Art Gallery (LA) will take place on Friday, October 2 at 5:00 pm. *details to be announced*

In Siempre Más / Always More, Opazo explores the relationship of textiles to climate change, contemporary industrial textile production, and Chilean textile history. A fourth-generation craftsperson from Chile, Opazo exposes the unsustainable and dehumanizing practices of international textile production through large-scale weavings and installations made of found and recycled textiles.

For centuries, textiles for clothing in Chile were created by human hands using natural materials. These craft traditions shaped Chilean culture, providing work, artistic expression, and a sense of identity to local communities. With the invention of polyester, Lycra, and nylon, and the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet (from 1973 to 1990), Chile’s doors opened to the free market; mass-produced garments flooded in. Natural dyes and hand looms were replaced by artificial dyes, machines, and dehumanizing assembly lines. Opazo’s series, Mejor Que Sobre Que Falte (Better Too Much Than Too Little), refers to the resulting glut of discarded, chemically infused garments, which cannot be absorbed back into the natural world and are now being buried under Chilean soil.

Siempre Más / Always More includes wall sculptures, installations, and a new, site-specific weaving outdoors on the 2nd story porch railing of the Architectural Foundation, facing Victoria Street. This temporary installation highlights the fact that while the colors of used clothing will fade, the clothing will never completely disintegrate. Opazo comments, “We live in an era of excess, we consume and throw away. We don’t see the massive amount of overproduction in our everyday life, it’s invisible to us, tucked away.”

Minga Opazo received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (2020) and her BA from University of California Berkeley (2015). She maintains a weaving studio in Ventura and another in Joshua Tree for large scale installations. She was Artist-in-Residence at the Banff Art Center (Canada), the Acre Residency (Wisconsin) and the Haystack Mountain School (Maine), had solo shows at Dab Art Gallery (LA), the CAM Studio Gallery (Oxnard), and large public installations at the HUD Gallery and the Museum of Ventura County.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara has been enhancing our community’s appreciation of the built environment since 1983. 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 weekdays by appointment.

Siempre Más / Always More-Postponed

Due to Santa Barbara County’s COVID-19 regulations pertaining to museums, galleries and zoos, the anticipated opening on July 25th of Siempre Más / Always More, an exhibition of textile works by Minga Opazo at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara, is postponed. 

 

Our goal is to welcome visitors in mid-August to view these provocative artworks by Opazo, a fourth-generation craftsperson from Chile who explores the problem of excess clothing made from synthetic fabrics that cannot be absorbed back into the natural world. 

 

Please stay tuned for the new date of Opazo’s Opening,  The exhibition will feature colorful wall sculptures and installations, plus a site-specific weaving on the 2nd story porch railing of the Architectural Foundation, facing Victoria Street!

 

In anticipation of Opazo’s coming show, she will be a guest on Elizabeth Stewart’s Arts Radio Shows from KZSB AM 1290 Santa Barbara broadcasted each Friday at 10 a.m and archived to her website https://elizabethappraisals.com/category/radioshow/for repeated listening.  

 

Minga Opazo received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (2020) and her BA from University of California Berkeley (2015). She maintains a weaving studio in Ventura and another in Joshua Tree for large scale installations. She was Artist-in-Residence at the Banff Art Center (Canada), the Acre Residency (Wisconsin) and the Haystack Mountain School (Maine), had solo shows at Dab Art Gallery (LA), the CAM Studio Gallery (Oxnard), and large public installations at the HUD Gallery and the Museum of Ventura County.

LAST CALL: Meandering the Edges, an installation by Nathan Huff

Please join us on two Saturdays for Meandering the Edges, an installation by Nathan Huff!

June 20 and June 27, from 1- 4 PM.

We will welcome drop-in visitors. Social distancing and face masks will be required. 

Only one person (or family) will be allowed inside the Gallery at one time.  

Nathan Huff will be on hand to answer questions. 

We are so happy to finally share Nathan’s work! 

At the Edge of Empire: The Ancient Roman Temple Complex at Baalbek, Lebanon

JOIN US AS WE WELCOME BACK DR. ALLAN LANGDALE!

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is thrilled to welcome back art historian, Allan Langdale for a talk called “At the Edge of Empire: The Ancient Roman Temple Complex at Baalbek, Lebanon.” This talk will be held via Zoom on Thursday, May 28, from 7:00 – 8:00 PM. Click  the flyer to be directed to the meeting room. All are welcome.

In the first century CE, in a city then known as Heliopolis, ‘City of the Sun’, a vast religious complex was constructed. A monumental statement of Roman power at the eastern edges of the Empire, the temple complex at Baalbek is the greatest architectural assertion of Roman might ever undertake.

Consisting of two enormous temples, the Temple of Jupiter and the Temple of Bacchus, the site became the center of a cult of Greco-Roman gods at the very moment those same deities were being challenged by the emergence of new religions such as Mithraism and Christianity. Join Allan Langdale and the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara for a lecture on this amazing site and its impressive two-thousand-year-old structures.

Allan Langdale has given several annual lectures for the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara. He has his PhD in art history from UCSB and currently teaches at UC Santa Cruz. He also works in the tourism industry for Smithsonian Journeys and Zegrahm Expeditions, doing about a dozen trips a year. Allan is the author of several articles and books, including Palermo: Travels in the City of Happiness (2014) and The Hippodrome of Istanbul / Constantinople (2020). His travel blog can be found at ‘Allan’s Art and Architecture Worlds’: https://allansartworlds.sites.ucsc.edu/

KDA – Sketch at Home!

New adaptation of our Sketch Sessions. We hope you join us.

Send us your drawings if you'd like them to be considered for our 2021 calendar. Tag us on Facebook. Email them to info@nullafsb.org. Mail or drop them off at our office 229 E. Victoria Street.

Deadline: Tuesday, June 2

More information is in KDA’s page in the Education tab. 

ANNOUNCEMENT: Walking Tours Canceled Until Further Notice

Along with postponing all upcoming community events this past weekend until further notice, AFSB is complying with local policies to limit group activities, and has canceled our weekend architectural walking tours until further notice. 

ANNOUNCEMENT: Opening Gallery Reception & Kids Draw Architecture Cancellation

The AFSB will be postponing all upcoming community events to best support efforts across the country and the city of Santa Barbara to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and to ensure the health and safety of our community, visitors, and staff.

The Foundation will remain open Tuesday through Friday from 9 am to 1 pm and on Saturday afternoons from 1 to 4 pm when fewer visitors will be present and social distancing can be more easily maintained.

  • AFSB will not hold an Opening Reception tonight for Meandering the Edges, a most unusual installation by Nathan Huff.
  • The KDA sketch sessions scheduled at SBMNH and Montecito Union School this year will also be cancelled. 

We will continue to refer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, and other public health agencies to determine the safest course of action

Meandering the Edges by Nathan Huff

Exhibition Dates: March 13 – May 6, 2020
Opening Reception with the Artist: Friday, March 13, 5-7 pm
Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara Gallery

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the opening of Meandering the Edges, an installation of works on paper and sculpture by Nathan Huff. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Friday, March 13, from 5 to 7 pm. All are welcome.

Meandering the Edges examines ways in which we inhabit homes and move through domestic spaces based on memory and emotion. Installed in unconventional ways on the walls, floor, and corners of the AFSB’s meeting space/gallery, Huff’s paintings on paper of furniture, wood floors, tables, and shovels are meant to draw attention to the space itself as an important part of the narrative. The Architectural Foundation is housed in a historic Victorian Italianate style home designed and built in 1904 by James J. Acheson. The Acheson House was a residence prior to hosting the offices of several non-profit organizations including the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Chapter of the AIA, and the Junior League of Santa Barbara.

This unique exhibition encourages viewers to muse and meander their way through an ordinary environment transformed by art, inviting them to imagine scenarios and summon lost memories as they go. Huff comments, “As someone fascinated by the stories that reside in our memories and are imbedded in the built environment, I believe that the designed aesthetic of architectural space has a powerful impact on our home life and community structures.” His poetic, provocative images and sculpture are rarely straightforward.  Viewers will experience a range of surrealistic styles and installation techniques that slide between the almost comprehensible to the absurd. 

“I hope that this imagined excavation of home invites viewers towards attentive looking at built environments in new ways, charging them with a range of narrative potential and drawing out latent emotion.”

Huff earned an MFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University Long Beach, a BA in art education from Azusa Pacific University, and has also studied art in Italy, France, the UK, and Spain. Huff’s installations have been featured in solo exhibitions at Sullivan Goss Gallery (Santa Barbara), UCR Culver Museum and Sweeney Galleries (Riverside), Los Angeles at D.E.N. Contemporary (West Hollywood), Minthorne Gallery, (Oregon), Gallerie View (Salambo, Tunisa), group exhibitions at JK Gallery (Culver City), Lotus Land (Santa Barbara), and the Westmont Ridley Tree Museum of Art (Santa Barbara.)  Nathan has taught art at CSU Long Beach, LA Southwest College, Biola University, and Azusa Pacific University as an adjunct lecturer. Currently, he is an associate professor of art at Westmont College in Santa Barbara.