For those of you who didn’t get to see the wonderful street art show at Fuzion during the last 1st Thursday, you have another great opportunity coming up this Saturday. Fuzion will be throwing a closing reception for the show starting and 7pm. Many of the artists will be coming up from LA to attend the event. So this is an opportunity to meet some really talented graffiti artists and possibly score some of their work. This is a 21 and over party with free adult beverages for those who RSVP. To do so, you can visit the Facebook event page.

It’s time for our next do-not-miss art show coming up this 1st Thursday.  This exhibit will be showcasing the kind of urban, street, and underground art that you usually have to drive down to LA to see. The good people at Fuzion are doing a really amazing job of bringing in high quality shows from down south. With help from MOCA’s blockbuster show “Art in the Streets“, this kind of art is starting to gain some much deserved public recognition (I hope).  ”Lords VS. Cobras”  is curated by the artist Anger. The last time he brought a show into Fuzion I walked away with a couple of new piece to add to my collection, so needless to say I’m incredibly excited.

This show isn’t on the official Downtown Organization map for 1st Thursday, so make a special note to remember to stop by Fuzion while you wander from gallery to gallery.

I’ve been hoping for it for a couple of months now, but I think finally we’re going to get some nice warm weather for 1st Thursday this week. We’re going to mix it up a bit this month by stopping at a few places that will be totally new to the Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative‘s Art Crawl. I hope you can join me for the night. It should be a blast. All you have to do to join the Art Crawl is show up at 900 State Street in the Walkabout Woods Installation at 5:30 this Thursday. Look for the Art Crawl sign.

Click on the image below to see a larger version of this month’s map.

A Rough Itinerary for the Evening

Here are a few of the things I’m most excited about.

WALKABOUT WOODS
900 State Street
Walkabout Woods is a highly collaborative, interactive art installation made by Fishbon, a local arts collaborative. The project, in its entirety, will resemble a vast abstract enchanted forest and is destined for Burning Man 2011. Come enjoy a small portion of the forest on the patio.

SOJOURNER CAFE
134 East Canon Perdido Street
(805) 965-7922
Kat Devlin won’t be the only draw for this event, the ever popular painter, Chris Potter is teaming up with our long time favorite Kevin Gleason (ask Kevin about our mural), along with a special wine tasting with David from Southern Wine & Spirits. The best place to close out your 1st Thursday evening, open until 11pm.

THE GRANADA THEATRE
1214 State Street
(805) 899-3000
Zombies and Buddhas art exhibition by Jill Littlewood in the McCune Founders Room. “My sons, and their friends, often talk about zombies and surviving zombie attacks. I’ve never heard girls bring this subject up. I began wondering what zombies mean to young men, so I played with the imagery. As I was painting – using colored paper pulp – every once in a while a buddha would appear and give me some relief from the anger and turmoil of zombie faces.” Enjoy Modern Jazz, Latin and Pop from Cut Time, presented by theSanta Barbara Youth Music Academy.

FUZION
1115 State St.
(805) 687-6401
Downstairs at Fuzion Gallery we are hosting Jamie Dufek’s art reception from 7PM-10PM with the show hanging through the month of May, Free drinks for 21+and Guest DJ Chadillac will be playing all night too!

There are loads of great events and exhibits to check out tonight whilst out and about for Santa Barbara’s First Thursday. Here are some recommendations for places you shouldn’t miss.

AG2 GALLERY @ THE FRENCH PRESS
1101 State Street
(805) 963-9800
Etch ‘N Sketch: Art Show and Art Swap. A back to the not so basics of drawing and rendering show featuring Peter Mengert and Roberto Morales, with highlighted local artist Holly McCay. Select art pieces will be on display from local high school students. Bring a black book or sketch pad to swap sketches with your fellow artists. Percentage of sales goes to youth art fund. Music and refreshments will be available.

SANTA BARBARA CONTEMPORARY ARTS FORUM
653 Paseo Nuevo, 2nd Floor
(805) 966-5373
Forum Lounge: Privacy is Dead Because We Said So. Artist James Gilbert will set up a temporary sewing shop and sew several hundred real size pairs of clear, industrial plastic see-through underpants, which will accumulate in huge sculptural piles. This project addresses ideas of privacy, anonymity and identity in relationship to the huge amounts of personal information posted daily on Facebook, youtube, Google and other mass media.

Elizabeth Gordon Gallery
15 West Gutierrez
(805) 963-1157

Viva Design in collaboration with Inga Guzyte present: Love to Read. The exhibit is an installation with the paper-cup characters in the window of the Elizabeth Gordon Art Gallery. We created Alphabet city, a New York (well sort of) right here in Santa Barbara.  The official opening for the exhibit will be Thursday, 9-9, 5-8pm. I hope all locals will sip a wine with us and celebrate the new Viva Design adventure.

UPDATE: This just in from FUZION! This is a big deal folks.

We are hosting a pop up art show by David P. Flores @ Fuzion Gallery 1115 State St.

The reception will be this Thursday the 2nd of September.
The show will hang for one week only so don’t miss this chance to see some of David’s art in person, trust us you will be impressed!!!
http://www.davidfloresart.com/

Reception starts 7PM and can be expected to close around 11PM

This event lies on a First Thursday so SB’s art crowd will be out in plenty!

If you come dressed to impress then the drinks and food are on us!

For the vast majority of locals, Fiesta is a time to do whatever it takes to avoid State Street. Tonight’s First Thursday is, hopefully, an exception to that rule. This month, Fuzion will be hosting a special event for the evening. Fuzion sells all kinds of urbanware on their main floor, but down stairs there is a secret kingdom-sized space where they show great urban and street art. I’m excited to see them getting on the First Thursday bandwagon and can’t wait to see what they’ve got on the walls. Between Fuzion and the new AG2 Gallery, the block between Anapamu and Figueroa on State Street has become the new hot spot for urban, street, underground, and pop surrealist art. I’ll see you there…

You can find more details on tonight’s event on Facebook.