I usually save all of my First Thursday previews until right before that evening so that things are fresh in your heads as you hit the street for the night. However, this month there is a specific, one-time-only event that is so awesome that I wanted to make sure to give it its own post. “Pianos on State” will place pianos up and down State Street for the weekend to coincide with the New Noise Music Festival. The pianos have been donated, painted by local artists, and will be out in public for some scheduled and hopefully many impromptu performances. Many of the major arts organizations in town collaborated on this, and I can’t wait to see what kinds of performances will ensue.  You can find more details below.

If you are going to be part of the Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative Art Crawl (led by yours truly), this will be a major stop along our route.

I’ll see you out there.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

“Music to your ears” Anyone can play and all are encouraged to listen!

Pianos on State is a collaborative musical experiment coinciding with the 2010 New Noise Music Festival and Conference. Pianos will be placed at various locations up and down State St. from November 4-7th. Amateur and professional musicians alike will be scheduled to perform and during open times anyone is welcome to sit down and play. Pianos on State will be an event not soon forgotten. In addition to entertaining all who walk the streets, the event will raise awareness for the 2nd Annual Instrument Drive 4 Youth taking place on December 31, 2010 that collects new and used music instruments and equipment for disbursement through the school district and other not-for profit organizations like Notes for Notes-a non-profit dedicated to providing youth with free access to music instruments, equipment and recording studio environments so that music may have a profoundly positive influence in their lives. Pianos on State is made possible by the collaborative efforts of the Santa Barbara Bowl, Ed Outreach at the Granada Theater, Notes for Notes, New Noise, The Santa Barbara Education Foundation and Santa Barbara Arts Commission.

http://notesfornotes.org
http://newnoisesb.com
http://sbbowl.com
http://granadasb.org/education.html
http://sbartscommission.org

For those interested in joining the Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative Art Crawl, we’re going to meet at Coffee Cat at 5pm (SHARP!) on the evening of November 4th. From there we’ll head to the Channing Peak Gallery, The Faulker Gallery, Sullivan Goss, and then down State Street. We’ll be going through the galleries in La Arcada,  then to Fuzion, and we’ll make a few other stops before heading to the Contemporary Arts Forum.  We’ll be visiting a wide variety of venues which should demonstrate richness and depth of our artistic community.

We’ve got a big group of people, and I’m very excited about the event. Thanks to curator-at-large Andi Garcia, we have gotten Coffee Cat and Northstar Coffee to provide special freebies for our group. And the good people at Blush have offered to reserve part of their beautiful outdoor patio area for us, which will serve as our final destination. Blush serves food and drinks, but is open to all ages, so it is a perfect venue for us to rest our weary feet and talk about what we saw on the crawl.

Below you can find a basic itinerary for those who can’t join us right at 5pm, but want to catch up with us later.

Don’t forget to RSVP: nathan@sbartsblog.com

Click on the image for a larger version of the map.

There are a couple of great art events happening tonight. Besides the opening show at Art From Scrap I posted earlier today, there is also this great panel discussion happening at the Contemporary Arts Forum.

Friday, October 22, 6 pm smART Salon: In conversation with Daniel Dove, Peter Rostovsky, Charlotta Westergren, and Paul Winstanley, moderated by Colin Gardner In May 2010, New York Times art critic Roberta Smith re-affirmed, “Few modern myths about art have been as persistent or as annoying as the so-called death of painting.” This fall, Santa Barbara embraces the medium of painting, featuring four prominent painters in exhibition venues around town. Join Dove, Rostovsky, Westergren, and Winstanley, with moderator Colin Gardner to discuss painting in the 21st century. FREE CAF presents this discussion in collaboration with the Atkinson Gallery, SBCC, and the Departments of Art at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (SLO). Exhibition Opening: Saturday, October 23, 7 – 9 pm FREE Exhibitions On View: October 24 – December 19 Peter Rostovsky and Paul Winstanley: Parallax A groundbreaking exhibition featuring painters Peter Rostovsky and Paul Winstanley, which offers a visual conversation between an established and a mid-career artist. Winstanley explores how a photograph conciliates our experience of vision and how the painted world can transcend photography’s supposed neutrality, while Rostovsky photographs the world around him and collects images from the Internet as material for his exactingly rendered, atmospheric paintings. Special thanks to: Casa Magazine, Santa Barbara, CA; Carolyn Glasoe and Chris Bailey, Ojai, CA; Candyce Eoff, Santa Barbara, CA; Jacquelyn Klein-Brown, Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Barbara Independent; Santa Barbara News-Press; Sara Meltzer, New York, NY; Wayne McCall & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA; Eileen and Alex Rasmussen, Santa Barbara, CA; Nancy and Tony Wall, Santa Barbara, CA; Tim Walsh and Mike Healey, Santa Barbara, CA; 1301PE, Los Angeles, CA; and all the generous lenders. Details L to R: Peter Rostovsky, Curtain, 2010, Oil on linen, 72 x 48 in.; Paul Winstanley, Veil 15, 2005, Oil on linen, 59.8 x 65 in.

Looking for something fun to do on this Friday night? Go check out this show at Art from Scrap featuring some of Santa Barbara’s greatest assemblage artists.

Muse- noun: a source of inspiration; especially: a guiding genius. On Friday, October 22, from 5:00-7:00 pm, the new exhibition Retro Muse opens at the AFS Gallery. Retro Muse features the work of well known assemblage artists Susan Tibbles, Tony Askew, Dug Uyesaka, Ron Robertson, and Alver; all of whom have been selected as the “Assemblage Muse” at the Art From Scrap Annual Assemblage Art Show. We guarantee that these assemblage geniuses will a-muse, move, and inspire you.

David Starkey, host of the Santa Barbara Channel’s Creative Community and Santa Barbara’s Poet Laureate, sent me a link to a video from one of his new projects, “Poems for Santa Barbara”.  This blog focuses almost entirely on visual art, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to bring attention to some of the other great artistic output to be found in town.

Responding to challenges from local people, Starkey made a series of poems that highlight much of what makes Santa Barbara unique and special. The video takes you to a wide variety of Santa Barbara locales as Starkey reads the poems that resulted from his challenge. Enjoy.

Poems for Santa Barbara (HD) from The Santa Barbara Channels on Vimeo.